Transliteracy

I'm confused about the digital divide. I'm not sure if I'm thinking way too much about this and the answer is so simple, or if I just don't know. I feel that way a lot lately. Anyway, I'm learning that transliteracy is being literate in different subjects and digital media and being able to combine them all to be able to communicate with others and get your ideas and points across clearly. That is what I've learned about transliteracy so far that I can understand. I read the article about implementing transliteracy into libraries and the discussions about the different librarians and what they think of the subject. It was interesting to note that a lot of the librarians didn't know what the definition of transliteracy was or had never even heard the term before, but they could make a pretty accurate guess at it. I agree with this article that transliteracy should be used by librarians to help people in the library get the most out of the resources available there, especially the computer and whatever they need to access on there.

So... I'm guessing that the digital divide is the space between the digital world and the written one, the one most of us grew up with in elementary and grade school where most of what we learned was concrete and written in stone... or wait printed on paper... same thing kind of. So transcending this divide would mean, to me, coming to some middle ground, to be able to use both aspects of learning together to get the most out of learning and communicating.

Some of my favorite and longest lasting media & tools I use for transliteracy are, the internet, word programs, adobe programs, youtube, facebook, and now even twitter. The internet is obviously my biggest resource, I use google to "google" (search) for every and any question I have during the day or night. I have a lot of questions. Google is an engine that helps me specify my question and even sort of create my own answer, because there are so many different results for every search. Critically picking and choosing what information seems to fit into my world and in the context of my question is important for me, or anyone, in learning and understanding.

The most important platforms I use to communicate with people right now are Facebook, this blog, and twitter. I've been on Facebook for years now and it is an easy and user friendly way to connect with people because you can find your friends and just say hi, or you can join groups of interest and discuss commonalities among other people in the group, while also bringing up new ideas as well, just like in the CMC facebook group. The other platforms I use are this blog, sort of as a space for reflection and open discussion to the new things I'm learning each week. I feel that writing at the end of each weeks helps me put into perspective the information I've gone over and it helps even more when people give me different feedback or experiences on their weeks as well.

Lastly, I just started using twitter, I really haven't used it much. I feel like it's an easy way to share quick links, photos, or whatever else, with whoever you want by tagging it. I'm trying to get better about exploring this multicultural communication concept and find different ways to explain / learn about it myself. Youtube is an awesome website because it's visual and it helps me to look at a lot of reading, or text, in a different way. Although I think twitter is convenient, aside from this class, it's not something I'm really interested in learning... but maybe that's because I haven't really connected with people on it yet? We'll see.