Digital Literacy

"Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?"

The NY Times story talks about the future of reading and digital vs print reading. Some notable quotes from the piece.

"Even accomplished readers like Zachary Sims, 18, of Old Greenwich Conn., crave the ability to quickly find different points of view on a subject and converse with others online."

"Reading in print and on the internet are different. On paper, text has a predetermined beginning, middle and end, where readers focus for a sustained period on one author's vision. On the Internet, readers skate through cyberspace at will and in effect, compose their own beginnings, middles and ends."

"Web proponents believe that strong readers on the Web may eventually surpass those who rely on books. Reading five websites, an op-ed article and a blog post or two, experts say, can be more enriching than reading one book."


A digital literacy encompasses more than print literacy. If a student reads on a fourth grade level in print they will probably read on a fourth grade level digitally. However, if a student possesses the right online skills they may be able to lift there fourth grade digital reading level. Can they properly look up a word they don't understand in a reading? Can they research a reference they may not understand or go further in depth on a topic they interested in?

We need to teach our students how to use the internet.

90% of the students who read this website containing information on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus thought it was really endangered.

Adults are NO BETTER "An Online Hoax Becomes a Source About a Suspect"
Reuters were one of the major newspapers to quote a hoax website when Radovan Karadzic, a Bosnian Serb leader was picked up for war crimes.

We need to teach how to source a website to find out who owns it (www.easywhois.com).

You should also know who links to your website (use altavista's link command).

Most recently someone was caught "scrubbing" McCain's VP pick Governor Palin's Wikipedia page. We don't like to think that any major news organizations sourced Wikipedia, but if they had you would hope they noticed some favorable changes to the site less than 24 hours before her pick was announced.