ABSTRACT
Questions about the implications of the new technologies for literacy, literacy teaching and literacy practices provoke diverse and contradictory responses in the media, in policy documents, in state and national literacy assessment surveys and amongst teachers. On the one hand, the need for literacy to be reconceptualised and redefined in the face of rapid change seems overwhelming – more a matter of recognition and retrospective adjustment to reflect already established practice and ongoing change. On the other, definitions of literacy, particularly as they are enacted in curriculum and assessment policies and in schools, for the most part remain largely print-based. Fears attached to the redefinition of literacy to include visual and digital forms suggest such expansion will lead to the embrace of anything digital at the cost of critical thinking and of values associated with print literature and literacy.
