What is digital literacy?

                                          Understanding digital literacy 
My pet topic. Stop me when it gets boring ;)  
There are more than a million definitions of digital literacy. Seriously! 
Google and see.

Yet what I like best to say is that the 3 Rs of literacy - reading, writing and arithmetic, aren't enough anymore. Once upon a time, to be literate meant to be able to read and write and do a bit of Math. That’s no longer the story.

To be literate now means to be digitally literate; to be able to read and write and think using digital tools. 

UNESCO calls digital literacy a gate skill because employers seek the digitally literate. Our students need to be digitally literate if they're to succeed in the 21^st century workplace. To be productive professionally and personally. And to be successful as lifelong learners.  

                                             (This is one of my favourites.) Image credits. 
                              We have to work towards building lifelong learning habits in our students. 

There is a lot written about why digital literacy is the job of the English teacher. The gist is this – what language do our students use to read and write online? English. 

What language would they be required to use in their workplaces to read and write online? English. 

So there! That’s why digital literacy needs to be taught by the English teacher.  

Now you ask, so what is there to teach them? They know more about computers and the internet than we do.

You must be familiar with the discussion around terms like digital natives, digital immigrants, digital dinosaurs and digital luddites. Our students are digital natives - born to technology, fearless about trying tech devices, comfortable using technology and confident that they are in control. 

While, we, the digital immigrants, are most of the time scared we'll make a mistake and worried the computer will go up in flames!

                                            My nightmare the last twenty years. Image credits 

To get back to the question, so, what can we teach our students about using computers and the internet? 

The American Library Association defines digital literacy as the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, analyse, evaluate, use, create, and share information. (Clue: Pick up all the verbs.) 

Now note that digital literacy requires both cognitive and technical skills. This is where the teacher comes in.   

So, knowing how to operate a computer, send an email, read Facebook posts, send WhatsApp messages, make a YouTube video, download an app, or play PUBG, or even do them all at the same time won't make one digitally literate. 

            Being able to handle this does not make one digitally literate. Image credits 

Being digitally literate means, one is able to search for information online, evaluate its truthfulness, retrieve it, use it ethically to create new content, and then share that digital content with others in productive and meaningful ways. 

Ask yourself, how many of your students can do the following? 

1. Use technology tools to find and access content to meet specific goals

2. Evaluate and analyse information on the web 

3. Combine information on multiple websites to form personally meaningful learning

4. Present learning in new and innovative ways using technology tools 

5. Share their learning using technology tools that are audience-appropriate 

These are what make our students truly digitally literate.
In the classroom, this is what we have to make our students capable of doing. Because, this is what will help them succeed in the world outside classrooms.  

Many of us might be already doing this.  
Do you bring web content into your class to support your lectures? Do you talk to your students about websites to visit for additional information about a topic you taught in class? Or about practicing use of a grammar item on a website? 
Do you tell them about fake news forwards? Do you warn them about copying from websites? Do you make them aware that not all websites can be trusted? 
Do you inform them why images on the internet cannot be used without checking their licences? Do you educate them about diligent sharing of personal details on the internet? 
These are small steps we take to make our students digitally literate. 
But we need to do more. 

The next few posts on teaching digital literacy discuss basic or foundation-level activities to facilitate digital literacy skills in ESL students. Watching your students work, you can proudly say, 'my students are working as if I did not exist.' 

Go on, swag and slay, I say. 
Cheers to lifelong learning!