Educators from pre-school to university are concerned these days with computer literacy. And no wonder, since computers have become an unavoidable feature of modern life, both in the business world and on the personal level.  Computer literacy today is as vital a skill as any taught in school.  The young people acquiring those skills as they pass through the nation’s school systems are the first truly digital generation—those who have never known life without computers and the Internet.  Many of these kids have been playing video games since their fingers could grasp the controls, and few are without personal cell phones.  They spend their leisure time “modeling identity through social networking profiles so they can write themselves and their community into being” (boyd 2).  But computer literacy requires more than merely the ability to operate the machinery and use the available entertainment resources, more even than knowledge of “technical aspects of software application, hardware components, and operating systems.”  Stuart Selber has written extensively on the need to expand academic approaches to computer literacy beyond earlier models of functionality that leaned heavily on “highly specific, stabilized skill sets detached from particular social contexts” (“Reimagining” 472-73).  Besides the ability to use a computer as a tool, students working in digital environments need what Selber terms critical literacy and rhetorical literacy—as both questioners and producers of technology (Multiliteracies 25).

Selber’s arguments about the complexities of computer literacy—which he divides into five parameters: “educational goals, social conventions, specialized discourses, management activities, and technological impasses”—stress the multi-faceted nature of the pedagogical and social challenge for educators and their students (“Reimagining” 472-73).    But no matter whether the debate is about the technical aspects of computer literacy or the social aspects, the key word in the discussion is literacy.  Traditionally, literacy means the ability to read and write, but just as with the specialized sphere of computer literacy, this historical version of literacy encompasses a socially embedded hierarchy of competency, fluency, and opportunity that ranges from the ability to sign one’s name and read road signs to full participation in the cultural production of knowledge at the highest level.  So what literacy is about is not simply the mastery of a skill set, as Selber points out, but the connection of the individual to the larger culture through its privileged lines of communication—understanding their complexities and subtleties and mastering the manipulation of these.  As one works through the acquisition of literacy, new horizons open up, new levels of challenge and opportunity.  Students learn to read more complex material, to critically evaluate it, and to construct their own rhetorical contributions to the discussion.  In the new media landscape, students must learn to combine the digital components of literacy with the historical components, for even in the electronic environment, we still live in the real world.

The website I have scouted offers students a tantalizing blend of real cultural history and a stunning virtual environment, and can readily be used in the classroom to encourage literacy, both in the new media and in the traditional sense.  The Forbidden City: Beyond Space and Time (www.beyondspaceandtime.org) is a joint project between IBM and the Palace Museum in Beijing, China.  The Forbidden City, home to Chinese emperors and a cultural treasure for China and for the world, has been translated into a three-dimensional virtual world where guests can wander at will or take guided tours among the art and architecture.  The virtual city also includes several participatory activities, as well as viewable scenes of palace life.  But more than simply a place to view astonishingly rendered historical artifacts, the Virtual Forbidden City is a community.  Guests have the ability to interact with one another or with volunteer staff through chat functions.  I imagine what it might be like to take a class on a virtual tour of the Forbidden City as preparation for a writing assignment.  A visit to this website could combine lessons on the use of computers and Internet protocols with lessons on intercultural protocol.  The Virtual Forbidden City is open to and visited by guests from all over the world.  As they learn about social life in the ancient Chinese court, they are also experiencing the global community made possible by the Internet.

My personal experience with the Virtual Forbidden City made me eager to share this amazing resource with others.  After I registered with a screen name and a password, I had the opportunity to choose from a selection of several possible avatars to represent me during my visit.  I could have been a palace servant, a craftsman, an imperial boy or girl, a eunuch, a consort, and more.  Additionally, registered guests can take ‘snapshots’ of the sights they see and save these in a scrapbook to be shared with others.  The website has a forum as well, where visitors can comment or discuss with others their thoughts about their experiences in the Virtual Forbidden City.  Among the available interactive scenes are participation in archery exercises, helping to train fighting crickets, and learning to play weigi, a popular board game.  I have never been to China, and I doubt I will ever see the Forbidden City in reality.  But through my visits to the Virtual Forbidden City, I have had the chance to experience these Palace Museums in the next best way.

I see the Virtual Forbidden City tour as quite well suited to a middle school language arts class, assuming they have access to the Internet as a group.   To prepare for the digital visit to China, the class could read (online or offline) some background material on life in the Forbidden City or a short story about life in the palaces.  Subsequently, the students could individually register and then together visit the Virtual Forbidden City.  The interface client has relatively simple controls which would be more than familiar to anyone with mmorpg gaming experience, while at the same time, manageable for those who do not have any background in navigating a three-dimensional environment with keyboard arrow keys.  Visitors materialize before the grand gates of the palace complex where tour guides wait to assist.  The group could stay together for a basic tour and then go their separate ways searching out the hidden treasures waiting for the alert visitor.  Perhaps the instructor could have a list of sights and locations for students to check off.

After sufficient time in the virtual environment for exploration, students could come back to the real world and write about their experiences.  Topics might include their impressions of the Forbidden City, their speculations about what it would be like to have lived there when it was actively inhabited by Chinese royalty, their analyses of how this virtual tourist experience contrasts with actual visits they may have had with historical sites or museums, their ideas for use of similar technology for other historical locations, even poetry or their own short stories about the experience.  Particularly interesting might be the accounts of anyone who had chat contact with other visitors.  What did the student learn from the other visitor about his or her culture or impression of the Virtual Forbidden City? Cumulatively, the preparation, the Internet experience, the cross-cultural visit, and the post-visit writing address many levels of literacy and bring together both traditional rhetorical skills as well as the ability to operate in the New Digital Media environment and learn through its resources.  This virtual Marco Polo visit to China’s Forbidden City Palace Museums is a fun experience that promotes multi-literacies without clumsy didacticism or tedious exercises.  The activity is engaging and game-like, yet it offers a rich learning environment.