In Arroyo’s final chapter I came across a few brilliant ideas that sent my mind racing across a range of ideas that break down her writing from a literate to a speculative meaning.
“Both of these works show, first, how students brand new to the concepts eletracy and participatory culture interacted with the goal of aiming for inventive and productive knowledge, second how students grapple with the differences between electrate and literate learning and work to combine both electrate and literate practices; and third, how the process of discovery and heeding to unrelated connections aid in building new knowledge.” (123)
Literally
This quote explains how new to the electrate process students really are and the measures students will have to adapt to this new process. Students will have to learn to integrate their old way literate thinking to this new evolving electrate way. Knowledge and the way knowledge is taken in by students is evolving and students must in fact evolve too in order to obtain the knowledge of the time.
Intellectually
After reading this quote I began to think about all that has changed in the years of my schooling. Looking back now I can tell how much my schooling has changed already. I remember in the 6th grade I was told that sources such as videos could not be used in my essays however now it seems possible to learn and even use these sources and use them as credited sources at that. I have also noticed how my mind has been rewired in a way to make connections to almost everything around me in order to understand where I am living and for that matter of fact how I am.
Emotionally
In this new era which we are embarking upon we are being asked more so about how we feel about things? and a little less about what we think about them? and how I feel about what Arroyo has described can be summed up in one word: Awe-inspired. I am in amazement that in my generation I will be able witness such a shift in the English language, how English is thought, and how the thinking process will change. I feel as though I will look back on this moment years from now when the bridge between electracy and literacy has been broken fallen down and look back and say “well we crossed that bridge and there is no turning back now”.
Speculatively
In the next ten years or so I believe we will be seeing this concept unfold more so than it is now. In this early stage not many people are aware of this shift or even understand that the shift exists. I believe over the next few years we will see an integration of this concept in school in the way that students will become aware of word electracy and all it encompasses. Students will become aware of how to use technology and language in a way that builds new ideas that flourish in this new era. The time for electracy is now and I believe this to be true because of all that surrounds us from the Apple watches on our wrists to the YouTube channels that promotes chemistry growth. We have been brought this far by literacy but this is as far as we can go. It is now the time to use literacy as the past and use it to help us move electracy forward.
