Reviews Alvermann, Donna E ed (2010) Adolescents’ online literacies Peter Lang (New York & Bern) ISBN 978-1- 4331-0551-7 222 pp £19.70 http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc. seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk= 53962&cid=5 What are these “online literacies” that this substan- tial book talks about in the context of their posses- sion by adolescent learners? By analogy with “computer literacy” and “IT literacy”, you may expect the phrase to mean the young users’ fluency with IT applications to solve their problems. Not so! In fact, neither the book’s editor nor the various authors give an explicit definition of what they mean by the term. The way in which this phrase is used in the book is, in fact, closer to the traditional meaning of ″literacy″ than to fluency with IT applications. I would define it on that basis as the young people’s ability to express themselves and interact with oth- ers—and by this means make sense of themselves, their experiences and the contexts in which they live. In this case, the skills set is not just their expressive ability to read and write standard plain text but involves a range of other expressive tools—both of material (including, for instance, pictures, movies, audio) and of conceptual nature (such as song texts which belong to popular culture—not literary pieces but ones that help the youths to focus on real issues and to make sense of life). In the same way, the con- struction of a personal space in a web-based social environment does not involve much literary produc- tion but leads the users to tackle self-identity issues and find the best way to present information of dif- ferent kinds about themselves. This edited book includes ten chapters by authors from Australia, Europe and North America; they discuss various aspects of adolescents’ online literacies. The authors, as well as the intended readers, are teachers, researchers, graduate students, educa- tional media specialists, and librarians. The chapters do not form a fixed sequence but nicely complement each other and still stand alone, allowing the reader to proceed in any order without losing sight of the overall message. Together, they discuss how adoles- cents use traditional literacies in virtual spaces and what kinds of (new) literacies must come into play through virtual engagement. They argue how meaning is made across traditional and digital lit- eracies, yet manage to avoid having to create rigid and superficial boundaries between old and new. Analysing online literacies is a current and relevant issue, because online activities are now occupying a good amount of the students’ time and attention that was once devoted to books. Even though usual online literacy practices are often considered trivial, they are actually providing a suitable arena for the development of relevant skills and understanding. Online literacy practices provide examples of power- ful cultural productions and enable adolescents to appropriate discursive resources. For instance, in social environments, adolescents are involved in processes of making and remaking self- presentations, hence creatively and productively exploring aspects of identity and contributing to construct meanings in relation to their contexts and experiences.The ability of multimedia and web tech- nology to bring a variety of modes together in the same text opens up new possibilities to convey meaning in different ways and allows people to tell individual messages and stories in personalised and ductile ways. The unlimited access to a variety of multimodal resources, among which are artefacts of popular culture, provide opportunities to work on cultural texts that may be richer and more stimulat- ing than those addressed by traditional literacies. Moreover, bringing out-of-school literacies into the class increases students’ motivation by proposing activities and issues that they perceive to be real and relevant for them. Engagement in virtual spaces can therefore provide interesting opportunities to explore complex, meaningful issues and gives rise to socially and culturally situated literacy practices. The book’s overall message is that we should broaden the concepts of text and literacy to include the wealth of meaning-making forms that are created by the use of information and media tech- nologies; academic literacy goals can effectively be merged with students’ desire and need to make sense of their world. It is necessary to avoid both roman- ticising online spaces and dismissing as irrelevant the skills and habits of mind that can be developed while pursuing online literacies. This may lead us to design more sensitive and effective instruction and to develop powerful alternative pedagogies. I enjoyed reading this book, which I find stimulating for the variety of points of view discussed, as well as for the careful and interesting analysis of the con- sidered issues. Giuliana Dettori (received January 2011) Researcher at the Institute for Educational Technology of CNR, Genoa, Italy dettori@itd.cnr.it British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 42 No 2 2011 E42–E49 © 2011 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2011 Bera. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.