Net Smart by Howard Rheingold outlines five digital literacies; attention, crap detection, participation, collaboration, and network smarts. Attention refers to metacognition and allows us to do deeper searching. Attention, memory, and executive control are the fundamental components of thinking. Crap detection is the critical consumption of information. According the Rheingold, these 2 literacies are internal, cognitive, and individual. The last two literacies of collaboration and network smarts are external, social, and collective. Collaboration is the most purposeful and has transformed the way people use the Internet and how information is found. Network Smarts is when we take what we know about face to face culture and apply it to online culture. Linking them is the act of participation that connects the individual mind to the web of digital culture. Using social tools can be real power but it doesn’t mean anything unless you participate.
I feel like these five digital literacies outline what is important to be personally successful in the twenty-first century. We live in a world where it is essential to know how to use online tools without being overloaded with too much information. I think it is important to teach this to our students, as well. It is the life and world we are all living in. Giving them guidelines on how to manage the digital world is just as important as giving them guidelines on how to manage their physical world.
This is what we do in our digital citizenship curriculum. Although it is broken down differently than the 5 literacies Rheingold outlines, I teach the same essential concepts to help our students navigate through their digital world. They know how to be good citizens online and off.
I like that your analysis of Rheingold’s five digital literacies relates nicely to the PICKLE. Indeed, the digital literacies that Rheingold selects are quite similar to the PICKLE. Ethical decision making and community participation are social; information using, problem solving and knowledge are cognitive.
ReplyDeleteIn a situation where so many standards need to be taught in a certain amount of time, it's very important to be aware of these principles so that time is not wasted searching and sorting through the multitude of resources out there. It's important for kids to work through elements of the PICKLE while being NetSmart so time is used wisely in the classroom. Efficiently using technology to support learning is a good thing!
ReplyDeleteYour post make me think about the five literacies introduced in NetSmart as the 21st century skills of the technology classroom.
ReplyDeleteI think what you said about these literacies being essential in the twenty-first century goes back to the sable tooth curriculum and the I in PICKLE. I feel that as we move forward in the program, we keep discovering what is the fish grabbing, horse clubbing, and tiger scaring of this new era and how they fit into the teacher as the designer role.
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