How do we help learners as we all become immersed in a new information age? The answer may be neither to embrace the new information changes as unquestioned human advances nor to reject them as ephemeral and misguided. Instead, we need a way to engage critically with them—to understand the promises as well as the perils. Doing so would mean applying what Walter Kaufman (1977) calls “dialectical reading” to the evolving new media culture. This means that as we attempt to understand and engage with the changes before us, we neither embrace nor reject them, but rather enter into a kind of dialogue with them, asking what they mean and what they could be, and how our interactions with them can lead to useful reflection on who we are.

Keq questions include:

1. How have literacy practices changed over time and responded to new technologies? What is the future of literacy?
2. What media are emerging in our literacy practices? How do technological, linguistic, political, and economic forces shape literacy practices today?
3. How is meaning constructed in both personal and social terms?
4. How are ethical and policy issues shaped by the changes in literacy?
5. How can we understand and facilitate learning through new technologies?
6. What role do the new literacies play in creating and maintaining community?