What exactly is Digital Literacy? According to Sarah Hjeltness, digital literacy is defined as a person's ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment... Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments. Basically Digital Literacy represents the creation of a newly developed language for Technology. Technology has advanced to such a level that a coding language system is needed to operate and understand it. Digital Literacy simply defines age. Technology has advanced so much in recent decades that it’s hard for older generations to keep up. The technology is so young therefore those who are digitally literate are in majority of younger generations.
Digital Literacy also sets a scale of greater knowledge. The coding system isn't as simple as many might think. From html codes to java codes, there is a higher systematic level of understanding that is required. Because of this requirement the majority of those who are digitally literate tend to be much smarter than the average person. It is not to say that if you're not as intelligent it isn't possible to be digitally literate, but it is true that the conceptual coding is much more difficult than just simply learning a language.
Website:
http://www.library.illinois.edu/diglit/definition.html
I'm not sure i agree with the statement that people who are digitally literate tend to be much smarter than the average person. Perhaps if you are only referring to the most recent generation. For example, there are many intelligent people who are not computer literate from our grandparents' generation; the ones who are digitally literate from our grandparents' generation may have been exposed from children who are digitally literate. I also think that digital literacy is connected to the financial stability of a family. For example, many households in the U.S. might have a television but not a computer. Why? Because computers cost more and monthly internet service costs as much as having cable or a cell phone. That means that kids growing up in that environment will not have as much exposure to computers as kids who have a computer at home. I will agree that conceptual coding may be difficult to learn but I am not particularly familiar with the systematic coding. I wouldn't say that is because i am unintelligent, I just haven't cared to know or been taught.
ReplyDeleteYour point regarding the codes and programming used and applied to digital literacy is a good way of breaking it down as another "language". Although you don't need to program and construct websites in order to be digitally literate, it can sort of be related to learning the alphabet and expanding your vocabulary. It might not be the standard alphabet, but rather an intricate dialect or tone. As for the claim that the majority of people who are digitally literate are smarter than those who are not, I believe that this cannot really be argued due to the broad spectrum of the term "smart". Smart can apply to anything, from academics to people skills to technology. Thus, saying that people who are digitally literate are more intelligent would be accurate if it pertained only to the technological domain.
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