Literacies
Stordy (2015) examined literacy/ literacies to create a taxonomy that encompassed a multitude of definitions and variations of relevant terms. This taxonomy included both an autonomous perspective outlining psychological cognitive definitions and an ideological perspective relating to socio-cultural approaches that define literacy/literacies. Stordy (2015) differentiated these into those literacies that integrated no-or-few digital technologies (conventional), those that incorporated new technical elements (peripheral), and those literacies that assimilated new technical stuff with new ‘ethos stuff’ (paradigm), as further described in the Taxonomy of Literacies (see Figure 9).
The taxonomy was grounded in literacy research and provided a working definition of literacies that “captures the complementary nature of literacy as a cognitive ability and a social practice” (Stordy, 2015, p. 472). Although Stordy (2015) acknowledged the challenges and limitations of this framework, and recognized that the borders between these concepts are fuzzy and permeable, this taxonomy supported the reframing of literacies in a way that clarified understanding necessary for this research. Missing in this definition of literacies is the entanglement of practices with cultural capital or cultural awareness. I recognize and acknowledge my intentional omission of conceptions of neutrality or power structures inherent within the social and political values often attached to literacy/literacies practices (Frau-Meigs, 2017) as these are beyond the scope of this research and would further complicate the intended focus on the lived experiences of teacher educators' media and digital literacies in their open educational practice.
Literacy terminology was frequently confused or conflated with notions of skills, fluency and competency. For this research, I regarded these as different conceptions (see Figure 10). Fluencies encompassed the ability to speak, read, and write in a given language quickly and easily, while competency was defined by having skills and abilities to do a job (“Competency,” OED Online; “Fluency,” OED Online). These definitions are not the same thing, but can be considered to be subsumed within the broader term of literacy. This clarification is made here since research applied these terms interchangeably. For this research there is a clear spiraling distinction between conceptions of skills, fluencies, competencies and literacies (see Figure 10 below).