Why ‘digital literacy’ is central to 21st century education.

ChangeThis is a website dedicated to manifestos written by anyone (but usually professionals and experts) about something they feel passionately about changing. There are some really great ones – for example Hugh MacLeod on How To Be Creative and Guy Kawasaki’s The Art of the Start. I’ve just had a proposal accepted entitled, Why ‘digital literacy’ is central to 21st century education. I’d like you to vote for the proposal so I can write the full manifesto, please! :-p

Here’s the summary I added to the site:

Society is in flux. The global economy is in meltdown. Education is in turmoil. Why? The world has, and is, changing faster than we can keep up. One of the reasons for this disconnect is our insistence on teaching our young people in the same way that we ourselves learned. We’re teaching as if there were a dearth of resources, when actually we’re spoiled for choice.

‘Digital literacy’ is a term much debated, but which allows us to grasp hold of an important concept. Literacy in the digital arena just isn’t the same as it is when sitting at a desk with paper and pencil. But how is it different? And what can we do about it?

Allow me to suggest some ways in which we can come up with a workable definition for ‘digital literacy’ and show you methods by which we can educate our young people for the blended digital/physical world they do, and shall, inhabit!

Writing the manifesto will give a focus to my thesis-writing over the next few weeks and will hopefully be something you can point people towards to explain the importance of moving to 21st century skills and learning! 😀

Please vote.