What is Digital Literacy?

Digital literacy is "the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers."

Digital Literacy Checklist

Recent Australian research has found a surprisingly low level of understanding of digital literacies, and confidence in teaching these, on the part of both practising teachers and new graduates. (Diaz et al., 2000; Graduate Careers Council of Australia, 1996-99; Hammond & Macken-Horarik, 2000; Makin & McNaught, 2001; Moulton, 2001).

Literacy has not become technological, but there has been a shift from print to digital technologies, and with this, the emergence of new families of literate practice. On the basis of this, theorists of digital literacies argue that the revolution in communication and information technologies has created new types of textual surface and hence, new literacies (Bigum & Lankshear, 1997; Durrant & Green, 2000).

In recent years, those best able to experience success in society have been people who were able to engage in communication practices that did not always bear resemblance to the literacy enacted outside the classroom.

“Print orthodoxies and traditional (teaching) have continued to be emphasised in classrooms, despite the reality of the dominance of digital texts and their integrated design systems in everyday life” Healey, A and Honan, E (2004) Text Next: New Resources for Literacy Learning Peta Publications, NSW p 20

The concept of mutliliteracies arose out of a critique of this emphasis on print technology and the genre approach to literacy. It takes into account not only the diverse social, cultural and literate practices of homes and communities but also the literacies equated with computers and other information and communication technologies.

Multiliteracy theory suggests that our personal, public and working lives are changing in dramatic ways, and these changes are transforming our cultures and the ways we communicate. This means that the way we have taught literacy, and what counts for literacy, will also have to change.

The term ‘Multiliteracies' highlights two of the most important, and closely related changes.

The first is the growing significance of cultural and linguistic diversity - we have to negotiate differences every day, in our local communities and in our increasingly globally interconnected working and community lives.

The second major shift is the influence of new communications technologies. Meaning is made in ways that are increasingly multimodal in which written-linguistic modes of meaning are part and parcel of visual, audio, and spatial patterns of meaning. Take for instance the multimodal ways in which meanings are made on the World Wide Web, or in video captioning, or in interactive multimedia, or in desktop publishing, or in the use of written texts in a shopping mall. To find our way around this emerging world of meaning requires a new, multimodal literacy.

As digital technology continues to become more dominant in society, texts are becoming more multimodal. It is no longer justifiable to plan solely around print text and its linguistic elements.

“It is not that the book is redundant, but rather that it has lost its privilege and status as providing the only form of literacy essential in communication. The book takes its place as one text form among others.” Healey, Dr A. 2004 ‘Emergence of Multiliteracies', in Practically Primary , vol. 9, no. 2, pp 5

A major study of the impact of ICT on educational attainment in England has found that 'ICT has been found to be positively associated with improvement in subject-based learning in several areas'. In particular, high ICT use – in or out of school – is credited with several statistically significant improvements. For instance: in English, high ICT users outperform low ICT users in National Tests by an average of 3.12 marks http://www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/WhyUseICTs/UsingICTs.htm

Find out about The Four Roles of the Digital Reader and Software to Enhance Literacy Development in the Middle Years.

Further Reading :

Literacy in the Digital Age
A Primer on Digital Literacy
Putting Multiliteracies to the Test
Welcome to Multiliteracies