Page 153 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

These circles generate new forms of engaging in writing individually or as part of a team, which amount to an excellent exercise in thinking about and practising different levels of present- ing statements and arguments:
• When we communicate through email messages, notes or comments on the social media.
• When we post opinions in forums, blogs or communities of readers.
• When we create fanfics – fiction based on the plot and characters of a pre-existing novel that is known by the authors.
• When we work on wikis – collaborative texts written in conjunction with others.
• When we build a mashup – hybrid, remixed texts written from several sources.
But although it is true that every day we use various forms of digital reading and writing in our lives, switching from these colloquial registers that belong to our private world to other more elab- orate, academic and professional realms requires training. As Víctor Moreno states, “writing is a terrific method of recording with all five senses, like a detective, what occurs in reality, in my reality [...]. In other words: writing is such an exciting task that we cannot leave it to improvisation”.148
As we mentioned in other chapters, there is a palpable need to establish coherent and contin- ued multimodal and digital literacy programmes geared to all citizens – children, teenagers, adults and elderly people. And it is necessary to stress in this connection that, for one thing, we should not take for granted that so-called digital natives have the knowledge needed to get the most
out of reading and writing in the digital environ- ment; and that, for another, this does not apply solely to age groups still in their formative years. Instead, it should be realised that digital learning is key to lifelong education and learning.
As Emilia Ferreiro rightly states:
We need children and young people who are able to express themselves convincingly in writing (it is so much easier now with the Internet!); who do not communicate simply because it is necessary to be in permanent communication but because they have something to say; the content of the message should count for at least as much as the form. Because the new generations should be particularly creative.149
It can be stated without a doubt that the digital context, as the lecturer Ferreiro exclaims, facili- tates and intensifies writing practices as well as conditioning and modifying them. Thanks to the Internet, it is much easier to come into contact with varied texts today, as very different types with which to experiment are accessible as well as very diverse registers to learn about, compare and practice.
As the chapters on promoting reading and writ- ing also emphasise, today’s hybrid society, where print and digital culture are interlinked, offers huge opportunities for practicing these skills, which range from creative to scientific. New forms of writing that complement traditional practices are emerging from the convergence
of codes, media and channels; in multimodal and transmedia writing the text, the image, the sound and the voice establish a dialogue with and complement each other.
And this combination of print and digital is giv- ing rise to new discourses of great educational value:150
• Hypertext offers the possibility of linking some terms with others, structures the text in a non-traditional manner, establishing new ways of organising the discourse, and fosters the coexistence of two types of writing, sequential and fragmentary.
• The parallel existence of various channels and formats in which writing circulates is
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Readers in the digital age