Digital Literacy

    Digital technology enables teachers to facilitate learner-based tasks for students which enable them, ultimately, to teach and to learn from one another.  Lindsay and Davis’s article prompts reluctant teachers to take advantage of Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and wikis, to provide a collaborative academic framework which can transcend the physical limits of homes, classrooms, or nations.  As the article stated, knowing how to navigate these tools and how to conduct oneself properly in these forums could impact the formation of e-portfolios which may be accessed by prospective colleges or employers.
    “Point of View on Technology Drivers’ Licenses” advocates ensuring that students demonstrate basic knowledge regarding digital media before accessing the privileges of its use; the authors describe the relative lawlessness of the frontiers of the flattened digital world.  Indeed, the thought has occurred to me more than once through this class that the Internet and other electronic advances behave much like the old American West.  In the same way that Anglo-American civilization pushed west before law enforcement and jurisprudence could catch up, so do digital technologies strain ethical, judicial, legislative, social, and emotional conventions, requiring creativity and innovation in response.  Digital literacy is an essential component of both development of and response to questions raised by the evolution of technology; how can people manage tools which they understand little?
    Because of this “flattening” of the world, of the pervasive elements of electronic media in our culture, and of their potential, students need to know how to use technology and how to obtain accurate and credible information from its portals. They also need to know how to cite it, to discuss it, to share it, and to behave while doing so.  Neglecting these aspects of their education would do them a tremendous disservice.