Literacy, Digital (vs Competence, Digital)
October 16, 2022Digital Literacy (vs digital competence)
The request we received for this course was to train digital competences, an umbrella term at least in our context problematic. First of all because “digital” as “things you can do with a laptop” is really a huge term. Competence is more precise, and considers that there are a group of (digital) tools people need to use and in order to do that they need to develop their skills. The advantage of this approach is that you can evaluate it: after the course you ask participants to perform a task and either they do (and you conclude they have the skills) or not.
The problem with this approach is that digital tools changes fast and constantly introduces new features and possibilities. That’s the reason we think a more general approach, focusing on framework of the tools may be more useful. Understanding how a program works or being able to describe the problem you’re facing or searching in the manual seems the skills that will help participants, now and in 10 years.
We prefer the term “digital literacy” because it transmits quite good the idea that we can teach you a minimal alphabet formed of few signs, that combined can be really powerful. This will allow you to develop your skills, reading or writing.