Emotional Literacy Refers to the Ability to Read and Respond to:
Chapter 1: Introduction to Digital Literacy
Cheryl Brown
Overview
In this chapter, you volition be introduced to the concept of digital literacy and what new skills are needed in club to engage with the digital world responsibly and effectively. Drawing on your ain digital experiences you volition think most your digital literacy and digital footprint, developing positive strategies to proactively take control of your own digital identity.
Chapter Topics
- Introduction
- Taking Stock of Your Digital self
- What is Digital Literacy?
- Why is Digital Literacy Important?
- Improving Your Digital Literacy: Condign a Digital Citizen
After completing this chapter you lot should be able to:
- Draw the means yous employ technology in your personal life and for learning
- Compare the different means digital literacy has been referred to by scholars
- Examine how digital literacy differs between people based on the context in which they live and learn and the way they use engineering
- Use a basic framework to appraise your own digital literacy
- Reflect on your digital footprint
- Develop strategies to control your own digital identity
Introduction
As digital technology has get more common, affordable, and portable, more and more people from all parts of gild are starting to increase their online and digital participation. Understanding the new opportunities, rules, and potential pitfalls of the digital world doesn't necessarily come automatically with long-term use. Not everyone using digital technology knows how to handle the range of available tools to their all-time extent, and even experienced digital technology users can fall prey to hackers, lose control of how they are represented online, or otherwise neglect to maintain their digital identity in an optimal fashion.
is a relatively new concept that emerged in the 1990s during the era of the Internet revolution. Before that, people talked more about "computer literacy." But in 1997, Paul Gilster, a historian and educator offset coined the term "digital literacy," arguing that digital literacy went beyond just skills in using technology. He said it is well-nigh "mastering ideas, not [calculator] keystrokes" (Gilster, 1997, p. i).
Gilster (1997) further defined digital literacy as "the power to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when information technology is presented via computers" (p. 1). For him, digital literacy involves the ability to critically evaluate information (presented in dissimilar formats) and brand decisions virtually how to utilise this information in different real-life contexts.
By the end of this chapter you will exist able to define the concept of digital literacy and its many dissimilar components, reflect on your own digital literacy, engage with the digital world responsibly, and be empowered equally a digital citizen capable of helping others learn and develop their function in the digital world.
Taking Stock of Your Digital Cocky
You probably already use a range of technologies and digital tools in different aspects of your life. Y'all might use mobile technologies, similar a phone or tablet, to download materials or information from the Internet, or yous may use them to communicate with friends and family unit. You may use information and communication technologies (ICT) mainly for piece of work or for learning, or y'all might use it primarily for entertainment. In reality, people oft apply different technologies and tools for a mixture of purposes.
Call up about all the ways yous use technology in your personal life (e.yard. for entertainment, shopping, sharing photos, communicating with people, etc). Who practise you interact with digitally, and how practise you do this (i.e., what applications/websites practice you use and for which purpose)? Now remember well-nigh yourself as a student and the ways you use technology for learning?
Make a list or depict a diagram of your activities, noting the groups or networks you collaborate with digitally and thinking about how you use digital engineering in the diverse spheres of your life.
You lot might similar to try doing this digitally using this editable mind map about digital footprints on creatly.com or by making a cartoon of your digital cocky on paper.
What is Digital Literacy?
The Concept of Literacy
Allow's first start with "What is literacy?" Dictionaries define literacy as the ability to read and write. Within pedagogy, literacy is understood as the ability to read, write, and utilize arithmetic; the emphasis is on proficiency with linguistic communication and numeracy.
It is of import to intermission and note that the term literacy has always held a caste of status. Globally, countries are often ranked in terms of literacy rates, compared by what percent of the adult population can read and write, for instance. There is more complexity to the terms literate or illiterate, however, and a lot depends on context. "New literacy studies" view literacy as a situated practice; every bit in it all depends on where you come up from and what your purpose is.
Utilise a mutual search engine like Google and type the term "literacy" into the search bar. Select the option to view the results equally images and scroll through the visual depictions of literacy. What do these images depict about the concept of literacy?
Much of what you find in your search will probably suggest a relationship between literacy and words. This may be attributed to the fact that the concept has traditionally been associated with language—i.due east., alphabetic literacy. In popular employ, the word literacy has increasingly become a synonym for skill, competence, and proficiency—for instance, emotional literacy and spiritual literacy, etc.
Whatever your view of the give-and-take literacy, what is less questioned is the relationship between literacy and technology. Until quite recently, literacy has, for the well-nigh part, been associated with print engineering science. The increasingly important role that digital technology has taken in shaping our globe has led to another defining moment in the evolution of literacy.
The Concept of Digital
So what is digital? When y'all thought virtually your in Activity 1.ane, yous probably thought near the digital tools and technologies that are available to you. For example: "Oh, I apply text messaging on my cell phone to communicate with friends." Or: "I use email at university on my laptop or in the computer lab to communicate with faculty." But the digital role (just like literacy) depends on context. The technology that you employ and may fifty-fifty take for granted is not the same engineering that your grandparents apply or that students in another country employ. This is why the concept of digital literacy is more oft now referred to as digital literacies as a plural, acknowledging the variability of what is both available and relevant.
Digital Literacy
Since the pioneering introduction of computers into instruction in the 1960s, four fundamental concepts that have dominated the literature on literacies related to digital engineering include: information literacy, media literacy, computer literacy, and digital literacy (Chocolate-brown, Czerniewicz, Huang & Mayisela, 2016). These iv literacies are not competing, only in fact are necessary components of what it means to be literate in the 20-first century. The table below presents an outline of the different terms and how they intersect:
| Information Literacy | Media Literacy | Estimator Literacy | Digital Literacy | |
| Definition | the ability to locate, place, recollect, process and utilize digital information optimally (UNESCO, 2011) | the ability to admission the media, to sympathise and to critically evaluate different aspects of the media and media content, and to create communications in a variety of contexts (European Commission, 2007) | a set of user skills that enable active participation in a society where services and cultural offerings are computer supported and distributed on the Net (UNESCO, 2011) | those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital guild (JISC, 2015) |
| Primary Focus | information retrieval and assessment of quality | evaluation and production of media texts | skills in the utilise of computer-related technology | innovation, collaboration, lifelong learning |
The concept of digital literacy but started to gain attention in the last decade. Initially digital literacy was viewed primarily as the functional skills and competencies that people needed in order to utilise computers and the Internet. Notwithstanding in the last decade this has been expanded to consider the broader capacity needed to participate in a digital environment. UNESCO (2011) views digital literacy every bit a life skill that not only increases employability, but serves as a catalyst that "enables the conquering of other important life skills" (p. 1).
The view of digital literacy offered by Jisc (2015) is even more comprehensive, defining digital literacy as "the capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society" (para. 3). The capabilities outlined by Jisc:
- information, media, data literacy (critical apply);
- digital creation, scholarship and innovation (artistic product);
- digital communication, collaboration and participation (participating);
- digital learning and personal/professional evolution (learning); and
- digital identity and wellbeing (cocky-actualising).
(JISC, 2015)
Beyond functional and critical skills, the definitions and identified hither propose a particular mindset, a way of being. In particular, the last three capabilities outlined—the abilities to engage in participatory culture, to be a lifelong learner, and to manage a professional digital identity—render digital literacy remarkably different from the initial views of digital literacy but as mastery of technical skills.
Why is Digital Literacy Important?
You might be familiar with the concept of a "" or the "." These terms refer to the idea that a person who has been born or brought up during the age of digital engineering will exist familiar with computers and the Internet from an early historic period.
In that location are many cartoons online that annotate on the agreeable side of this concept. Do a search on Google (or your favourite search engine) for "digital native" a drawing. Y'all might see images of kids looking at a volume with shock and asking each other, "Where is the 'on' button?" Or you might see a child returning domicile from school walking correct past their parent exclaiming, "How do you think it was? They didn't even have Wi-Fi!"
In fact, this generational desire to be constantly connected has even been inserted into Maslow's hierarchy of needs as the ultimate foundation of basic man needs. This psychological model is depicted every bit a pyramid with people's basic survival needs every bit its foundation which need to exist satisfied earlier people tin can realise their full potential (Figure 1.3).
However, at that place has been a lot of criticism most the concept of the digital native because it assumes many things, not least that somehow all immature people have access to technology, that older people don't have the same level of digital literacy as younger people, and that having access to technology automatically means you know how to use it.
So if immature people are so adept at using digital technologies, why do they (and perhaps you for that affair) need to amend their digital literacy?
There are many answers, and hopefully this introduction has already hinted at some of them. One is that it'south not plenty in this globally continued globe to just be able to use engineering science. Y'all need to exist able to develop socially responsible digital practices and as well to contribute to digital practices in your ain personal, piece of work, and learning lives.
One way of visualizing this is Sharpe and Beetham's (2010) digital literacy development model (see Figure 1.4).
The pyramid represents a cyclical process for developing digital literacy skills. At the base of the pyramid is awareness of technology and access to it. However, just because you have a slice of hardware or software doesn't mean you have the ability to apply it finer. As you spend more time using technology, you go more than confident in your technical, data, advice, and learning skills. Y'all can then begin to apply those skills to make informed decisions and choices almost how to use different technologies. As yous move through the bicycle, your experiences and practices contribute to the formation of your digital identity, while your identity informs your practices and drives the creative and appropriate use of technology.
Improving Your Digital Literacy: Becoming a Digital Citizen
This volume is aimed at helping yous develop your digital literacy in a range of areas in order to go a digital citizen.
Why not take stock of where you lot are correct now. How digitally literate are you, and practise you know what that means?
Download this model of the digital literacy evolution framework and complete information technology while thinking nearly your access, skills, practices and identities. This will help you accept stock of where you are now and assistance y'all focus on where you want to develop.
Explore Your Digital Identity
refers to your "online self," the side of you that people meet on the Internet. We all have different identities in unlike contexts and one of the things about being a digital denizen is the ability to control the representation of yourself in the online surroundings.
Search for references to yourself on the Cyberspace by looking up your proper name using your preferred search engine. What do you have to type in to discover the "real yous" and not either someone else with the aforementioned name or a one-dimensional representation of you? Is this an accurate representation of who you are, what your interests are, what you discover interesting, and what you share with others online?
One time yous've reviewed your search results, have a look at this TedX talk "What Do Your Digital Footprints Say Nigh Yous?" past digital educational activity and social media expert Nicola Osbourne.
Were you happy with the results of the search in Activity i.v? Is there something yous would like to modify? One of the issues with information online is that one time it is there, it is ofttimes very difficult to delete. Being aware of what you share online is a very of import digital skill.
Using the image below (Figure one.5), reflect on your . Decide on some (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound), and place how you want the virtual "you" to look to the various people who might see you online: friends, family (including your grandmother!), teachers and professors, coaches, neighbours, potential employers, potential dates, or complete strangers.
This volume is aimed at helping you develop your digital literacy in a range of areas in order to become a ameliorate digital citizen. By the end of this book, you will exist able to more effectively and responsibly:
- Engage in digital practices.
- Critically evaluate information, online interactions, and online tools.
- Manage and communicate information.
- Collaborate and share digital content.
References
Brownish, C., Czerniewicz., L., Huang, C-W., & Mayisela., T. (2016). Curriculum for digital instruction leadership: A concept paper. Burnaby, BC: Commonwealth of Learning. Retrieved from http://oasis.col.org/handle/
European Commission (2007). A European approach to media literacy in the digital environment. Retrieved from http://eur-lex.europa.european union/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM%3A2007%3A0833%3AFIN%3AEN%3APDF
Gilster, P. (1997). Digital Literacy. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
JISC. (2015). Developing students' digital literacy. Retrieved from https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/developing-students-digital-literacy
Sharpe, R. & Beetham, H. (2010) Agreement students' uses of technology for learning: Towards creative appropriation. In R. Sharpe, H. Beetham and S. de Freitas (Eds.) Rethinking learning for a digital age: how learners shape their experiences, (pp. 85-99). Routledge Falmer, London and New York. Retrieved from https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/
UNESCO Institute for Data Technologies in Educational activity. (2011, May). Digital literacy in education policy brief. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002144/214485e.pdf
Source: https://pressbooks.library.ryerson.ca/digcit/chapter/chapter-1/
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