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Video Segment 1: Who are you?Video Segment 2: What were your parents' attitudes toward literacy and/or education?
Video Segment 3: How would your life be different if you didn't know how to read and write?
Video Segment 4: What is your experience with and attitude toward computers?
Lessons 1 & 2: Narrating Technology Use
Lesson 3: Technology Resistance
Lesson 4: Complexity of Technological Engagements
Working Definitions of Technological Literacy and Narrative Analysis
Lessons from the technological literacy experiences of Jacobs, Madraswala, Kamara, and Mays:
Lesson 3: A disinterest in technology can be related to cultural identity. Assuming that students are uninterested in technology because they are technologically illiterate undervalues whatever critical technology literacy they may possess. Some students find less use for technology than others. Digital writing teachers should be sensitive to how a lack of interest in technology literacy might relate to cultural and familial history in the lives of particular students.
Kamara’s interview is the longest of the four. Although she speaks in more detail about her family, reading, writing, and other academic pursuits, her responses to questions about computer technology are quite brief. She presents her family as disinterested in computers, an attitude she also holds. Her enthusiasm for writing and reading practices is not matched by corollary practices that employ digital technologies. Kamara is generally critical of communication technology and tells a story of general decline. She believes that technology is watering down her ability to communicate. These attitudes may be linked to those of her parents.
Even though Kamara presents herself as resistant to technology, she evidently engages in technological literacy practices such as typing on a computer keyboard. Her lack of interest in such practices does not make her illiterate; in fact, she sees certain practices as necessary even if she resents their effect on her.