What is digital literacy?

[Terry Freedman]

Here are my views about digital literacy. Challenge me.

Digital literacy should be one of the key parts of any curriculum.

What is digital literacy? Let's express this in behavioural terms.

I believe that it should not be possible for young people to leave school without being knowledgeable enough to be safe online (not just from sexual predators but from financial, racist, and other types of predator too).

It should not be possible for anyone to leave school and then leave laptops in the back of cars, usb sticks containing sensitive data in pub car parks, or sell hard disks containing data on eBay. All of these kinds of actions are undertaken by digitally illiterate people in my opinion.

Digital literacy should not be seen only in defensive terms:

A digitally-literate person will be able to express herself by creating a presentation, a podcast or a video. She will be able to validate data before putting it into a model, and then verify the results of the modelling process in terms of the accuracy and plausibility of the data.

A digitally-literate person will be able to use software applications in elegant and efficient ways, and even perhaps in ways that could not have been foreseen by the program's creators.

There are, or should be, lots of opportunities for pupils to apply and practise their digital literacy skills, right across the curriculum. However, in order to do so, they need a deep, not a superficial, understanding of the processes involved. These are not trivial. Take, for example, the concept of data validation. It's quite sophisticated, and quite necessary. It's summed up in the adage, "garbage in, garbage out", meaning that if you put rotten data into a computer you'll get rotten results. Someone has to be able to ensure that the data going into the computer is not full of errors, or of the wrong type.

It's been found recently , by the government inspection body in England, that teachers tend to teach technology up to the limit of their own knowledge, and that this effectively holds children back. In my experience, where technology is taught by non-specialists, this kind of "dumbing down" goes on as a matter of course. It's not deliberate: teachers don't know what they don't know. It's therefore not a criticism as such. If I taught English, it would almost certainly be superficial, because I'm not an English specialist, even though I've been speaking the language for over half a century. Why should we assume that if we send someone on an interactive whiteboard training course and give them a laptop for producing their worksheets, and they book their vacations online, that they're qualified to teach technology?

In fact, if we are really serious about embedding technology in the curriculum, the answer is not to get rid of it as a subject and farm it out across the curriculum, but to do the precise opposite and increase the amount of time spent teaching it. That would give pupils a much firmer skills base to employ in other subjects. It would also give non-tech teachers more confidence in using technology in their classrooms because of the knowledge that the youngsters pretty much know what they are doing.

Thoughts? Comments? Let me know!

[Sung Joon Kim]

Digital literacy is an aspect of being a good manner in using technology, such as netiquettes. Most of people cite their ideas and interact with other in digital technology rather than meeting face-to-face. They try to acknowledge that digital technology is the part of their life and use them wisely. They text messages, use interacting web browsers such as Cyworld and Facebook, and play games with different users. Digital technology is becoming the important part of people's society and respecting others in the internet is also important. In order to that reason, digital literacy is essential to learning skills, manners, opinions, etc.

[Terry Freedman]

I agree with you about netiquette, Sung, and it seems to me that being aware of cultural differences and how things are done in different cultures is becoming increasingly important in our 'flattened' world.

[Hyung Rae Roh]

Yes, I strongly believe in your opinion. Since there are lots of functions in the online, which can teach us some of the knowledge that we didn't know, the digital literacy is good. Also, as you said, digitally-literate person will be able to express their ownselves by creating a presentation, a podcast or a video. This way, others can know about others in different places and they can be friends. Furthermore, this is also a good idea. There are lots of chances to gain our technology skills and they could be expert on this. As your opinion, someone may think he is a not good at technology, but he actually is. Therefore, I agree with your opinion and being a digitally-literate person is also good.

[Andrew Robert Beadle]

I appreciate your views on digital literacy, but do you have any views that relate closely to our topic of "Entertainment Etiquette"? Have a look at my blog post on the idea, and lets see if we can't come up with some discussion that focuses more on our specific topic on the team grid.

[Terry Freedman]

Well, I think a large part of etiquette as far as entertainment is concerned relates to being more culturally aware as the world gets smaller.

[Terry Freedman]

Thanks, Hyung. I thik the part about knowing where people are geographically, and making friends, is very important. Thx for pointing that out.

[Terry Freedman]

pls see my previous reply

[Dang Wan Kim]

I think digital literacy is good for communicating because if we enter the website, then we can easily communicate with each others. In addition, by doing the digital literacy, we can share the informations, or giving the advice each others.

[Terry Freedman]

I agree, Dang.

[Désesquelle Chloé]

I think that we don't need technology for express our self. Sure; we know a lot of things about Internet and I'm the first one who is often on the computer, for don't say all the time... However, I don't think that we can grow up like that and also, we can't learn about us online. It's not good for us. Sometimes and for some people, it becomes a drug. Do you see how technology becomes dangerous ? We have to live in reality; technology is not reality for me. I like to use it, it's true but why I really use it ? Personally, just because I live in China and my friends, my family are in others countries. Every one has their reasons but can we just decrease the time where we are online ?
Therefore, about digitally literate, I agree on the fact that we know how to be safe in front of our computer; and that is a good thing.

[Terry Freedman]

Désesquelle, I think what you're saying is that it's ok to use technology for a purpose (like making and keeping in touch with friends overseas), but not to allow it to become an addiction. As a techno-addict I would definitely agree with you! Maybe, though, it's because it's all still a bit new. Like when I learnt to drive, I wanted to take the car oiut all the time. I'd drive out to the middle of nowhere just to drive back again! Now I mostly take the car out when I need to get somewhere. Maybe techno addiction is the same?

[Sean So]

I think that Digital Literacy is the idea of knowing what you use in technology and how you apply it to ur daily life. People around the world use the computer to socialize with friends and for powerpoints and work. Everyone in the world is capable to use technology in the right way and they should also have the freedom to epress themselves on the internet. I liked your part on your description of Digital Literacy. I also think that being a digital literacy person is also a good idea