--Originally published at Digital Identity
Literacy is a characteristic acquired by individuals in varying degrees from just above none to an indeterminate upper level. Some individuals are more or less literate than others but it is really not possible to speak of illiterate and literate persons as two distinct categories.
(UNESCO, 1957, quoted in Holme, 2004, p.7)
Digital skills vs Digital literacies
Nowadays, education on technology is mostly focused on skills, how to do this and that with the use of programs, rather than focusing on the real education we must have online and the appropriate ways we must follow in order to recognize everyone’s work. Taking that into consideration, and according to experts on the topic, digital educational can be classified on digital skills and digital literacies.
Digital skills
Is actually knowing how to do a task on internet or in a digital device. For example, how to make a post, upload a photo or a video, download music, install software, use PowerPoint to create a presentation and anything that focus on what I need to do and how.
Digital literacies
This concept comprises multiple skills and practices that are influenced by the people, time, places and cultural context. Digital literacy focus on choosing appropriate images, recognize copyright licensing, and cite or get permissions and using alternative text for images to support those with visual disabilities. It focusses on why, when, who, and for whom.
Doug Belshaw’s identifies eight essential elements of digital literacy: Cultural, Cognitive, Constructive, Communicative, Confidence, Creative, Critical & Civic(O’Byrne, 2016). These elements are crucial for digital literacy to exist and are of vital importance for understanding the concept. Digital literacy is the main or one of the main components that need to exist on digital citizenship because of the norms both are based on.
Digital literacy is not about the skills of using technologies, but how we use our judgment to maintain awareness of what we are reading and writing, why we are doing it, and whom we are addressing. (Bali, 2016)
Digital Citizenship
As I’ve wroth on a previous post there are many people that think that when going online the norms that apply in society are less restrictive or disappear at all, this conception has been the beginning of multiple social problems like discrimination, defamation and other topics that relate with a violation of the human rights. Online behavior should be guided by the same norms as the one we have face to face with the others. Therefore, the term digital citizenship has to do the norms of appropriate, responsible behavior with regard to technology use, what can be simply understand as behaving as good citizen online.
Being a citizen involves the same set of rules like on the actual world but the topics that are most popular are some like different, they had to do with the actual internet access, the communications, the rights, the security online and the digital literacy among others. But basically these elements are born from the principles of respect, educate and protect. And involve not only yourself but your relationship with others, so a norm could be to respect yourself and respect others. This is because online citizenship is highly influenced by the need of empathy (Couros, 2016).
Empathy is achieved by understanding people whose thoughts are different from yours and engaging with them online, trying to learn new things from them, despite the different cultural context they might exist. If used correctly social media can help us increase our cultural diversity, become more empathic and respectful citizens on the online world which is one of the ultimate objectives of digital citizenship.
Videoconference and interesting links
http://dmlcentral.net/critical-digital-citizenship-empathy-social-justice-online/
http://dmlcentral.net/wp-content/uploads/files/doug-belshaw-edd-thesis-final.pdf
References
Bali, M. (2016, February 3). Knowing the Difference Between Digital Skills and Digital Literacies, and Teaching Both. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2016/02/03/knowing-the-difference-between-digital-skills-and-digital-literacies-and-teaching-both
Couros, A. (2016). Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from http://digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html
Holme, R. (2004) Literacy: an introduction Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
O’Byrne, I. (2016, February). Perspectives of Digital Literacies. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from http://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2016/02/03/perspectives-of-digital-literacies
