Digital Literacy – Why we need to close the gap

The first time I interacted with a computer (that I can remember), I was a few years old, and was playing “The Game of Life” computer game with my siblings with a CD-ROM we got from a cereal box. I didn’t really know how anything worked other than just clicking where my brother told me to click. As I got older, I was allowed to use the computer more independently. We had an Encarta CD that I spent hours and hours on, listening to music files from random instruments and playing the mini-game where you had to answer trivia questions to proceed through a medieval-style castle. Between that, Kid Pix, and Math Munchers Deluxe, I was playing a host of “games” that were constantly engaging me both intellectually and creatively.

So what does that have to do with “Digital Literacy”? Before we get there, let’s define it. Our own Ministry of Education (2020) in British Columbia defines it as “the interest, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital technology and communication tools to access, manage, integrate, analyze and evaluate information, construct new knowledge, create and communicate with others”. Simply put, like anything else, being immersed in something at a young age makes it considerably easier to become proficient at it. I was lucky to have a decent amount of access to technology from a young age, and having some freedom in exploring that allowed me to be comfortable using digital forms of learning/creating, despite a lack of instruction in it via the education system I was a part of. In today’s society, what it means to be literate is constantly evolving, and the aspect of digital literacy is becoming more and more important. As Cihak et al. (2015) point out:

“[T]he term “literacy” must be expanded beyond its traditional meaning of the ability to read and write to reflect the skills needed to interpret and understand information presented through the existing realm of digital media”.

Within this understanding of the realm of digital media lies more than just using a search engine. It includes being able to:

• Independently find and store relevant information for easy retrieval
• Use various programs for writing, recording, and creating
• Familiarize yourself with “digitalk“, also known as texting language (Hicks and Turner, 2013)

In fact, one of the main keys of digital literacy is to allow students to have the ability to do their own research, without being constrained to one pre-assigned text or article. This is not a shift of burden to teach, but instead empowerment of students to not only be better learners, but also have greater skills in critical thinking. Chase and Laufenberg (2011) sum this up nicely here by saying

“With access to technology, learning is in the hands of the students. The teacher, then, fills the role of knowledge node rather than fountain of knowledge”.

This paradigm shift can result in a new form of teaching, where educators can focus on facilitating learning as opposed to just trying to disseminate information required by curricula standards.

Unfortunately, as Hicks and Turner (2013) point out, not every school is created equally. Engaging with digital literacy will not look the same in every class (nor should it), and funding will always continue to be an issue. In many ways, teachers with less access to tech are expected to find workarounds to fulfill these crucial skill developments, and therefore we must be cautious so as to not run before we can walk. Furthermore, Cihak et al. (2015) showed that we must consider those with intellectual disability when talking of digital literacy. Our approaches to teaching digital literacy must reflect the diversity of our students just as our teaching of normal literacy does. On a positive note, that same study by Cihak et al. (2015) showed that those with moderate intellectual disability not only took to new technology well, but that it increased their feelings of social validity, and created a foundation of skills that they both maintained and built off.

It can be overwhelming to think of all the things you could do to teach digital literacy. Personally, I would love to employ a system in which I could introduce topics, allow students to research those topics via many sources, and then seeing what they bring back to me. I purposefully would have very few limitations on these sorts of tasks, as I think it’s more important for students to learn what to do through trial and error than to simply follow a checklist of items. How many times have you been told not to use Wikipedia in your life (and then used it anyways)? The ability to critically examine information does not come from being constantly told exactly what to do, but in searching out the truth yourself. In preparation for tasks like this, basic skills like where to look for sources, how to bookmark, etc. should be taught, and it’s off these building blocks that I hope our students become not just become digitally literate, but true digital citizens.

References

British Columbia Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Digital literacy. Province of British Columbia. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/education-training/k-12/teach/teaching-tools/digital-literacy

Chase, Z., & Laufenberg, D. (2011). Embracing the squishiness of digital literacy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(7), 535-537. https://doi.org/10.1598/jaal.54.7.7

Cihak, D., Wright, R., Smith, C., McMahon, D., & Kraiss, K. (2015). Incorporating functional digital literacy skills as part of the curriculum for high school students with intellectual disability. Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 50(2), 155-171. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24827532

Hicks, T., & Turner, K. H. (2013). No longer a luxury: Digital literacy can’t wait. The English Journal, 102(6), 58-65. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24484127