[digital literacy: what is it and do we really need it?]

I'm reading "Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?" and while I'm scrolling through the article I'm googling some of the researchers mentioned (Rand J. Spiro, Elizabeth Birr Moje and Linda A. Jackson) and looking up some of the reports and studies. I'm also skimming through Research in Research Quarterly and Journal of Research in Reading (and complaining to myself loudly because of the 12 month embargo) and examining brain scan images. Obviously I'm reading and obviously I'm doing it in a manner different from print. But is it better? Better than what exactly? I think this is where my difficulty lies. It seems, as with the NYT article, that this is a vs matter. Print vs digital. Reading vs surfing. Literacy vs adequacy. But it isn't a simple vs issue is it? The video included in the NYT article shows a white affluent family. Each family member enjoys reading but the mum says reading for her is *quiet* and requires a comfy chair: "I can't curl up with my computer." But is this part of a quantitative assessment of online reading? Is it a feature of literacy per se? I wouldn't disagree with anyone that reading online and reading in print are different. But can we generalise and say that all reading online is different from all reading in print? Can we compare Manga online to its offline sibling? I think we could even find suitable comparisons between some early more text-based hypertext stories and print novels. Maybe instead of citing the differences we should be looking at the similarities as that might form part of the base of new literacies education and assessment. Ken Pugh says that reading in print encourages a more reflective stance, allowing time for rumination. Well, would that not only hold if students/readers are encouraged to do so. I know I've skipped to the good bits in books before {of course this is firmly in my past :)}. Do we reflect on what we read *only* when we read in print? Reading online is not always just about the "short bits" that Pugh refers to. Take a look at the project "Evaluating The Development of Scientific Knowledge and New Forms of Reading Comprehension During Online Learning" run by Dr. Donald J. Leu and Dr. Douglas Hartman. Their main research questions addressed the effects that "varying levels of intensity of Internet integration into seventh grade classroom science instruction." Their general findings suggest that:

"Internet integration generates greater online reading comprehension ability. Our results suggest it is better to have no integration or high-intensity integration of the Internet for developing concept knowledge, but not low or moderate intensity integration. Our study also provides preliminary data that suggests online and traditional reading achievement tests are not correlated."

• internet integration in a seventh grade science classroom resulted in higher achievement levels in online reading comprehension. This was true for both the ORCA-IM and ORCA-Blog; two assessment instruments with good psychometric properties. Each assessment required students to locate, evaluate, synthesize and communicate information on the Internet.
• Conceptual knowledge development in science was greater among students in the high-intensity Internet integration group and the control group.
• Consistent with new literacy predictions, we found no association between either of the measures of traditional reading comprehension (January and June DRP)and the measure of online reading comprehension (ORCA-Blog). No evidence of gains on a test of traditional reading comprehension following treatment.

Of course there are different kinds of reading too. Sometimes we read for information (and then maybe on the 'net we have quicker access to more resources) and sometimes maybe we're reading for the whole tactile and sensory experience and then we want our comfy chairs and crisp pages. But as educators, parents and leaders we need not only to address the different reasons our students/children etc... might read but also how. As Gay Ivey, a professor at James Madison University says “I think they need it all.”