Digital learning is not about technology. It is about accessing information. It is about the facilitation of learning. It is about the creation of knowledge reservoirs that support deep learning opportunities. Is digital learning not the same as digital literacy? What are the differences and are we sharing the same definitions and should these definitions become intertwined within the educational process? "Digital Literacy" is a term that comes out of the fact that the internet has changed our world so drastically. Digital literacy is sometimes confused with technological literacy. Technology literacy is the understanding of how to use a computer. |
So when we think about research - it's more than knowing how to open a browser and Google a term. Digital Literacy when used with one's ability to access information becomes the act of continually identifying, selecting, and sharing the best and most relevant digital information within an interest domain. If we define digital literacy in these terms of the having the ability to read, write, interpret, speak and reason are we not in fact defining literacy. The ability to read and write a basic level of education obtained through the written word that expands in complexity through the act of reasoning.
The Ministry of Education in British Columbia defines digital literacy 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 in order to participate effectively in society”.
Maybe Barbara R. Jones-Kavalier and Suzanne L. Flannigan have already defined the term of educational process of digital learning: in an article post entitled Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century; defined digital literacy as; "A person's ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment ... Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments." This process of what defines digital literacy and digital learning being one in the same may include: the set of skills needed to collaboratively collect information from multiple sources, decipher and reduce shared information into segments of exactness, and reshape information into multimedia products that become new ideas with deeper meaning.
This idea of digital literacy is not founded on theory; it is founded in practice, something that education cannot package with programs based on educational theory. We now have a new model that is shifting away from informational delivery to informational construction. Access to information is no longer enclosed in the covers of texted filled manuscripts to be read by the lecture. Everyday students, and information gathers are building and sharing resources through the consumption of a free flow of information that replicates new chunks of information within millisecond. A new generation of social publishers is creating vast warehouses of information, digital content that is merged, and remixed into a new form of conceptual awareness. This is the generation that will create, publish and formulate new meanings of the world in which they live, virtually and semantically.
Viewing digital learning as an enhancement for information accessing and the creation of content is a tipping point in thinking, a vision for future learning. The tipping point in education today becomes meeting the challenge of ensuring that every student graduate from high school ready for college and a career. To meet this challenge of ensuring that every student, including low-income students and students of color, achieve their potential, schools will need to realign their present vision by establishing new priorities linked to the new 21st Century standards.These are the standards that will prepare students for the work place of the future. To face these challenges, educational leaders must come to grips with how our learning culture is changing. It is believed we're living at the instant of the greatest change in human communication history. We now have the capability of communicating instantly globally.
This idea of digital literacy is not founded on theory; it is founded in practice, something that education cannot package with programs based on educational theory. We now have a new model that is shifting away from informational delivery to informational construction. Access to information is no longer enclosed in the covers of texted filled manuscripts to be read by the lecture. Everyday students, and information gathers are building and sharing resources through the consumption of a free flow of information that replicates new chunks of information within millisecond. A new generation of social publishers is creating vast warehouses of information, digital content that is merged, and remixed into a new form of conceptual awareness. This is the generation that will create, publish and formulate new meanings of the world in which they live, virtually and semantically.
Viewing digital learning as an enhancement for information accessing and the creation of content is a tipping point in thinking, a vision for future learning. The tipping point in education today becomes meeting the challenge of ensuring that every student graduate from high school ready for college and a career. To meet this challenge of ensuring that every student, including low-income students and students of color, achieve their potential, schools will need to realign their present vision by establishing new priorities linked to the new 21st Century standards.These are the standards that will prepare students for the work place of the future. To face these challenges, educational leaders must come to grips with how our learning culture is changing. It is believed we're living at the instant of the greatest change in human communication history. We now have the capability of communicating instantly globally.