REVISITING THE NOTION OF INVISIBLE COLLEGE: DIGITAL MULTIPLE LITERACIES AND MEDIA EDUCATORS.

Saleh, Ibrahim

Digital Age of rapid technological change and proliferating information resources in a variety of formats has the way we learn about the world and challenging the very foundations of education(Saleh, 2012). New IT platforms allow a closer monitoring of the present, multi-modal constructions of simultaneity and a range of new possibilities for connecting with and contextualizing various pasts through the field of media education (Wright & Welsh, 2010).It is thus pertinent to the notion of information1 and media literacy to critically interpret the powerful images of a multimedia culture (Thoman & Jolls, 2012). Education is a prominent cultural institution used to perpetuate the prevailing values of a society, but education should be an empowering process that allows and guides children to develop their passions, critical thinking, compassion, and orientation towards wisdom for timely action (Burk, 2014). The landscape of higher education—the growing variety of higher education institutions, the cultural environment, the competitive ecosystem—is changing rapidly and disruptively. The higher education landscape is metaphorically crossed with fault lines, those fissures in the landscape creating potential areas of dramatic change, and is as "seismic" as it has been in decades (Staley& Trinkle, 2011). This research addresses the 'invisible college' concept with the intent of identifying how the structure versus social process problem are both conditions essential to the invisible college and both may be reconciled (Zuccala, 2004). The research focuses on three critical components: the subject specialty (media and information literacy), media educators as social actors, and the Information Use Environment (IUE) This research aims to offer new, innovative work on media and information literacy insights, by highlighting the interplay between media technologies and wider practices and metaphors of temporality such as the "invisible college" Lievrouw, L.A. (1989). It focuses on how various temporalities are inscribed in and constructed; and how such inscriptions and constructions are transforming along with the advent of new IT platforms.

COMPUTER literacy; INFORMATION technology education in universities & colleges; TECHNOLOGICAL innovations; INFORMATION resources; CRITICAL thinking

Journal of Education Research, 2015, Vol 9, Issue 2, p211

1935-052X

Academic Journal