ABSTRACT This research is a Qualitative Case Study which investigates the electronic literacy practices of one English teacher and two Grade 10 English classes in a Muslim High school outside of Johannesburg. This study seeks to find out what the forms of electronic literacy used in the classroom are and for what purposes these are used. It is also aimed at investigating how the students in the English classroom engage with these forms of electronic literacies and whether or not gender plays a role in their engagement. This study draws on work in New Literacy Studies, particularly theories of literacy as social practice, Multiliteracies and multimodality as well as current research in the field of electronic literacy. Although there have been numerous studies in the fields of electronic literacy and digital literacy in developed contexts like the United Kingdom and Australia, there is a paucity of research in South Africa in the field and particularly in the area of electronic literacy in the English classroom. The main sources of data were: classroom observations from which field notes were created and group interviews with the students as well as an interview with the English teacher. The findings of this study reveal that being electronically literate in the English classroom means having access to sophisticated forms of technology not only inside the classroom but also outside as well as having a certain degree of fluency around computer use. The forms of electronic literacy used by the English teacher and the purposes for which they were used demonstrate his pedagogy in English and the social forces that shape the production of this pedagogy. The research shows an expansion of the teacher’s role in the English classroom as he is no longer only ‘a mediator of learning’ but a mediator of technology. The status of the text has also changed as the ‘disappearance’ of print-based texts from the classroom was noted with the foregrounding of visual texts and hypertexts. It was found that the students on the whole were engaged with the technology used in the classroom and expressed a preference for its integration into their lessons as opposed to the traditional ‘reading and writing’ practices. Additionally, students’ engagement did not vary according to gender.

Internal+/-External Terrains is a meditation on the nature of electronic creativity, primarily from a production point of view. It seeks to arbitrate and synthesise a range of skills, attributes and ideas that might constitute the field of electronic aesthetics. It does this from the perspective of electronic artists, and the socio/economic/cultural system they increasingly serve. The aesthetics of electronic production, as looked at through the framework of electracy, serves as a model through which to locate some specific shifts in both self-making, and capitalism, in both their Post-Fordist, and globalising manifestations. Internal+/-External Terrains is a meditation on the re-conceptualisation going on in electronic meaning-making, as it is currently happening at the interfaces of the psyche, the politico-cultural domain, and in the techno-aesthetic apparatus of its production. Through the compilation of a possible program in electracy (of its various aesthetic components as used in production), along with a brief outline of the electronic artist, Internal+/-External Terrains situates both, as role-model and epicentre, of an increasingly accepted mode of abstraction: Radial-Logic©. And it is this omnidirectional form of abstraction currently lighting the cyber-cohering logic of an already arrived future.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:25:02Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2457.pdf: 2207784 bytes, checksum: 2e971437ef8a1f704926c2fe4e41bc74 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-05-08 / It seems redundant, but not inopportune that we argue about the impact of technology upon men of this time when it comes to his way of living and interact with the world. The person of this new society has distinctive necessities that emerge from the requirements created by these new conditions of producing and distributing knowledge. When new technologies of information and communication are introduced in the society they promote the development of new modalities of social practices of reading and writing, which are characteristic of ciberculture (LEVY, 1999). This way, we understand that school becomes of one the social segments that is responsible for creating for these people possibilities of accessing this new way of producing and distributing knowledge. It is essential that we think how these new technologies of information and communication influence new pedagogical practices and if teachers are prepared to deal with them. For this reason, this study is intended to investigate the proposal of a discipline of pedagogical practice in a Letras course, which aims to contribute with the foreign language teacher, in a sense of providing him with conditions to develop the necessary competence of incorporating these new technologies of information and communication in his teaching. Therefore, our objective is to observe if the student-teacher, when accessing theories about the use of new technologies of information and communication as a teaching tool, is able to transfer this knowledge to his teaching practice. For this qualitative research of ethnographic base, it was used a semi-open questionnaire aiming to obtain information about the representation the student-teacher has about the teaching of a foreign language having the computer and the internet as a tool. Besides, the reflective diaries were the instruments that allowed us to collect data intending to analyze the progress of the development of the student-teachers, and also to verify if the representations they had about the use of new technologies of information and communication were modified after they reflected during the course. Lastly, foreign language classes using the new technologies of information and communication as a tool taught by the student-teachers were filmed in order to observe if the theoretical content of the course could be seen reflected in their practice. The data show the exposition of the studentteacher to the theoretical discussions during the course was relevant for their formation and contributed significantly for their teaching practice. Though it was also possible to be realized that even having been exposed to theories and discussions concerning the use of new technologies of information and communication in foreign language classes, the student-teacher cannot always translate them into an aware and theoretically founded practice. / Parece-nos redundante, mas não inoportuno, discorrer sobre o impacto do advento tecnológico sobre o homem dos tempos atuais no que diz respeito ao seu modo de viver e relacionar-se com o mundo. O indivíduo dessa nova sociedade tem necessidades distintas que emergem das exigências geradas por essas novas condições de produzir e distribuir conhecimento. A introdução das novas tecnologias de informação e comunicação (NTICs) na sociedade suscitam o desenvolvimento de novas modalidades de práticas sociais de leitura e escrita, características da cibercultura (LÉVY, 1999). Nesse sentido, entendemos que a escola torna-se um dos segmentos sociais responsáveis por propiciar a esses indivíduos a possibilidade de terem acesso a um novo modo de produzir e distribuir conhecimento. Não podemos nos furtar de pensar como essas NTICs influenciam as novas práticas pedagógicas e se a escola e os professores estão preparados para com elas lidar. É nesse sentido que este estudo propõe-se a investigar a proposta de uma disciplina de prática pedagógica de um curso de licenciatura em Letras, que tem por objetivo contribuir com o professor de língua estrangeira, no sentido de criar condições para que ele desenvolva uma competência em incorporar as NTICs a sua prática docente. Portanto, objetivamos observar se os alunos-professores, ao terem a oportunidade de acesso às teorias sobre o uso das novas tecnologias como ferramenta de ensino, são capazes de transpor esse conhecimento à sua prática pedagógica. Nesta pesquisa qualitativa de base etnográfica, utilizamos questionários semi-abertos com a finalidade de obter informação sobre as representações dos alunos-professores a respeito do ensino de línguas, tendo o computador e a Internet como ferramenta Além desses, os diários reflexivos foram os instrumentos que nos possibilitaram coletar dados visando à análise do aspecto processual do desenvolvimento dos alunos-professores, e para verificar se suas representações acerca do uso das NTICs se modificaram após as reflexões desenvolvidas no curso. Por fim, fizemos uso da gravação em vídeo de minicursos ministrados pelos graduandos para observar se o conteúdo teórico apresentado e discutido durante as aulas viu-se refletido na prática docente desses professores em formação. Os dados revelaram que a exposição dos professores em formação a discussões sobre o uso da Internet nas aulas de LE mostraram-se relevantes para sua formação, no sentido em que colaboraram significativamente para sua prática docente. No entanto, foi possível perceber também que, mesmo tendo sido expostos às teorias concernentes ao uso das NTICs em aulas de LE, os professores em formação nem sempre conseguem traduzi-las em uma prática ciente e teoricamente embasada.