So, what are these new digital literacy skills? Why are they so important and how can every teacher focus on the development of these in every lesson? Good questions!
Certainly, for future employment success, students will have to develop the full scope of literacy. The TechEdvocate provides a list of 8 “fluencies” that students will require in order to be successful in the 21st Century. In the article, they state:
Gone are the days where computer class was spent playing Oregon Trail and creating word processing documents. The networked world in which students exist demands an education that prepares students to produce and consume information in a variety of formats. These formats range from text to images to multimedia. Students need a broad variety of fluencies to be prepared for the 21st-century workforce.
In a 2017 article I wrote for Campus Technology, I suggest:
The growing challenge over the last several decades is that new technology and various new media have altered how meaning is constructed — how language is used, and therefore, what literacy involves.
Therefore, students may struggle more with conventional reading and writing activities than with activities that involve new media and digital environments. Teachers should focus on the entire environment within which the information is being presented to students and how students are interacting with the information, in order to truly address literacy development well. Also, in the article I suggest:
We now have younger students who can decipher meaning from short visual cues, modified text and only when themedia are mixed. That is, long scrolls of text are not read, but hotlinks are used to web out the logic and to createan understanding that is not dependent upon conventional literacy skills but a new literacy that exchanges meaningdifferently and, as such, uses language differently.
TIP: Broaden your understanding of literacy in order to help students succeed.
Coming up next, “I don’t have time to worry about literacy!” - Stay tuned...