digital literacy

I was so pleased and interested to see all the course readings assigned that dealt with digital literacy. Learning and thinking in the 21st Century will have so much to do with technology and all the changes that it brings to knowledge creation, access, and dissemination that I think we absolutely must be familiar with the issues and challenges associated with this educational reform movement. Being literate in a digital era means understanding technologically-induced changes, as well as having the knowledge and skills to make sense of the world around you. Especially for young learners, having so much information and knowledge available at a mouseclick has the dangerous potential to make learners so conditioned to ideas that they forget how to question pieces of knowledge that are new to them or that they don't understand. Underlying the communication and tech skills that learners must possess to succeed in the 21st Century, is the ability to ask questions and the desire to be curious. Without these ways of thinking about knowledge and information, the possibility for nonstop access to it isn't of much use.