"Digital literacy is the ability to effectively and critically navigate, evaluate and create information using a range of digital technologies. This ability is essential in the context of your personal, educational and working life. This page is focused on digital literacy in the context of your career."
We have created a Digital Literacies Toolkit aimed at helping students explore the educational uses of Web 2.0 tools and develop good practice in the use of social software and the internet. It's open to all to use
This resource is designed to support primary and secondary teachers to integrate the development of students' digital literacy into everyday learning. The materials, developed with primary and secondary school teachers as part of Futurelab's digital participation project, can be downloaded from our website.
The RIN is co-ordinating the development of the Research Information and Digital Literacies Coalition (RIDLs): a coalition of partners working together to promote the value of information and research data literacy for academic researchers; and to enable activities which help to advance this knowledge and skills.
Over the past 18 months I've been having a series of discussions with Bill Johnston (a colleague of mine here at Strathclyde) around notions information and digital literacy and of what it means to be a digital university.
Enjoyed this 40min presentation by Doug Belshaw on Dig Lit
Do we even know what literacy is? Same word can have different meanings
He suggests 8 elements for discussion:
Can you guess what they are from these chemical-like symbols? First one done to give you a start!
Cu-culture
Cg
Cn
Co
Cf
Cr
Ct
Ci
Learn how to identify, locate, evaluate, organise and effectively use information. This is an excellent set of information literacy materials, paid for by the Scottish Government.
Authority. Authenticity. Ownership. Perspective. These four pillars make up the critical facets of the information we consume -- and understanding them makes us and our students wiser users of information.
However, on the web, people often make assumptions about the authority and authenticity of information, and it can be challenging to understand ownership and perspective. The Glean Who-Is Tool help you and your students learn to investigate web-based content sources. By using technical information about websites ("whois"), along with historical and factual information, the tool encourages us to dig more deeply, to understand more thoroughly, and to critique more closely.
At Cardiff University, the Digidol team are investigating how what they call "digital literacy" can be embedded in all staff and students across all levels and areas of the university. The project is one of 12 being funded at different institutions by JISC, an expert on information and digital technologies for education and research, and I interviewed members of the team for one of a series of podcasts for the organisation recently.
"The Minister for Education and Skills, Leighton Andrews AM, commissioned a review of digital classroom teaching in September 2011.
He set up an external task and finish group to lead the review. The aim was to identify 'which digital classroom delivery aspects should be adopted to transform learning and teaching' for those aged 3 to 19."
Includes a link to the report: "Find it, make it, use it, share it: learning in digital Wales" which has many references to the importance of Information Literacy in education.
Scholars and teachers alike agree that today's students need more than alphabetic literacy to communicate effectively in a world increasingly suffused with digital media and information.
Literacy today depends on understanding the multiple media that make up our high-tech reality and developing the skills to use them effectively. A 2006 article from Educause Quarterly Magazine
Hector Peebles, multimedia & community editor and David Kernohan, Jisc programme manager, share their thoughts on how to be at the forefront of social media trends, whilst keeping up to date with current affairs and continuing to digest information for work or pleasure. Hector and David have put their heads together to provide you with information on the tools you can use to help you manage your time and track topics of interest.
Rutgers RIOT (Research Information Online Tutorial) Lessons in selecting a topic, finding resources, selecting keywords, identifying citations and evaluating sources.