Digital Literacy

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.

Getting kids to really focus on what exactly they are searching for, and then be able to further distill idea into a few key specific search terms is a skill that we must teach students, and we have to do it over and over again. We never question the vital importance of teaching literacy, but we have to be mindful that there are many kinds of "literacies". An ever more important one that ALL teachers need to be aware of is digital literacy. 

Across the Arab world young people have collaborated on Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to bring down entire regimes. Not one of them has been on a digital literacy course. And, in any case, who are these older teachers who know enough about digital literacy to teach these young people? And how do they teach it - through collaborative, communication on media using social media - NO. By and large this stuff is shunned in schools. We learn digital literacy by doing, largely outside of academe. To be frank, it's not something they know much about.

Physical metaphors for digital safety - by Nominet

Digitally literate or digitally skilled? @timbuckteeth explores

JISC funded project. CASCADE is designed to develop digital capability across the University of Exeter, focusing initially on the experience of postgraduate researchers and on the University's strengths in research-led teaching. Our mode of working is highly collaborative, with 'students as change agents' cascading digital know-how across the five Colleges. We also work in a scholarly way, researching the unique digital literacies of different subject areas and understanding existing practices with digital technology before working with staff and students to enhance them.

Developing student/staff digital capabilities through innovative practices.

The Scottish e-Assessment Forum, which is organised and facilitated by the JISC RSC Scotland, launched on the 24th November 2011. The forum came about due to discussions I had with people from further and higher education institutions across Scotland, where it became clear that there was a need and desire for dedicated time to discuss e-Assessment and share practice.

IC³ Gives You a Clear Advantage. If you're focusing on a future in computers, or any field that requires the use of computers, one certification can set you apart from the crowd. The Internet and Computing Core Certification (IC³®) provides students and job-seekers with the foundation of knowledge they need to succeed in environments that require the use of computers and the Internet. The Global Standard 3 is an internationally recognized standard for digital literacy and reflects the most relevant skills needed in today's academic and business environments.

A nice interactive tool explaining the key copyright issues around using particular resource types.

High school and college students may be "digital natives," but they're wretched at searching. In a recent experiment at Northwestern, when 102 undergraduates were asked to do some research online, none went to the trouble of checking the authors' credentials. In 1955, we wondered why Johnny can't read. Today the question is, why can't Johnny search?

VideoAmy explores the topic of digital citizenship with this playlist of 14 short videos on the importance of online safety, manners, privacy, and responsibility.

Google's five tips for staying safe online #esafety

#digitallityeracy and coding in schools - expect an update in 2014, says Guardian

"The session reinforced to me just how diverse people's views on digital literacies are. Most new to the field make the assumption that digital literacy is singular and consists of basic skills in the digital realm. In effect, digital competency. Those more experienced in the field, such as Helen Beetham, talk of the importance of this baseline - the 'ABC' of digital literacy as she called it, but higher-level skills as well."

JISC E- Safety Resources

Digital Literacy and social media in education is the focus of this blog post.