In the afternoon I was in Jim's sixth-grade classroom, observing students at their new multimedia computer. Dana and Daryl had their choice of activities during this half-hour session. Earlier someone had discovered a flight simulator demonstration on a CD. After reading the brief set of directions, students had figured out how to fly the jet. They still had not learned all there was to learn about this program, though. This was part of the excitement and challenge.

"Cool," Daryl said. He had just pressed the Control and the E key simultaneously during flight, causing the pilot to eject and come floating slowly down in a parachute, swinging back and forth. "Cool!" agreed Dana. "Do it again!" They ejected several times, pressing these two secret keys. Each time, one or two more students wandered over to the computer to see what was going on. "Cool" at this computer was almost always a signal that something new had been discovered. This caught the attention of others who wanted to see what it was and how to do it. "You just press Control and E," said Daryl. "Cool!" everyone agreed, drawing even more students to the corner.

Sarah had been standing on the outside of the group. She had a secret to share but wasn't certain if she wanted others to know it. Finally, as the parachute swung back and forth, she leaned over and pressed three keys at once: Command, Shift, and 3. A click was heard as the computer took a picture of what was displayed on the screen. "What was that?" someone asked. Sarah, sliding into an empty seat, took over control of the mouse. She moved to the main window where a new icon was showing with the label "Picture 1." She opened the picture, displaying the pilot swinging in the breeze, the image they had just seen in the flight simulator. "Cool," eight voices said as one, all of them realizing the possibilities of this new technique. "How did you do it?"

Whether we like it or not, the nature of literacy and learning is being redefined by the digital technologies that are quickly becoming a part of the information age in which we live (Negroponte, 1995; Reinking, 1995). We are experiencing a historic change in the nature of literacy and learning as digital, multimedia resources enter our world. The World Wide Web (WWW), e-mail, digitized works of children's literature, Myst, electronic chat rooms, MOOs, MUDs, and home pages are all just the beginning of a radical departure from traditional reading and writing experiences. How we respond to these important changes will determine our students' ability to succeed in the world that awaits them.

Whether we like it or not, new technologies are also redefining our roles. Multimedia environments will increase, not decrease, the central role of teachers in orchestrating learning experiences. We will be challenged to thoughtfully guide students' learning within information environments that are richer and more complex than traditional print media, presenting richer and more complex learning opportunities for both teachers and students.

This episode with Sarah illustrates two lessons for all of us to consider as we seek to better understand these environments and their potential for literacy and learning. First, it illustrates a recurrent pattern we found in a study funded by the U.S. Department of Education on multimedia design and use in school classrooms: Students often learn about complex multimedia environments by showing each other "cool" things. These exchanges are often initiated when one person discovers something interesting and shows it to others. Then these students explore it and if it is sufficiently "cool," they show still other students. Information about "cool" items on the computer spreads like wildfire in classrooms.

Sarah revealed more secrets than even she realized; her actions tell us that multimedia environments, because they are both powerful and complex, often require us to communicate with others in order to make meaning from them. Thus, learning is frequently constructed through social interactions in these contexts, perhaps even more naturally and frequently than in traditional print environments.

Second, Sarah's story also raises a fundamental question: How do we avoid the more superficial experiences with technology that are merely "cool" but do not necessarily support students' learning about literacy, critical thinking, or content central to the curriculum?

One way, of course, is to direct students away from simulation and gaming software that is unrelated to the curriculum and toward resources such as the WWW or CD-ROM software that are rich in information, multimedia, and hyperlinks. However, we have found that even these environments often lead students to surface-level "cool" elements and away from purposefully integrating the rich information resources that exist within them. Students often spend time looking for unrelated but "cool" graphics, videos, pictures, or music and avoid reading text information longer than a single word or sentence. This pattern is consistent with recent concerns expressed by Birkerts (1995) and Stoll (1995).

These authors warn us about several problems with the digital information environments that are increasingly available. They argue that traditional print documents, like books, encourage us to read deeply, or intensively, about a topic, while digital information environments such as hypertext, multimedia, or the WWW encourage us to explore extensively many unrelated topics at only a superficial level. This, they suggest, is because hypertext and multimedia, with multiple electronic links from one information location to another, seduce us away from reading and thinking deeply about a single topic. These authors worry that we will seldom explore important topics in depth or think critically about their relation to our lives if we rely upon digital information environments as they are currently structured.

The concerns expressed by Birkerts and Stoll appear to be confirmed by the vocabulary used in these new information environments; the vocabulary of a culture often tells us much about its underlying assumptions. Consider the underlying assumptions of several vocabulary items used within the culture of the WWW, arguably the most powerful digital information resource available today. In the Web, we use a browser for surfing the net. Browser is the term used to refer to software, such as Netscape Navigator, that allows a person to browse the many information locations on the WWW of the Internet. Browsing seems more consistent with extensive learning, since we usually browse through many different items quickly, without considering their deeper meanings. Indeed, one of the more popular features of most browsers is a button that, when clicked, takes you to a list of "cool" sites. Browsing "cool" sites is precisely what Birkerts has in mind when he worries about the increasingly extensive nature of our exposure to information. By spending our time exploring "cool" sites with our browser we may become familiar with much but understand little.

Or consider the expression "surfing the net," which appears to refer to extensive, not intensive, exploration of the information on the Internet or the WWW. We surf on the surface of the ocean. This appears to suggest we also surf on the surface of the Internet, seldom plumbing the depths of its rich information resources.

The purpose of this column is to invite more teachers into multimedia so that we may support one another in thinking carefully about the transition to new forms of literacy and learning. By supporting one another we will have applied the first lesson Sarah shared with us: Learning about complex multimedia environments is often a socially constructed activity.

By thinking carefully about the transition to new forms of literacy and learning, we seek to go beyond the inevitable hype that accompanies new technologies and apply the second lesson Sarah shared with us: It is important to support thoughtful, intensive learning and avoid extensive, undirected searches for surface level "cool."

This column will help us meet the new challenges we all face as a result of the new definitions of literacy and learning brought about by rapid changes in information technology. It is an invitation to participate in the changing nature of literacy and learning in several ways that are consistent with the lessons Sarah has taught us.

Join us in an online conversation. First, the column will invite everyone, especially novices, to explore together this new type of literacy online, as we develop a supportive community of literacy educators interested in digital information environments. Sarah's lesson about the social aspects of learning is an important one. We learn about complex, digital environments by sharing our experiences with others. Communicating electronically is one way in which this can be done.

I will extend this column to include an electronic discussion group in a listserv for interested readers. A listserv discussion group allows all subscribers to simultaneously communicate in writing with one another about topics of mutual interest. I invite readers to join a discussion about the issues raised in each column (see Figure 1). By extending the column beyond the printed pages of The Reading Teacher, we will provide an opportunity for participants to teach one another about electronic literacy contexts. The listserv will also teach me more about your needs so that we might discuss these in future columns. I hope you will take a few moments to join this listserv and contribute your experience to our discussion so that we all may learn from one another and so that Sarah's secret might be even more fully revealed.