In this article we describe and discuss a three-year case study of a course in web literacy, part of the academic literacy curriculum for first-year engineering students at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Because they are seen as 'practical' knowledge, not theoretical, information skills tend to be devalued at university and rendered invisible to the students. In particular, websearching skills are problematic, given the challenges that the Web poses to academic values and traditional research practices. Consequently, the technical skills of web searching are often taught separately from academic curricula or left entirely unaddressed. We illustrate an alternative, integrated approach to the development of this aspect of information literacy. We apply a critical action research methodology to document, evaluate and reflect on students' use of evaluative frameworks. Focusing on the facilitation of critical and evaluative use of the Web for exploratory learning, we interrogate the role of 'cultural capital' and evaluate the effectiveness of the scaffolding provided by the course design. We find important connections between developing knowledge of academic discourse and successful academic use of the Web, and note that, for students to transfer their skills to a range of contexts, these skills will require sustained attention throughout the undergraduate curriculum. We present evidence that the most effective strategies integrate everyday practical knowledge of research techniques with teaching about academic discourse and building students' knowledge in a specific domain. Academic literacy, information literacy and web literacyFrom an anthropological perspective, students acquire a broad set of competencies, termed academic literacy, through internalising the tacit beliefs and complex customary practices associated with academic research (Ballard and Clanchy, 1988). What counts as knowledge? What is a reliable source? What sources are relevant?

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Discussions of 'game literacy' focus on the informal learning and literacies associated with games but seldom address the diversity in young people's gaming practices, and the highly differentiated technologies of digital gaming in use. We use available survey data to show how, in South Africa, income inequalities influence consumption patterns, shaping experiences of digital games. Two case studies of young people's play practices involving digital games in Cape Town suggest the fragmentation and inequalities of contemporary play practices and the need for a more inclusive understanding of digital gaming. Mobile phones offer more accessibility than other digital gaming platforms and local appropriations include display of micro-commodities, concealment of outdated technology, control strategies and deletion of functionality. Young people move between multiple overlapping communicative spaces and hence complex cultural articulations arise when global game narratives are appropriated to make sense of racial otherness, crime and politics in South Africa. Since educational curricula cater for highly fractured publics, we ask whether it is advisable to speak of 'game literacy'. We suggest the need to validate less strongly mediatised forms of play, and to address diverse identification practices in consumer culture, including prestige and status as well as othering and shame.

Abstract. This study focuses on teenage users of public internet access venues (PAVs) in low-income neighborhoods of Cape Town. It documents their cultivation of detailed ICT repertoires to make the most of available ICTs. It highlights the continuing importance of PAVs as supplements for poorly equipped schools and reveals the incompleteness of any supposed transition to mobileonly internet use. While the mobile internet is opening up opportunities for young people, its current form still conflicts with the easy (global) rhetoric of a closing digital divide and the end of the PAV. We recommend policy and design actions (effecting rules, training, messaging, functionality, and Wi-Fi) to reconfigure PAVs to be more useful "in the age of the mobile internet". Though some actions require support from policymakers, this is fruitful ground for designers and technologists. We identify steps that can be undertaken immediately, rather than waiting for future device convergence or lower tariffs.

Following a social semiotic approach, this paper questions the Western cultural assumptions underpinning the web's evolving navigational conventions, and investigates to what extent a group of South African students command the currently dominant Western conventions. South African students (both novices and experienced web users) completed a series of visual exercises, where they interpreted a set of interface and conceptual conventions in common use on the web. Conceptual questions attempted to address to what extent students were familiar with and able to reproduce the conventional Western visual design resources for representing classificational taxonomies or 'tree structures' and various other visual devices for the implicit portrayal of hierarchical information structures (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996). Interface questions probed student recognition of common web icons. Some broadly cultural factors were found to explain at least some of the variation in the group. Finally, we consider the implications of our study for training, design, and the diverse range of South African representational resources.