Digital Literacy is the need for Educators

The meaning of "digital literacy" has shifted over the years. While there was a time when job candidates were encouraged to list "Proficient at Microsoft Word" on their resume, now such skills are considered standard. This shift toward a technologically savvy workforce has permeated the classroom as well.

It makes sense to assume that the more digitally literate our educators are, the more they'll employ these skills in the classroom, which will in turn foster a strong sense of digital citizenship in our students. However, the importance and scope of digital literacy extends beyond this simple theory. Here, we've laid out reasons why digital literacy skills are important for today's educators.

Creating Thoughtful Cultural and Platform Decisions

Good educators know how their students engage and learn and can use that knowledge to push for technology that will unlock new teaching potential. This makes digitally literate educators great advocates for the appropriate technologies. These skills become increasingly important in diverse classrooms in which students are bringing different cultural contexts into the mix. Both the content and the technologies chosen may vary in effectiveness given a student’s familiarity with the tools and the various norms within their culture.

Improving the Technology

While the technology created may be sound, whether or not it’s actually relevant to the classroom is debatable. And since educators aren’t regularly consulted to see what tech solutions they need for their classrooms, there are a wealth of potential products that are never made in the first place.

Heading Beyond Google

Students with access to a computer and the Internet are able to find the answers to not only simple questions, but also incredibly complex problems. However, there is a significant difference between Googling an answer and understanding why. Simply Googling an answer does not provide students with true, exact, deep learning. And while most students understand how to use a search engine, it is up to educators to provide students with the additional skills to bring the answers to the next level.

There are several ways educators can embed digital literacy skills into Internet searches:

Teach students to evaluate and question their sources.  Students need to know the difference between a reliable and unreliable source.

• Is their source an academic website or a marketing company?
• When was the source last updated?
• How many other sites link to this source as a reference?
• Is the information presented in objective or biased language?

Teach students how to draw a strong conclusion. Sure, students might find the right answer to a problem, but what use is that search if they’ve only memorized the logic to get them there? It’s up to educators to teach that logic and to contextualize the answer.

Encourage students to new levels of creativity. Once students have a deeper understanding of the answers they’ve found, push for creative application of that knowledge. This could be anything from challenging students to pose related questions to having students use other digital platforms to create something new.

Closing the Digital Divide

Students in schools struggle to take advantage of the tools, platforms, apps and resources available to their connected peers. But this digital divide isn’t just in schools — there is also a lack of access to devices and broadband at home. The divide is pervasive and accentuates already destructive achievement gaps. Digitally literate educators advocate for change and seek innovative solutions.

Teaching Digital Citizenship

Being a good digital citizen means understanding and applying appropriate and responsible uses of internet and technology. Two issues top the list when it comes to digital citizenship: academic plagiarism and cyber bullying.

Academic Plagiarism 

In a culture where students are constantly sharing content, they may not know what plagiarism is, let alone when they’re doing it. Educators should set clear anti-plagiarism policies at the beginning of each year.

Cyberbullying

Is that takes place through the use of electronic technology, and is a pervasive issue in schools and online communities. And while today’s students may be digital natives, they still need to be taught that social norms apply to online behavior. Resources should be in place to prevent cyberbullying and to help students who are being bullied.

Expanding Conceptions of the Digital World

While students may be adept at using digital tools, their understanding of what these tools can do is often limited. Students use Facebook to post photos but don’t think to use the platform for art or history projects. They record themselves with a voice memo app but do not realize those apps could also be used for journalism projects or a historical narrative piece. Digitally literate educators know how to inspire students to use today's technology as a powerful toolset to expand their learning opportunities. 

Enabling Differentiation

It is essential to meeting the needs of all learners, but it is time-consuming, especially for new educators. Technology, when used creatively and correctly, can be used to mitigate those differences, such as in one-to-one classrooms. Educators can lead the class through a lecture, while visual learners follow along with illustrations on their tablets and audio learners record the lecture for later review. Technology like this enables educators to give their students choice in the kind of work they create for projects, such as a video, podcast or written story. Digital literacy is required in order to set the standards and boundaries for this kind of differentiation.

Ms. Sakshi Chhabra

Assistant Professor.

Dept. of Management Studies