Recently I have been posting on my work on rewriting my own ICT curriculum to fit within four learning strands. As part of that work I have been starting to write my own definitions of each strand before linking units with those strands. After spending some time reading some work on digital literacy (mostly @dajbelshaw's presentations and a bit of his thesis – for which I am indebted) I have written the following definition of digital literacy. This is a first draft and will be discussed with my own department however any online comment would be very welcome.
Digital Literacy:
At our school we recognise that we need to prepare pupils for a digital world through a sustained engagement with technology and media relevant to their context. We show pupils how to use digital tools to control their relationship with the digital world. Pupils develop cognitive skills that enable them to process both the information they encounter online and the tools they need to make sense of that information and produce their own information. Units of work which form a part of the Digital Literacy strand are designed to meet these needs through challenging and engaging work which seeks to produce pupils who are literate in digital technology and relevant processing and thinking skills.
