Critical Digital Literacy: Definitions & Frameworks

What Is Critical Digital Literacy?

I believe that the term ‘critical digital literacy’ is one that allows for numerous definitions depending on the perspective and understanding of the concepts it encompasses. Based on my current understandings, I have created my own definition:

Critical digital literacy is the necessary skills needed to enable a person to interact with society through the use, understanding, and creation of digital media.

The capability to effectively use technology is crucial to accurately understanding their content and appropriately participating, oneself in digital spaces. This is especially clear to myself because much of the information around me is transmitted through digital technology.

Shaping My Learning

In EDUC3910, critical digital literacy is the topic of concern and my beginning knowledge of what this term means will shape my learning in this course. In order to be successful in this course which takes place completely online, it is a requirement that I become proficient in the digital world. This will allow me to effectively communicate with my classmates and professor on a continuous basis. For me to be able to do this, I aim to learn new and creative ways to display information digitally on this blog. I will also use a critical mindset as I research information and become familiar with various digital media. This will ensure that I receive new and accurate knowledge in my digital explorations and do not fall victim to accepting information at face value simply due to visual appeal. These digital skills will hopefully improve throughout this course and enable me to use the digital world in more proficient and effective ways in additional courses of study.

(Tree Octopus, 2018)

In my upcoming professional teaching, critical digital literacy will be a topic that I include in every subject that I teach my students. As it is especially important in today’s society that students learn to use digital spaces and participate in them safely and effectively, I believe it should be incorporated into their daily learning. This is one reason that digital literacy truly is ‘critical’. As well, student must learn to be critical of what they encounter through digital media to determine whether the information they are viewing is fact or fiction. The necessity for students to develop this skill is exemplified by a fellow classmate of mine. She provided me with a link to a fictional website about a “tree octopus” that a classroom of grade four students were shown one day. The students were to complete a research project on an animal and the lesson was used to teach students that not all information found digitally is factual, while many students believed it to be, simply by seeing the webpage. I found that this was a fantastic example of why every person needs to learn to be critical towards the digital world early.

Frameworks

There are two frameworks I have examined that express critical digital literacy in ways that I found effective and understandable.

Ontario Education, Competencies for 21^stCentury Skills (2016), provides various technologies and connects them with the learning practices they can be used to teach and the skills in which this will develop. 

As the form of technology I am using right now is a blog, I will use it to provide an example of how this is done. This framework expresses blogs as a technology in the category of social and collaboration. Thus, a blog can be used to teach concepts such as student voice and choice or inquiry-based learning. As a result, students will develop communication, collaboration, and critical thinking competencies (21st Century Competencies, 2016).

eCampus Ontario Extend, 21^stCentury Educators, displays the teacher as a teacher for learning, curator, technologist, collaborator, scholar, and experimenter ("Home | Ontario Extend", n.d.). Connecting this to digital literacy, it is clear that a teacher must approach the topic from a variety of viewpoints to reach the students and better inform themselves as well.

(21st Century Educators, n.d.)

When I explained the “tree octopus” above, this framework was shown in a practical example. In this scenario, the teacher had to become an experimenter and test whether the students would believe that the website provided factual information or not. The results of the experiment then showed that the students required more skill development in critically analyzing their digital world.

Teaching & Learning Practices Using Frameworks

My current teaching and learning practices ‘fit in’ to the first framework, specifically in the category of hybrid and mobile technologies because I personally use a laptop to access the majority of my information on a daily basis and through my exploration I engage in self-directed learning. 

In terms of the second framework mentioned, this is the framework I aim to apply in every lesson I teach in the future. Applying different perspectives will better allow the students to understand new messages in full. A teacher cannot teach from one distinct viewpoint and expect all of their students to understand.

In regard to my future teaching, however, the eCampus Ontario Extend, 21^stCentury Educators framework does make me ask: Can all of the different perspectives be applied to every type of subject or lesson? Or do they only apply in certain circumstances? This is something I will consider as I continue my learning of critical digital literacy.

References

21st Century Competencies. (2016). [Ebook] (p. 36). Retrieved from http://www.edugains.ca/resources21CL/About21stCentury/21CL_21stCenturyCompetencies.pdf 

21st Century Educators. [Image]. Retrieved from https://extend.ecampusontario.ca

Home | Ontario Extend. Retrieved from https://extend.ecampusontario.ca

Tree Octopus. (2018). [Image]. Retrieved from https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Welcome!

Welcome to the "Tales of a Blogging Teacher"! 

My name is Rachael and I look forward to blogging along with everyone as I provide details about myself and my teaching goals, all tied into a fun space to connect and share ideas for all of us future teachers out there! 

The main coverage of this blog will relate to one of my current university education courses, EDUC3910: Critical Digital Literacy. In each blog I will be talking about the concept of 'critical digital literacy' and its use in learning and teaching.