So, I have been thinking about a discussion in my last class about digital literacy. I really enjoyed the entire thing. It was interesting to me to really see how each person had a different view on what it means to be literate in a digital world. For me personally I always thought of people as computer literate if they could fix a computer if it had problems. So I would not consider myself very literate, but as we discussed this topic in class I started to feel a little more comfortable with myself in that I am probably more digitally literate than I give myself credit for. I can use a computer and I am feeling more confidant about adding my voice to the 'conversation' on the web. So if I were to compare this to my writing skills; sure I may not be a world famous author and I may not be able to teach English at a college, but I think I could write a decent essay every so often.
So now I wanted to add one more thought to this. I was studying in the library a couple of days ago and something really cool happened. I was sitting there reading and I saw a group of people studying together. I overheard there conversation a little bit and it seemed that they were working together on some homework involving the internet. I am not exactly sure but I think that they were working together to master a skill involving a uploading a picture to the internet. It was more complicated than that but that was the main topic I caught. So now the thing that was really cool about this was the age of the people working together. It was two young women probably around there 20's and another woman probably around her mid-40's. The reason that this caught my attention was because we had talked about in class how in many cases the younger generation is more computer savvy than the older. It was amazing to see these people working together because I thought to myself how this is the way the world should work. The older generation has taught us many things as we have grown up that are indispensable to each of us. Maybe we need to do a better job at helping the older generation learn some of the digital literacy that we have picked up as we live in this world. I think that is really what it is about. It might be a flip flop in roles but I am sure that by the time I have grown a little older that the future 'young' generation will know some news things that I will have to learn. I just hope that I can be like that lady and have the courage to ask for some help
And maybe even now we as the younger generation could do a better job at being more literate in the areas that our parents are literate in; like knowing how to buy and advertisement in the classifieds of a newspaper. How knows? Maybe there is some skill from the past that would help us solve the problems of the future.
3 comments:
Good post. So, would you say that digital literacy includes the ability to share and teach technical expertise, especially across generations?
And by the way, sometimes it works the other way around. Someone in their 50s can be more of a digital native, so to speak, than a twentysomething student...
Even more than sharing and teaching just technical expertise, I think digital literacy has a lot to do with understanding why the changes in technology are important and how they are shaping each new generation.
Your post made me remember and think back on some of the computer programming classes I've taken at BYU. I've noticed that certain professors have a style of teaching the fundamentals of programming rather than how you may use a tool to quickly accomplish your end goal. Frameworks and tool-kits may be designed to make programming simple, but are they also limiting new programmers' ability to design new and creative things? I think in a way they are.
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