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Digital literacy involves using technology to find and evaluate information, communicate effectively, and increase personal success. It requires critical thinking and decision-making skills, as well as visual and multimedia literacy. The ability to interpret and contribute to online material is important, and understanding the implications of technology is necessary for success in both education and the workplace. Validity of online information should be examined critically due to the influence of the author’s background.
Digital literacy is a set of skills that includes the ability to use digital technology to find information and critically evaluate the authority and relevance of that information. Effective communication with others through digital means is also an important component of digital literacy. This concept does not simply imply computer literacy but instead focuses on a broader range of knowledge. Being digitally literate generally means being able to use the Internet and other types of electronic media in ways that will increase personal success, prosperity, and meaningful dialogue with others.
Technology tends to develop rapidly and allows increasing percentages of the world’s population to gain digital access to a wide range of information. This trend therefore leads to an increase in the importance of critical thinking and decision-making skills when it comes to using digital technology. Visual literacy is closely related to this skill set because it involves the ability to interpret the meanings of digital images, text, video, and other types of presentations. Individuals with this core competency are also able to use quality information to design and publish their own well-researched findings online so that others are able to easily find and use that information.
Multimedia literacy is a component of digital literacy that is primarily concerned with the ability to access, process and interact with various materials in digital rather than paper format. The popularity of websites and blogs for news and other types of reading material leads to the need for media literacy. Competent users are able to contribute meaningful additions to online written material that is no longer static or one-sided. This technology makes it possible for people separated by geographical distances to communicate; can have rewarding results when used with the critical thinking skills required by digital literacy.
Both the classroom and the workplace have precise demands that students, teachers and workers be digitally literate. Technology makes learning and communication very different than in the past and fully understanding these implications is an important step towards digital literacy. Information is often not delivered in a linear fashion on the Internet as it is with printed materials; it is more often a set of related ideas. The validity of each of these ideas generally should not be taken literally, but instead examined with a critical eye. Since anyone, anywhere can publish content online, each author’s experience and background directly affects the accuracy of the information collected.
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