it’s easy to forget that laws, morals and rights still apply online.

what you share online may be seen by people you didn’t intend or expect to see it. Your ability to control who sees what is limited: both content creators and traditional gatekeepers and distributors have much less power to control what happens to it once it’s posted. This can make it difficult to manage audiences, and there is always a risk of context collapse when what was intended for one audience is seen by another. As well, you may be sharing content that you’re not aware of with audiences you don’t know about, such as cookies and other tracking tools that record information about who you are and what you do when you visit a website.

Digital content is permanent

without guidance they remain amateur users of information and communications technology (ICT), which raises concerns about a generation of youth who are not fully digitally literate, yet are deeply immersed in cyberspace.

“it is not… enough to assume that young people automatically have all of the skills, knowledge and understanding that they need to apply to their use of technology. All young people need to be supported to thrive in digital cultures; they need help making sense of a rapidly changing world of technology which gives them access to vast amounts of information, which is infused with commercial agendas and which for many reasons can be difficult to interpret.”[1]

citizens who lack digital literacy skills risk being disadvantaged when it comes to accessing healthcare, government services and opportunities for employment, education and civic participation

Digital literacy is more than technological know-how: it includes a wide variety of ethical, social and reflective practices that are embedded in work, learning, leisure and daily life.

being able to adapt what we produce for various contexts and audiences;

Understand is that critical piece – it’s the set of skills that help us comprehend, contextualize, and critically evaluate digital media so that we can make informed decisions about what we do and encounter online. These are the essential skills that we need to start teaching our kids as soon as they go online. Understand includes recognizing how networked technology affects our behaviour and our perceptions, beliefs and feelings about the world around us.

Digital Literacy Model

Beware online "filter bubbles" | Eli Pariser

Digital skills would focus on which tool to use (e.g., Twitter) and how to use it (e.g., how to tweet, retweet, use TweetDeck), while digital literacy would include in-depth questions: When would you use Twitter instead of a more private forum? Why would you use it for advocacy? Who puts themselves at risk when they do so?

Digital skills focus on what and how. Digital literacy focuses on why, when, who, and for whom.

These efforts seek not to simply understand the web but to empower adolescents to help build a better open web.

Digital literacy would focus on helping students choose appropriate images, recognize copyright licensing, and cite or get permissions, in addition to reminding students to use alternative text for images to support those with visual disabilities.

Digital literacy is not about the skills of using technologies, but how we use our judgment to maintain awareness of what we are reading and writing, why we are doing it, and whom we are addressing.

It means teaching progressively rather than sequentially, which helps learners understand better and more clearly over time.

Doug Belshaw’s eight elements of digital literacies, I have just mentioned the civic, critical, creative, and communicative. The other four are cultural, cognitive, constructive, and confidence. This last one is important and takes time to build

Digital skills focus on what and how. Digital literacy focuses on why, when, who, and for whom.