Customer Reviews

Electronic Literacies: Language, Culture, and Power in Online Education

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Electronic Literacies is an insightful study of the challenges and contradictions that arise as culturally and linguistically diverse learners engage in new language and literacy practices in online environments.

The role of the Internet in changing literacy and education has been a topic of much speculation, but very little concrete research has been done in the area. This book is one of the first attempts to document the role of the Internet and other new digital technologies in the development of language and literacy. Warschauer looks at how the nature of reading and writing is changing, and how those changes are being addressed in the classroom. His focus is on the experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse learners who are at special risk of being marginalized from the information society.

Based on a 2-year ethnographic study of the uses of the Internet in language and writing classrooms, the book includes data from interviews with students and teachers, classroom observations, and analysis of students' texts. This rich ethnographic data is combined with theories from a broad range of disciplines to develop conclusions about the relationship of technology to language, literacy, education, and culture. Central to Warschauer's discussion and conclusions is how contradictions of language, culture, and class affect the impact of Internet-based education.

Clear, informative, and up to date, Electronic Literacies is highly relevant for those interested or involved in technology-based school reform; critical pedagogy; cultural studies; the social context of learning; composition and literacy education; and ESL, bilingual, and multicultural education.

I bought this book to compliment my ESL teaching books. I have read the intro and so far it sounds interesting. I am waiting to finish this semester to really get into reading it. I suggest it to all those who are in the English Teaching sector.