Network Literacy

The reading for network literacy is written by Adrian himself explaining how network literacy works and how it differs from print literacy and the ‘normal’ understanding of literacy.

It started off with an example of a student, Penny, who is looking a book. She went to the library, search for the title and author, consult a librarian who in turn gave her a section on where to locate it then she went and borrow three books. At home she open the book and use quotes from the book, making sure to note which page the quote come from. This whole process is considered to be a print literacy but not the usual literacy of reading and writing but a more participatory literacy. It is a deeper understanding of what it means to be a peer/participant and with this whole notion of literacy we could use it to begin to understand the concept of ‘network literacy’.

Network literacy does not hold the same meaning as computer literate, it is not just the understanding on how to use the computer rather it is more towards the action of participating in the internet and have a good knowledge on networks and how it function as we understand hard-copy materials like prints. However it doesn’t mean that you need to understand the whole programming idea, it’s more to understand the function of network since it will help you to use it.  In the internet, there exist a wide range of information which we contributed in as well as taking it for ourselves. To be a good network user, we have to contribute as much as we consume.

One crucial aspect of being network literate is to pay attention to websites that are able to communicate with each other such as Flickr, WordPress, etc. How do we do that? Well there are two ways, XML which is a way to standardize publication so people can share it, while RSS is a system  based on XML that allow the exchange information to happen.

XML & RSS

(Created by Callista)

However here comes the confusing part being network literate is not the same with able to use the internet and how to click a button to go to somewhere else. Network literate is those people who are able to create pages of html and php pages and make it as simple as clicking  a button to connects us to other page. So here I am thinking what is being network literate. How do we know we are network literate? So in some sense we do need to understand how to program to be network literate! So am I network literate?

So knowing all this, are we all network literate or are we just computer literate, Think about it! I myself is a bit overwhelmed and have no idea whether I’m one! And this is my reaction….

Ugh….So confusing…

 (Why don’t you like my post from Aww Club )