How would you define digital literacies? Share your definition of digital literacies for teaching, and provide some thoughtful insight as to how you arrived at this definition.
Having the skills you need to live, learn, and work in a society where communication and access to information is increasingly through digital technologies like internet platforms, social media, and mobile devices.
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Being able to use the current information and communication technologies and to adopt those coming in the future for fulfilling the needs in one’s professional and everyday life.
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Hi @iskrapopova, you make a great point about being able to adopt future technologies. Do you think this is something we can help learners with in the classroom?
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Welcome @johnisaac272 - You’re right that access to information is part of this… something which is often taken for granted, I think. Would you say that opening up access (enabling it in whatever way(s) we can) is part of digital literacy?
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Teaching the basics of how today’s technologies operate, not only how to use them, might help learners being able to understand the future developments and adopt them easily.
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In terms of ‘what digital literacy means to me’ , I think of ‘literacy’ (rightly or not) as having knowledge of words, their meanings, the skills to use them in appropriate places and how they can be adapted to interconnect and enable understanding, and facilitate meaningful communication. Considering that thought has just emerged from my head (without any prior thought!), it feels pretty spot on, so I will stick with it. Reading in the context of ‘digital literacy’, my thought becomes a useful analogy. For ‘words’ I could substitute ‘digital tools’, for ‘meanings’ substitute ‘uses’, for ‘understanding’ substitute ‘appreciation’ and for ‘communication’ substitute ‘application’ (of ideas and technology). This would therefore make my thought regarding digital literacy for teaching (albeit a bit ‘clunky’):
‘Having knowledge of digital tools, their uses, the skills to use them in appropriate places and how they can be adapted to interconnect and enable appreciation and facilitate meaningful application in a learning environment’
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