Digital Literacy Guide: What Is Digital Literacy

What is Digital Literacy?

Digital Literacy is an umbrella term which refers a person’s knowledge, skills, and behaviours within to a digital environment.  People exercise these capabilities on an everyday basis using the Internet, social media and devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones (Nuigalway, 2017).  Digital Literacy is seen as crucial in the 21^th century for academic study, employment and life-long learning (Denison, 2017).

Digital Literacy includes the ability to:

• Identify information in various types of media and formats.
• Find information in the digital space.
• Evaluate digital resources.
• Communicate digital information appropriately. 
• Apply digital resources and tools in the most ethical and safe fashion.
• Create information using digital tools
• Share information using digital tools
• Acknowledge correctly information, which was obtained from an online source (Denision 2017, Bow Valley College 2017, Cornell 2017).

Digital Literacy is closely linked with other literacies including information, media and visual (Staffordshire,2015).

Digital Literacy skills are acquired through a variety of methods including curriculums, personal engagement and experiences (Dundee 2017). As result their is considerable variety in the digital skills that students develop. One of the ways to reduce this disparity is to integrate digital literacy skills into the curriculum. The rationale of this guide is to gather a range of useful links together which could be useful when integrating digital literacy skills into the curriculum (Smith and Chipley, 2015).