This article deconstructs the online and offline experience to show its complexities and idiosyncratic nature. It proposes a theoretical framework designed to conceptualise aspects of meaningmaking across on-and offline contexts. In arguing for the '(im)materiality' of literacy, it makes four propositions which highlight the complex and diverse relationships between the immaterial and material associated with meaning-making. Complementing existing sociocultural perspectives on literacy, the article draws attention to the significance of relationships between space, mediation, materiality and embodiment to literacy practices. This in turn emphasises the importance of the subjective in understanding how different locations, experiences and so forth inflect literacy practice. The paper concludes by drawing on the Deleuzian concept of the 'baroque' to suggest that this focus on articulations between the material and immaterial helps us to see literacy as multiply and flexibly situated.

This article reports on a small-scale investigation into the use of Internet chatrooms by teenage girls. Based on interview and observational data, it illustrates how the use of popular electronic communication is resulting in linguistic innovation within new, virtual social networks in a way that reflects more wide-reaching changes in the communication landscape. The paper suggests that teenagers and young people are in the vanguard of these processes of change as they fluently exploit the possibilities of digital technology, radically changing the face of literacy. The study looks at teenagers' perceptions of chatroom encounters and their learning about new ways of social and linguistic interaction. Observations of teenagers online show how rapid written conversations which combine features of face-to-face talk with explorations in interactive writing and the exchange of additional digital information, such as image files and web addresses, are enabling these young people to develop sophisticated and marketable skills. These innovations are contrasted with recent media and educational criticism of the language use associated with new technology. This tension between change and conservatism is explored by applying Bourdieu's concept of`linguistic capital'.

Research in New Literacy Studies has demonstrated how literacy consists of multiple socially and culturally situated practices illuminated through a focus on literacy events. Recently, this sociocultural perspective has been complemented by relational thinking that views literacy as an ongoing reassembling of the human and more-than-human. This conceptual article proposes that, in exploring how relational thinking might be deployed in literacy research and practice, it is helpful to re-visit conceptualisations of literacy events. Specifically it proposes the notion of 'literacy-as-event' as a heuristic for thinking with the fluid and elusive nature of meaning-making, elaborating on three propositions: 1. event is generated as people and things come into relation; 2. what happens always exceeds what can be conceived and perceived; 3. implicit in the event are multiple potentialities. Approaching literacy research through engaging with literacy-as-event promotes an expansive, reflective, and imaginative engagement with literacy practices that aligns with relational thinking.

Mobile phones have rapidly been absorbed into the fabric of our day‐to‐day lives. They are now a key consumer item, a symbol of social capital and they connect their users to a mobile web with multiple applications. As ownership and access to smartphones has spread into the teenage years, their place in institutions of formal education has been marked by contention. The dominant view that mobiles have no place in the classroom has recently been contested by educators, such as Parry, who suggest that mobile learning, and the literacies involved, should play an important role in education. This paper argues for a more nuanced view of mobile technology, one that focuses on everyday social practices as a way of understanding the relationship between mobiles and learning. Using practice theory as a starting point, I suggest a way of mapping everyday mobile practices on to educational activity to illustrate potential areas for innovation and evaluation. I conclude by returning to the debate about mobiles in education, noting that familiar arguments about popular digital technology and schooling are once again being rehearsed. If ways of accessing, sharing and building knowledge are changing then a more principled consideration of how educational institutions relate to these changes is needed.Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic There is growing interest in the use of mobiles in educational settings. Practitioners are beginning to look at the advantages and disadvantages of mobile learning. Increased ownership of smartphones and other mobile devices amongst the youth population is well documented. What this paper adds Social practice theory offers a useful perspective for looking at the use of mobiles in different contexts. Comparisons and contrasts between the uses of mobile technology in everyday life and in school settings can help in evaluating its potential. A consideration of ownership and access, and how this may reproduce social inequalities, are important to innovations in technology and education. Implications for practice and/or policy There is a need to move beyond debates about prohibiting or encouraging the use of mobiles to look at more specific examples of their advantages (and disadvantages). Policy and implementation should be informed by a finer‐grained analysis of mobile practices in everyday and educational settings. Mobile devices are highly desirable consumer items. Schools and other educational establishments have a responsibility to adopt a critical approach to ownership and use.

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