Digital Literacy: Thinking Skills in the Digital Era
This event took place on Tuesday 02 September 2008 at 16:00

Prof. Yoram Eshet Open University of Israel

Operating modern digital environments such as computer software and digital instruments, requires users to master a large variety of cognitive, motor, sociological, and emotional skills, collectively termed "digital literacy". Mastering digital literacy skills is crucial for executing effectively digital tasks, such as reading” instructions from graphical displays in user interfaces, utilizing digital reproduction to create new, meaningful materials from existing ones, constructing knowledge from a nonlinear-hypertextual navigation, evaluating the quality and validity of information, process large volumes of real-time stimuli and conduct effective virtual communication with others in the cyberspace.

This newly emerging concept of digital literacy may be utilized as a measure of the quality of learners’ work in digital environments, and provide scholars and developers with a more effective means of communication in designing better user-oriented environments. The lecture suggests that, despite the large variety of existing digital environments, digital literacy can be reduced into "only" six major thinking skills, which are employed by users: photo-visual skills, reproduction skills, branching skills, information skills, real-time and socio-emotional skills. The lecture presents empirical results from studies which examined changes through time in digital skills among users from different age groups.