Technology and Literacy Education in the Next Century: Exploring the Connection Between Work and Schooling

For over 10 generations in America, a traditional concept of literacy as the ability to read and write print on a page has dominated schooling and adequately served the literacy demands of the society and of the workplace (Venezky, Wagner, & Ciliberti, 1991). In this not-so-distant past, during industrial and print-based economic eras, students learned functional uses of literacy and a body of knowledge that directly applied to workplace positions and stable workplace affiliations that they were likely to experience throughout their lives (Papert, 1993). However, in the emerging digital economic era, spurred by the recent proliferation of