Are you sure you're literate?

Fourth Entry:

“Digital literacy is about education and workforce preparedness in a competitive global economy. It is also key to a full and successful life in the 21st Century. Children, youth, young adults, workers, and families, each require an understanding and mastery of basic digital literacy skills to effectively participate in a global knowledge-based society.” (http://www.ictliteracy.info/About-us.htm; emphasis in pink supplied)

Being literate used to mean having the ability to read and write, plain and simple. Now, there’s a whole new species of literacy! Related to it is ICT proficiency. It is defined as “the ability to use digital technology, communication tools, and/or networks to define an information need, access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, create new information or knowledge and be able to communicate this information to others. (http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/ictreport.pdf)

As I searched the internet for more information on this digital literacy, I came across Microsoft’s website and discovered that the company offers a Digital Literacy Curriculum consisting of 5 courses: Computer Basics, the Internet and the WWW, Productivity Programs, Computer Security and Privacy, and Digital Lifestyles!

Digital literacy may be just another term coined to be able to keep up with the ever-growing field of technology. But it is a term I dread. In our country where the basic concept of literacy is still a goal to be achieved, a far-off dream for some/many, introducing a new level of literacy would only mean digging a deeper hole of illiteracy. If this kind of literacy would be factored in in coming up with global rankings measuring the development of countries, where will our dear Motherland end up? In the field of law, what would this digital literacy signify? Being illiterate has numerous consequences in law, would these now embrace the concept of digital illiteracy?

Despite these issues, digital literacy is an unavoidable fact of a “digitally enhanced” life. I just hope that this would not be the only or the most important measure of a person’s being and of having a meaningful life.