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Digital Literacy for Teaching

What is Digital Literacy?

We invite you to engage with us in exploring what digital literacy means to us all as educators, and how it can be applied in our classrooms and at our institution. Here are some of the definitions and models that inspire us:

  • ALA Digital Literacy Taskforce: “the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.”

  • Leeds Beckett University: "the confident and critical use of information and digital technologies to enhance academic, personal and professional development."

  • Jisc: "the capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society." Includes "information, data, and media literacies; digital creation, problem solving, and innovation; digital identity and wellbeing; digital communication, collaboration, and participation; digital learning and development; ICT proficiency." 

  • New Media Consortium: Three models of digital literacy, being universal literacy (basic use of office-productivity software and cloud-based productivity tools, web authoring, and image manipulation), creative literacy (more technical skills for content production including audio, video, animation, programming, and even computer hardware, as well as knowledge of copyright and digital citizenship), and literacy across disciplines (integration of digital literacy into the curriculum as it best fits into different disciplinary, departmental, and occupational contexts).

The National Council of Teachers of English proposes a set of outcomes for literate students in a digital age. They include:

  • Evaluate information critically and use it to accomplish a specific purpose 

  • Examine the rights, responsibilities, and ethical implications of the use and creation of information

  • Participate effectively and critically in a networked world

  • Explore and engage critically, thoughtfully, and across a wide variety of inclusive texts and tools/modalities

  • Consume, curate, and create actively across contexts

  • Advocate for equitable access to and accessibility of texts, tools, and information