A little About Digital Literacy
We have all heard the term literacy before, as in the ability
to be literate in reading or writing, but what about digital literacy? How can someone
become digitally literate?
According to mediasmarts.ca digital literacy is the ability
to authenticate information, manage privacy, address cyberbullying, and be safe
online. These 5 criteria can be used as a guideline to evaluate your digital literacy
skills. We can also think about ourselves as creating a digital citizenship. This
is when we are confident and have a positive engagement with digital
technology. A digital citizen is a person with the skills and knowledge to
effectively use digital technologies to participate in society, communicate
with others and create and consume digital content (esaftey.gov.au). When you
think about yourself using these skills do you think you could say you are
digitally literate?
At this point in our teaching careers we have all heard of 4
C’s of the 21st century learning skills; collaboration,
communication, critical thinking, and creativity. As you can see in “The Learning
and Thinking Skills of the 21st Century Students” poster, it includes
digital literacy and digital citizenship as skills required to become a successful
learner. We need to be thinking about how to implement digital literacy skills in
our classrooms. Here are a few videos and resources I found helpful:
Introduction to digital literacy:
Curriculum guide for Manitoba:
A lesson plan for K-2 on how to choose reliable resources:
All in all, technology is a part of our everyday lives
whether we like it or not. As teachers, it is our job to prepare our students to
be successful learners in the digital age. We exist in a society where we are
heavily influenced and engaged in the digital world so we need to be able to
navigate through it confidently and safely. Our students need to be taught to
evaluate information, navigate through digital resources, check to see if
something is copy-written (as I have recently learned a lot about!), how to
protect yourself online, how to demonstrate positive digital citizenship… wow, I feel
like this list is getting pretty long, if only there was a way to help condense
it in a meaningful way… oh wait! There is. Here is a Wordle I found highlighting important features of digital literacy.
Sources:
http://mediasmarts.ca/teacher-resources/digital-literacy-101
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