TRANSLITERACY, eLEARNING AND NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION, LOST IN TRANSLATION?

Owing to changes in the areas of technology, research, teaching, learning, communication and more, libraries are required to change as well, so they can provide in the evolving needs of their customers (ACRL, 2006; Thomas et al. 2007). Amongst these changes, a need for a “new” type of literacy has arisen, that of transliteracy, which according to Thomas et al. (2007), can be defined as: “the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks”. In return, this need has created the need to train librarians to be transliterate, which can be done by new ways of teaching and learning in the forms of eLearning, online training, virtual learning, etc., made possible by the modernization of education by ICT`s (Punie, Zinnbauer & Cabrera, 2006; Van Brakel & Chisenga, 2003). Using ICT`s to communicate, and it can be argued using ICT`s for educational purposes as well, however has the disadvantage that even though some areas of communication are enhanced, others like nonverbal cues are neglected (Hollingshead, McGrath & O’Connor in Shachaf, 2008) which is a big concern, as nonverbal communication accounts for about 65% of successful communication (Steinberg, 2007). The researchers suggest that transliteracy education by means of modernized education methods need to account for the gap left by the missing nonverbal communication component, and find ways to ensure that during transliteracy education adequate content is transferred.