Carol Jago’s tweet this morning prompted Jen Roberts to reply:

Here is a good rundown of conventions of print. Knowing and being able to use these conventions are important for literacy. What do students need to know in the 21st century? How does reading digital writing differ from print writing?

Hyperlinks, for a start. Hyperlinks open up new pages or websites that connect in some way to the text linked. It’s also important that students understand web conventions differ from print conventions, and students should learn web conventions, too. For instance, writing is usually single-spaced with an extra line between paragraphs rather than double-spaced (or single-spaced) with a first-line indent.

As we see more print from places all over the world, it’s important for students to know that even speakers of the same language have different spelling, usage, punctuation, and style preferences, and those preferences are as correct as the preferences their native country has agreed upon (this is so important for English). Students should also know which way to orient pages in a word processor to effectively communicate their message.

It’s probably more important that today’s students learn to keyboard rather than write cursive, but I hate to see them not learn to at least read cursive at all.

What do you think should be added?