Digital literacies - moving beyond elegant consumption

I found this video of Doug Belshaw speaking about “digital literacies”, which although a little lengthy (at 17 minutes and 29 seconds long) is well worth viewing.  I think this explains the concept of literacy versus literacies well, especially in relation to digital literacies practices.  He also talks about memes to highlight the rapidly changing digital world that we now live in – one in which information can be taken, remixed, and spread quickly and widely throughout the world.

Belshaw (2012) asserts that rather than speaking about one digital literacy, we need to be talking about multiple digital literacies (in the plural sense), because digital literacies are plural – they are context dependant, and they need to be socially negotiated. 

In dealing with digital literacies, Belshaw (2012) states that we actually speak a different language.  These practices have their own vocabulary, their own syntax and their own grammar.  We immerse ourselves in a different culture. 

In a digital literacies world, the knowledge, skills and ideas that we have, can’t be learnt once for all time, because digital literacy practices are constantly in flux.  Belshaw suggests that keeping up with the technology and it's many developments is a life-long project (Belshaw, 2012). 


In concluding, Belshaw (2012) contends that we need to move beyond mere elegant consumption.  We need to encourage people to remix stuff, especially young people, because digital literacy practices change over time.  Focus on people’s interests to develop their intrinsic motivation.  He provides his Eight Essential Elements of Digital Literacies framework as a progressive model to base this development on. 

Happy viewing …


REFERENCE

Belshaw, D. (2012, March 22). The essential elements of digital literacies: Doug Belshaw at TECxWarwick [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8yQPoTcZ78


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