Unit two of the open flexible online course (FDOL) that I currently engage in, is about digital literacy. “Digital literacy?” you might ask yourself. Yes! Digital literacy – a term, which was new to me until a few weeks back. A term, which covers a broad range of things on the digital self and practice and which is currently under academic debate about its specific meaning. Digital literacy is about consuming, creating and connecting in the digital landscape and Gideon Burton is doing a great job introducting the topic in this youtube video below.
A lot of the questions Gideon is raising, I am asking myself these days as part of the course and as part of my role as project leader for a blended learning course development project. How do I select content? Which feeds am I following? Which should I follow? Where do I search for information? How often should i blog, twitter and create other posts? In which contexts do I create? Is it only personal or professional? What presentation tools should I use? Can I just follow a person on twitter? Am I supposed to follow people back that follow me? Are people really interested in what I have to say and share?
The questions seem endless and I guess I was wondering a bit too much about them in the past. A few weeks ago, I guess I decided that I want to change a few things. Instead of worrying about what is right or wrong, I got inspired by the playful learning of my two year old daughter and just try out a few new things. I started this blog, I start to connect to people on twitter and I told myself “Hey, I put things out there and if people are interested they can read follow and/or comment. If not they don’t have to and I am not forcing anyone to follow my posts.”
So, am I digital literate? For a while, I had the feeling that I am lagging behind the fast development of the digital world and web 2.0 and I think I was. At least I was not using the internet and social media to its full potential. I think that through the project and the course I am starting to close the gap and engage more in creating and connecting. And through creating and connecting I can already notice that I develop my digital literacy and get inspired to also put this into practice i my professional life as researcher and teacher.