- In the design. Hardware and software design encourage the “democratic ideals [of] interaction, collaboration, and sharing of information” or encourage surveillance and control.
- In the distribution and access. “As information technologies merge with communications technologies, what can be done with a computer now depends on the quality of network connections… In the 21st century, computer literacy means not only being familiar and comfortable with computers, but also having access to information. Network speed therefore becomes an indicator of literacy practices, just as the possession of a quill pen once was.”
- In the use. Again, technologies can be used to expand horizons or for control and monitoring.
- In the way we interpret its effects. For instance, “[i]f you are a literature student who needs to find a Shakespeare quote quickly, you could find it easily on the Web. However, from your instructor's point of view, this easy access could be negative if the use of quotes was supposed to be an indicator of deep reading.”
He emphasizes the process through which technologies because invisible: "as [the technology] is used more widely, the actions it affords move from novelty to habit, the tool becomes commonplace. Soon it is treated as part of daily activity…Through this process, we move from looking at the technology as an addition to life to looking at life through that technology. The embedding of the technology in the matrix of our lives makes it invisible. In fact, the greater its integration into daily practices, the less it is seen as a technology at all.” More, “as a tool becomes embedded in social practices, our conception of the ability required for an individual to use that tool changes as well. In the early stages of use, disability is counted as a flaw in the tool: We say that poor design of the technology makes it difficult to use. Later, the disability becomes an attribute of the user, not the tool. We say that the user needs more training, or worse, is incapable of using the tool.”
Bruce makes a connection with Truscello (my own connection, not his explicit connection) in discussing embedded systems. He explains that, though embedded systems offers greater user-friendliness, the invisibility of the technological workings means that fewer people will be able to fix technological problem.
Bruce uses ecology primarily as an argument for studying social practices around technology. He quotes Lemke as he ties literacy to ecology:
Literacies cannot be adequately analyzed just as what individuals do. We must understand them as part of the larger
systems of practices that hold a society together…if we think the word society means only people, then we need another
term, one that, like ecosystem, includes the total environment: machines, buildings, cables, satellites, bedrock, sewers,
farms, insect life, bacteria.
Bruce writes, “An ecological model of literacy helps us to visualize the whole, and to see a range of options as part of the whole, neither dismissing nor naively accepting technology wholesale.”
Key Terms
- Literacy: “Literacy means not just reading and writing texts, but "reading" the world, and the technological artifacts within it.”
- Embedded systems: “hidden microprocessors …[that] are not obvious in these devices and their function may be invisible to the user”