Yes, digital literacy and digital skills play a vital role in this Era. How would tertiary instifutions manage to keep on track with students? It is important to be digitally literate as almost every information revolves around technological communication platforms, i.e social media.
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This is a brilliant and well-thought comment. Digital literacy embodies the âwisdomâ one executes in handling digitally processed information. It is important to question the legitimacy and validity of the information communicated. Itâs not just the arbitrary accumulation and consumption of information on the internet. This is what you call the âmixingâ of digital literacies.
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@nadaelgarhy, I have been applying basic computer skills for many years; yet, I had also never heard about the term âdigital literacyâ. In this instance, one is like a driver, who already drives the streets, yet, has never acquired a valid âlearnersâ drivers licence. You drive without any aptitude of the rules. Digital literacies opened up the vistas for us - to know and understand that skills go hand in hand with the rules.
I was thinking the same during the Covid-19 lockdown here in Greece. During that time I was taking part in a training project on covid-19. My task was to communicate with people, via email and social media, and helping them to upload materials to a cloud. The more I was working on it, the more I learned about my self and about how to respond in my task effectively
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One digital literacy I have acquired and use regularly is my âBLOGâ.
I can use my BLOG to send posts and communicate with my peers on LiDA101. I can send posts to other platforms (E.g Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc). Iâve learned to TAG #, Like, follow and be followed, etc.
WHY THIS IS A âLITERACYâ RATHER THAN A SKILL?
It is a âliteracyâ because I can communicate my mind, ideas, feelings and emotions with the âliving worldâ. It keeps me in âconversationâ with real people - who can pose real questions and problems which need a response from the context within which Iâm communicating.
A âdigital skillâ on the other hand is just the skill I employ to operate a digital tool.
DIGITAL LITERACIES MATTER TO ME because they enable me to get in touch with hordes of people I cannot even see - yet I can get âmeaningâ out of the âinvisibleâ world Iâm living in.
One DIGITAL LITERACY I would like to acquire is ONLINE TEACHING. It is important to me because I will be able to communicate information âmeaningfullyâ with learners digitally.
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@mackiwg me too! I feel like most of my formal training was very theoretical, but the majority of the skills and literacies I use regularly are self-taught or âGoggledâ.
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As an art historian we often talk about visual literacies or the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image, this builds upon the typical meaning of literacy which typically refers to written or printed text.
I think in many ways there are parallels between visual literacy and digital literacy, especially when it comes to critical thinking. The metaphor I have been thinking about is that a visual skill would be to be able to draw what you see, but a visual literacy would be to understand the history of drawing, compare it to other drawings, and think critically about what it could mean or signify.
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One of my favorite books is called Teaching Naked by Jose Bowen. I love it because he advocates for the strategic use of technology in the classroom in order to spend more time building relationships!
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That is a powerful comparison. Thanks for sharing!
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Hi @mokgadi and @emmanwosisi
Editing video is a very interesting process. I learned how to edit on my own-some years ago- by using the âwindows movie makerâ a free video editor. I donât know if it exists anymore. I have edited a small number of videos for education so far, but still, I do not consider myself as an âexpertâ.
Actually, in my opinion, editing a video is not a âliteracyâ; it is a skill, a powerful skill which can lead to a literacy, e.g why do I choose to present a piece of information in a specific audio-visual way, what is that I expect from the people watching it.
Today there are a lot of video editing tutorials on youtube and some of them might be quite useful. There are also a lot of free video editors on the internet which may help.
Best wishes 
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@mackiwg indeed ICT technologies sophisticates learning. It opens a multitude of new teaching strategies that will help us better our teaching and improve the learning experience of our students. ICT technologies helps us immerse and interact with the vast sea of information found in the internet and lets us design our own understanding based from these interactions.
Happy learning.
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#LiDA101 As a digital literate person, I use PowerPoint regularly within the context of lecture delivery both in the classroom and during Webinars. Itâs a literacy rather than skills because through its usage, I am able to compose information in a much clearer manner.
I will be glad if I can be more digital literate in blog utilisation and video editing. I find these two digital literacies highly invaluable for my career advancement as an academic. I learnt little about blog, of course, which I created by myself during LiDA 103. But I wish I could be further tutored.
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Digital literacies are very critical to me now more than ever. With the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, remote learning has become more indispensable, and to be able to keep pace with this development, I need to be more digital literate. I need digital literacy so as to enhance my security on the Internet and also, to prevent me from committing copyright infringement.
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Same here, all skills acquired prior to lida101 literacy training were all self-learned and several personal trials over and over again to achieve the goal
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Yeah, i quite agree with you. The need for coaching as regards more blog features, design and utilization cannot be overemphasized when it comes to teaching digital literacy. I do hope that OERu will assist with this soon.
I so much enjoyed the article âKnowing the Difference Between Digital Skills and Digital Literacies, and Teaching Bothâ by Maha Bali.
Itâs amazing to understand that digital literacy position teachers as facilitators & co-learners and not drill and kill experts. I therefore encourage all teachers to position themselves as facilitators in the classroom and not as a dictators only.
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Agreed - there is a lot to be gained from authentic experiential learning.
I agree, acquire new skills help in building a good training retool on work #lida101 literacy training
I think this is very important. Using new tools and technologies allows you to keep your learning relevant.