Digital Literacy

To be ready for college, the workforce, other professional training, and a life in a technological society, students need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, and report on information and ideas. Students at all grade levels need to use technology in authentic ways that will develop their skills in creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, digital citizenship, and technology operations. The need to conduct research, produce and consume media is embedded into every aspect of today’s curriculum. In like fashion, research and media skills and understandings are embedded throughout the Standards.

Digital Literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills. (ALA Digital Literacy Taskforce, 2011).

A Digitally Literate Person:  

• Possesses the variety of skills – technical and cognitive – required to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information in a wide variety of formats; 
  
• Is able to use diverse technologies appropriately and effectively to retrieve information, interpret results, and judge the quality of that information;
  
• Understands the relationship between technology, life-long learning, personal privacy, and stewardship of information;
  
• Uses these skills and the appropriate technology to communicate and collaborate with peers, colleagues, family, and on occasion, the general public;
  
• Uses these skills to actively participate in civic society and contribute to a vibrant, informed, and engaged community (ALA Digital Literacy Taskforce, 2011).