Digital literacy doesn’t start with tools. It starts with an understanding of how technology is changing the world, and a richer context of how those changes will impact the way we learn, communicate, create, co-operate, and collaborate down the road. In other words, literacy is something we constantly have to unlearn and relearn. As Harold Jarche would say, literacy is now in “perpetual beta.”
In schools, helping teachers understand tools without helping them understand the larger contexts of technological change (many of which are spelled out here) won’t change much if anything. That’s why we have kids handing in homework on Google Docs, or reading textbooks on iPads. Neither make much sense in the grander scheme of learning driven by the Web and the technologies we use to connect to it.
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