Fluency Takes Time

I enjoyed reading New Standards for Online Thinking, but it scripts a tall order for what a successful online reader-and teachers of those students-should do.  I agree with many of the points Coiro makes about developing flexible mindsets, problem-solving skills, sustained focus, etc. but I couldn’t help to think of many of the adult education students and how far removed their academia is from something like the self-regulated reading cycle described in disjuncture #3. Digital literacy will certainly play a large role in their future success but speaking as a realist, which hyperlink to click or ignore is the last of their concerns when the basics of reading and writing are at the forefront (e.g. Precious). I believe each student is completely capable of achieving all that is mentioned, it’s just getting them to hang in there long enough-along with the teachers-to develop deeper understandings of how to navigate the complexities of the online world will take time.

A take-away from the article which has morphed into my generative term for the week is fluency.  This idea about how many words are read and how many are skipped depending on the medium is interesting and something I do all the time…perhaps take for granted!  Until this reading I hadn’t thought much about how I honed skills to ignore the extraneous and became savvy enough to know what shouldn’t be clicked.

I also found Marwick and Boyd’s imagined audience intriguing.  Historically, I shy away from sharing myself on social media platforms (LinkedIn in the exception) but when I considered why I’ve done this I realized it is because of my imagined audience! Consequently, this concern with my digital identity has actually hindered my fluency with handling and navigating popular social media sites.  I guess I’m still testing how safe I consider  digital spaces to be, and a large part of that is the audience I’ve imagined...but likely isn’t!