Elements of Digital Literacy

To be literate in digital media you need:

Technological prowess. This is the ability to get things into and out of the machine. The ability to click a mouse or swipe an iPad is a basic example. The ability to design or program a video game would be an advanced example.
The ability to evaluate information, entities and environments. This is the skill set that allows one to determine if the content on a website is reliable, if a person or group of people are who they purport to be, and if a given virtual environment is the right place to be.
The ability to exploit the environment. Such exploitation might take the form of earning money, making friends, developing a business network.

This is my take away from Literacy and Learning in the Digital Age, a new class I developed at Pratt SILS. I taught it this fall and will do it again next fall.

Here are some of the readings:

Multiliteracies: Literacy Learning and the Design of Social Futures

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition: Revised and Updated Edition

Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook

Perspectives on Culture, Technology And Communication: The Media Ecology (Hampton Press Communication)