The Final Section, "Paradox: The Power of Infinite Connections," traces the movement of the technology/literacy nexus across disciplines and offers some of the collection’s more theoretically challenging essays:

Again, insufficient time prevents a full and just exploration of each author's claims, but the general point is clear: if we are to begin thinking critically (and wisely) about the impact of technology on literacy, then we are going to have to begin thinking about the movement of literacy across disciplines. Still, the promise--and the inevitability?--of "new thinking" isn't without its caveats and perils, as Douglas is quick to warn: The inevitability of change and innovation--and the concomitant assumptions of progress--offered at the beginning of the collection finds itself checked in such reservations.  In fact, a new metaphor, one of binding, emerges to counter the earlier free sense of movement; as the editors suggest, "We are a culture inextricably bound up with our electronic technology" (2).

But we wiggle within those bounds.  And at times we "break free"--or so it seems--even if there are always new sets of parameters, new limitations, and even if we don’t see them as such right away.  With this in mind, then, maybe a better question with which to approach this collection might be, "How, then, do we move when we wiggle?" or "What new wiggle room do the new communication technologies offer us as consumers, shapers, makers, and participators of literacy?"

| table of contents | opening | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | connections | movement | assumptions | conclusion |