Lesson 6: Developing Basic Digital Skills

Content

                This topic tackles about developing basic digital skills with the integration of technology in education. Educators must adjust their teaching to effectively bridge the gap of the new digital world of information and communication. They must be knowledgeable on what basic knowledge and values need to develop by digital learners. These basic literacies will not replace the 3 R’S but they will be complemented by six essential skills to equip students. The following are the basic digital skills:

·         Solution fluency – refer to capacity and creativity in problem solving.

·         Information fluency –involves 3 subset skills which is ability to access, retrieve and reflect information.

·         Collaboration fluency – refers to teamwork with virtual or real partners in online environment.

·         Media fluency – refers to channel of mass communication.

·         Creativity fluency - which is artistic proficiency, adds meaning by way of design, art and storytelling to package a message.

·         Digital ethics – is guided by principles of leadership, global responsibility, environmental awareness, global citizenship and personal accountability.

This topic also taps about the higher thinking skill and its significance upon entering the new world of information and communication technology. By developing higher thinking skills, students will be inculcated with the digital fluencies while overcoming limitations in the high-tech world. This implies that teacher move from the center stage and allows students to do hand-on and actually make the classroom a student-centered classroom.

Experience

            Not all teachers in the past years of my study had used the integration of technology in developing the skills of the students. Based on my own experience, integrating technology in developing the basic digital skills will really help students ponder the learning.

Reflection

            As we develop basic skills, it would allow us to properly apply different uses of computer and integrate this to the teaching process. Definitely, the six fluency skills (solution, information, collaboration, media, creativity and digital ethics) are vital to digital learners of today’s era. There is a need for them to acquire and equip these skills in order to adjust and face the overwhelming challenges brought by modern technology specifically in learning processes. On the contrary, teachers must adjust their teaching to effectively match the new digital world of information and communication technology (ICT). They should be flexible and creative in searching new ways to efficiently utilize and develop the basic digital skills which students truly need. Moreover, the new era opens the way for complex and higher cognitive skills. Therefore, Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking Skills must be developed.

Application

            We, as digital learners, should not only acquire those digital skills but also we should aim to go beyond with those skills to be more effective and influence to others especially our future students. As future educators, we must know how to develop these skills to achieve the efficient and effective teaching-learning process. With my knowledge about these things, as a future teacher, I shall be responsible in inculcating these digital skills to the new millennium learners.