Hi Ephrem,

Based on my own understanding more often when we say digital it refer to computer language and interpretation, amazingly through the used of technology we used its advantage to understand, to be understood. It could simplify our way of communication, we have now easy access to learning and information.  

I  guess this website could help you understand the role digital literacy.

http://cleach.wordpress.com/what-is-digital-literacy/

Ephrem,

I built my digital search literacy survey around the US ILCSHE, but if I had the time to redo it, I would have used the newer EU DIGCOMP. It had more of a modern digital approach and less of a librarian's bias. My own research shows a big gap between knowledge and searching skills, like the difference between knowing how to play chess and actually being skillful doing so. 

Although most of the national digital literacy policy is well intended, it does not effect much unless the teachers better understand searching in their areas of expertise. The real change has to be with teachers in the classroom.

If kickstarted at the national level without real teacher support or understanding, digital literacy will be just another failed fad.

By the way, librarians are my childhood heroes, but the profession does have its particular filters that focuses on how people should search

Hi Ephrem,

Digital literacy can cross the curriculum in all levels of education for example a course for all students or how request in all courses, this idea requires training teacher for asum this role with activities that can contribution for develop skills in access, evaluation and aplication of informaticion, aditional communication, citizenship and use of technology skills.

Hi Ephrem,

I don't know if you are still interested in finding out the answer to this question, I assume that the national curriculum you are referring to this the English and Welsh National curriulum. If so, may I recommend looking at the latest copy of the Times Educational supplement as this has a lot of information about the new IT curriculum. (TES dated 19 .01.2015)

Hoping this helps Carrie

On the surface it seems like a relatively simple question. But like most ......it begs more questions.

"Digital literacy" like technology itself can really only be considered in its wider socio-technical context. The term is often conflated with "Computer skills", which was current in the 1980s as the PC appeared on every desk. More recently much of the popular debate surrounding the NC PoS has seen "Digital literacy" as the capacity to use "Office software", often to complete work related tasks.

In my view this narrow and anachronistic psudo-definition has failed to accommodate the emerging complexities of the relationship between the individual - society - digital technologies.

If we examine the emerging nature of the above relationship we find that we need to move beyond the narrow vocationally based notion of "digital literacy" to a broader and more inclusive model of what it means to be a "digitally empowered" individual.

In seeking to consider such a complex socio-technical paradigm I try to use a relatively simple PETS framework. This is useful in that it provides a model of engagement which allows us to disentangle the various aspects of the issue - but!! we also have to be aware that the "boxes" of the framework don't entirely do justice to the inextricably entwined nature of the soci-technical realities of our real engagement with technologies.

Four PETS headings are:

Political - e.g. How do digital technologies impact on our political engagement e.g. discursive democracy and the issue of Jurgan Habermass's 'public sphere'.

Economic - e.g. How do digital technologies impact on our relationship with the economic world e.g. the formation of 'human capital' through technology supported education.

Technological - e.g. What is the "nature" of this particular technology in terms of it's capacity to feedback into itself e.g. AI .... which suggests that our "digital literacy" has a moral and ethical dimension.

Social - e.g. How do digital technologies support the formation and realisation of social capital......or we might even conjecture that Castells notion of a "network society" points in the direction of a new sub-divide of "network capital".

So - "digital literacy" can really only be dealt with in a wider socio-economic-political context where our question in relation to the school curriculum is "What is it in this 'digital world' that we need our citizens to know, understand and be able to do?