Reading: Digital Skills, Digital Literacies and Media Literacy

For example, teaching digital skills would include showing students how to download images from the Internet and insert them into PowerPoint slides or webpages. Digital literacy would focus on helping students choose appropriate images, recognize copyright licensing, and cite or get permissions, in addition to reminding students to use alternative text for images to support those with visual disabilities.

Really interesting post by Maha Bali with some great real world examples.

Knowing the Difference Between Digital Skills and Digital Literacies, and Teaching Both

So often we only seem to have time for breezing through the skills and mentioning literacy. In my own work we deliver fewer and fewer daytime CPD opportunities, shorter twilights are delivered more often. Skills then become the main focus.

I’d be interested in knowing how much penetration digital literacy has in classrooms across Scotland?

Especially among staff who do not identify themselves as having digital skills?

An even more challenging read is: Media Literacy: 5 key concepts to teach this year

I am yet to see Microsoft or MinecraftEdu act in a way other than marketing and brand-building (ie scholarly).

and

Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power.
To learn this, kids need to be removed from the kind of dubious activity that ‘brands’ are doing to children with the willing co-operation of teachers. Point 5 – The message that goes with the device you place in the child’s hand was not created, designed or sold to make them more literate – and yet, we call it ‘digital literacy’ to mask the obvious effect of forcing one brand over another into kids education.

I’d like to see this discussed by a group of teachers who belong to different clubs, ADEs, MIEExperts, Google for Education Certified Innovators and the like. How do we deal with our bias when teaching? Do we walk the talk if we claim some sort of balancing act?

The featured image for this post is Public Domain: Image from page 108 of “Argument to errors of thought in science, religion and social life” (1911) | Flickr – Photo Sharing!