Digital Literacy
From WikEd
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Descriptions and Definitions:
According to Wikipedia, the word digital is most commonly used in computing and electronics, especially where real-world information is converted to binary numeric form as in digital audio and digital photography. Such data-carrying signals carry one of two electronic or optical pulses, logic 1 (pulse present) or 0 (pulse absent). The term is often meant by the prefix "e-", as in e-mail and ebook, even though not all electronic systems are digital.
Literacy is the ability to read and write, or the ability to use language to read, write, listen, and speak. In modern contexts, the word refers to reading and writing at a level adequate for communication, or at a level that lets one understand and communicate ideas in a literate society, so as to take part in that society. Wikipedia
Digital Literacy is the ability to create, comprehend, edit, and utilize digital technologies presented through multiple formats to satisfy an intended purpose.
History of
It's hard to say when the term "digital literacy" was coined. According to Wikipedia, digitalism is the cultural movement that began in the early 1980s with the increasing use of computer technology to produce art works, both 2D and 3D. The movement primarily involved visual arts, cinema, theatre, and graphic design. Digitalism is the earlier form of what we now call digital literacy. The Internet was the driving force behind digitalism.
The beginnings of our current Internet can be traced back to 1966 when Lawrence G. Roberts developed a computer network concept called the "ARPANET." In 1967 his plan was published and presented. Then in 1972, with the help of Robert E. Kahn, the ARPANET was presented to viewers at the International Computer Communication Conference. This was the first public viewing of the ARPANET. Electronic Mail, otherwise know as email, was developed shortly after this, but did not become a world-wide phenomenon until the early 90s.
This ARPANET was the beginning of what we now know as the Internet. On October 25th, 1995, the Federal Networking Council unanimously agreed on the tern Internet. Since, maybe new web-based applications have been developed including, Internet telephone, chat rooms, video conferencing, Wikipedia, blogging, Web 2.0, social networking, and many others.
Applications in Classrooms and Similar Settings
"Classroom teachers and administrators should strive to find ways to help students constructively channel their natural interests and aptitudes with digital tools. After-school web teams which design and create webpages for the school site or publish a regular online newsletter, classroom assignments that encourage webblogging, and after-school or evening technology training sessions involving both adults as well as students working together to learn new skills are all examples of promising possibilities.
We all need digital literacy NOW. Our need for this literacy and the need for the students we teach to possess it and refine it will only continue to grow in the months and years ahead. We live in an exciting age, full of opportunity but also fraught with pitfalls. We need a compass as well as human guides, because the experiences of our journey will certainly include danger as well as excitement. The prospect of leading this trek may seem fearsome to some educators, but the path we must follow is not for lone rangers. We ride on this cattle drive together, and the students are not the cowsÑthey are our fellow cowboys, cowgirls, wranglers and explorers who make up our classrooms and our communities. We are digital pioneers in a vast landscape of opportunity, and while a cattle prod may seem like the most useful tool to some veterans, the savvy will recognize their own willingness to learn new ideas and techniques is the most precious commodity in their saddlebag." - Wesley Fryer
Microsoft has developed its own program for digital literacy, with a variety of online curricula that can be found here. According to their Digital Literacy webpage, the goal of the program is to "teach and assess basic computer concepts and skills so that people can use computer technology in everyday life to develop new social and economic opportunities for themselves, their families, and their communities. Whether you are entirely new to computing or have some experience, this curriculum will help you develop a fundamental understanding of computers. From using the Internet, to sending e-mail, to creating a résumé, the Digital Literacy Curriculum helps you develop the essential skills you need to begin computing with confidence."
Critics & Their Rationale:
"Through the monitor and keyboard is a world where instantaneous communication and individual feedback provides students with access to a suffocating educational system. Many scholars present favourable prose in support of this digital pedagogy. However, this positive spin ignores the low enrolments and high attrition rates in the online, e-learning oeuvre suggesting that all is not well in the silicon sphere.
One online educational theorist, raving about the advantages of the avatar in accessing learning structures and synergies, proclaimed the end of all things analogue. He smartly dismissed the need for anything not encoded with bits and bytes by stating, “Even if we like the old ways, the conventional use of bound books and paper files is incapable of handling the demands of modern life, and there really is no choice about accepting rapid innovation”. In one sentence, and without any hesitation or questioning, he normalised digitisation and dismissed paper-based artefacts.
Teachers, scholars, journalists and other thinkers reading this article will instantly recognise the deficiencies in such a statement. The proliferation of digital infrastructures and technologies is uneven. Over three-quarters of the world’s population has never made a phone-call. Many of us cannot afford the financial outlay for online access and digital hardware. Learning to login requires new skills that can be intimidating for those not familiar with computer software.
To dismiss the analogue world as redundant troubles me greatly. I find nothing more intimately connected to everyday life than the ”bounded books and paper files” he rubbished. While we do live in an age of acceleration activated by iPods, mobile phones, and TXT as well as literacies that seek to swamp traditional reading and research, it is precisely in this context that we need the bound page. However, it is not my intention to validate some draconian and stuffy nostalgia for literature, but to remember what it means to struggle over consciousness and through criticism.
Many of the students I teach do not have the patience to leaf through a book and read words on a page. They are much happier when they are able to point, click and download their scholarship. They lead busy lives and reading can be uncomfortable for a generation schooled in digital learning. A computer used correctly can be a valuable research tool. It can provide insight in ways a book cannot. A friend of mine - working in Internet studies - changes my life every week with a new online discovery. This is a man who informed me about EverQuest and its expanding virtual economy, and "Booble" - the "adult" search engine. His use of the digital realm is startling. It is used as an extension of his consciousness rather than as a determinate of the criticism he activates. He begins from an idea he wishes to explore or an unresolved problem or paradox. The digital realm is a supplement to his other research done through film, television, books, journals, newspapers and music.
Students need to be taught these skills - to move through the different literacies which straddle digital and analogue worlds. They require a methodology both of and for the struggle with ideas and concepts, which will help them understand the need for investigation and scholastic rigour. The consequences for these individuals are serious as we prepare them to live in a complex and contradictory world. We are abandoning these young people to educational efficiency and rationalist curricula. Nothing demonstrated this more clearly to me than a recent marking experience." -Leanne McRae, Onlineopinion.com
Personal Testimonies:
When students graduate from high school and move on to the real world, it is crucial that they are digitally literate. Students must be prepared for all of the "digital expectations" that will be required from them in the real world. These expectations may include, searching the web, finding and assessing information, reading and sending email, and other various tasks.
I teach an exploring technology class at West Leyden High School in the Chicago Suburbs. The first unit of this class is digital/technological literacy. Every unit from there out requires students to have some degree of digital literacy. Some of the activities in the digital literacy unit include computer literacy tutorials, evaluating Internet sources, search engine exercises, learning computer parts, email, Wikipedia, blogging, and others. - K. Shifflet
I teach a digital photography class at Warren Tonwship High School and we focus on digital literacy specifically related to understanding how to analyze a photograph. So many kids now a days only can talk in cyber language on the computer and don't understand what they are viewing on tv and on the internet that there almost needs to be an integration of digital literacy in the classroom. In art education, we would classify this as being VCAE, or visual culture art education.C. McCulley
Digital literacy, or even literacy in general indicates a readiness to use, navigate, and produce with different varied tools: pencil, pen, paper, along with office application suites and multimedia. While most agree that learning to use these electronic tools is important so students will be able to function in the business world, other components such as online safety and critical evaluation of online resources and research should not be ignored. - Dave Melone
Digital literacy is the most used literacy in my life. If I don't read on the computer, I usually don't read. This is not because I don't like reading or books, but it is because most of the reading I do in my life happen to be on the computer. Checking email, doing research, and finding new and innovative ways to teach my students all require me to learn through digital technology. ~ R. Hayes
References & Other Links:
McRae, Leanne. Is digital literacy killing critical consciousness? (Online) Available http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2810 10 April 2007.
Microsoft Digital Literacy Curriculum
Microsoft Digital Literacy Certificate Test
Global Digital Literacy Council
