Is it a bad thing that the first image that came to mind when I began this reading about literacy and network literacy was the Star Wars library and the scene where Obi Wan Kenobi is looking for the Kamino system? Course not, Star Wars is awesome! Sorry, distracted straight from the get go. I don’t know why RMIT has been holding back on these readings until second semester?! The readings in semester one made me want to drop out, these readings however are somewhat engaging and interesting. I think this is due to the fact that many of them are written in a more informal sense due to the nature of our blog writing, making them, well, a bit more fun, for lack of a better word. Anyway, lets get into it.
The reading essentially looks at basic learning skills, for example borrowing a book from the library and referencing it somewhere else and taking this into the online world of the internet to engaging in network literacy. Network literacy can essentially be defined as a understanding of the internet, equal to that of print and the ability to use share and obtain information and be able to categorise and weave it together. That might sound a bit scary but it really isn’t as bad as it seems. Much of this is done subconsciously, especially for those of us lucky enough to be born in this technological era. I’m doing it write now! I’m linking and weaving information, sites, references and probably many other things together to make one place where many bits of info can be obtained. Sure I don’t have an intricate understanding of what goes on in the coded hacky matrix like world of the internet but it doesn’t matter. As long as I have a basic understanding of how I can collate, display and have programs work together, we are sweet!
Now while I don’t have to plug into the matrix, access the construct and find a telephone there are a few things that I can put my Neo-like skills to. This blog, as the article suggest can become a basic work or school day. Projects with classmates, and social things that I want to do can all be found here and in nice neat categories. A simple day on a blog can just be like borrowing that same book from the library. Communication between different services like flickr, instagram, Facebook etc is what makes blogging so easy, and that is what the article is trying to get across. Blogging may very well be the way of the future, and this doesn’t mean throw out all your favourite books but the convenience and easy access is what makes it such a pleasure to use.
And I put the link down below, how nice was that. (let RMIT deal with that copyright crap)
Flash