Shonell in TCR Land

If you were to think of digital literacy as a two-tiered model, standard skills and advanced skills, how would you characterize each?  Speculate as to what skills will be required in the not too distant future (say 5-10 years)?

In last week’s Internet Writing class, we ran into several graphics that attempted to illustrated what digital literacy is, including the convoluted graphic below.

Needless to say, this graphic left me in a state of confusion; however, it also illustrated to me that multiliteracy or media literacy or digital literacy, whatever the catch phrase is for it these days, is a complex entity. A lot of components go into this form of literacy and as a result, someone’s idea of what skills fit into a specific level of digital literacy may not be the same as another’s list of skills. We are still in the stage of trying to figure that out. And I suspect it will be a continuous “figuring out” as new digital devices are created every day that challenge us to rethink our previous thoughts.

Having said this, if I had to state standard and advanced skills for digital literacy, they would be as follows:

Digital Literacy: Standard Skills

• Device operation – the ability to turn on and do basic device operations; and even this would have to be explained because there are levels of understanding for device operation. For example, if we’re talking about a laptop/computer, is knowing how to defrag your system a standard or advanced skill? If we’re talking about blogging, posting a blog could be a standard skill and knowing how to tag effectively could be another standard skill or an advanced skill.
• Using – this goes beyond device use, like being able to turn on and off a laptop, but being able to work applications within the device. When I bought my mom her first computer years ago, she hated the manuals that came with it, so I wrote a manual for her that had the simplest things like turning on and off the computer, but also had what I considered to be basic/standard skills, skills she would immediately need because I knew of what she planned to do with the computer: how to surf the Internet; how to open Word, create a document, save it, print it, and send it via e-mail; how to send (and attach documents to) e-mail; etc.
• Maneuvering – this would probably tie into the first two, but there is standard maneuverability that is needed. For me, that means the ability to play with the system, with the applications, to learn through mistakes, to not be afraid to learn through mistakes–I guess, in a sense, comfortability with systems one partakes in.

Digital Literacy: Advanced Skills