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Digital Literacy

Digitally Literate Lifelong Learners?#

In Technology and Literacy Education in the Next Century:  Exploring the Connection Between Work and Schooling, Labbo, Reinking, and McKenna present five key concepts surrounding digital literacy in the context of the workplace and as a consequence, in the context of education as a way to prepare individuals for the workplace.  The first of these concepts is: Digital literacy requires the ability to be a lifelong learner.  In this article I am reminded that so many people today are doing jobs that were not even in existence when they were born.  Also, most individuals just beginning their work life will have six or more career paths throughout their lifetime.  This is a tremendous change from the careers chosen and adopted by my parents and their parents.  An interesting question about this information is what is meant by a career path?  If I remain a speech-language pathologist throughout my professional life am I on the same career path even though our scope of practice continually changes?  At any rate, it is abundantly clear that now, more than ever, receiving an education (training) for one career path is simply unacceptable and irresponsible.  Our duty, as educational institutions is to prepare individuals for their futures, not our futures.  The future of students today is one in which they may adopt a career that we have no current knowledge about or they may follow anywhere from 1-6 different career paths.  We cannot expect people to return to school for specific training each and every time they change career paths.  We have to prepare them to make those changes as part of their education. How can educators accomplish this?  How can we prepare our current students for the futures they are going to have?  I know their futures are varied, some will work in nursing homes, some in neonatal intensive care units in highly specialized hospitals, and some will work in school systems.  In spite of these differences, I recognize that there are numerous similarities my students will share.  First, each of my students will be entering a workforce that is digitally dependent.  Next, each of my students will at least once (but probably more) encounter changes in our scope of practice over the course of their professional life.  Finally, each of my students will encounter, over the course of their professional lives, external forces that have an impact on the ways in which they conduct their professional practice.  As an educator, my curriculum seems clear.  I must prepare my students to be functionally literate in a digital society.  I must prepare my students to be able to adapt to changes in our scope of practice in an ethical manner.  I must prepare students to be advocates for themselves, for their clients, and for the discipline they have chosen.  Of course, I refer to the concept of 'lifelong learning,' a phrase I resist using because of its reputation as an educational buzzword but a concept that I heartily embrace because of its compatibility with my fundamental beliefs about learning.  The difficult and perplexing part of teaching is figuring out how to facilitate the development of lifelong learning skills in my students.  And, of course, attempting to facilitate the development of lifelong learning skills in my students presupposes that I know what those particular skills are.  For the time being, let me suggest that while I recognize there are a number of particular skills and habits of mind, the ability to recognize and solve problems seems paramount for individuals who are lifelong learners.  Having said that, it follows that I believe that my responsibility as an educator is to facilitate the ability of my students to solve problems, whatever those may be and in whatever ways that prove to be ethical, moral, and successful for them.  There are numerous aspects to my teaching practice that indirectly demonstrate my conviction to this belief.  I set high standards and challenge my students to meet them.  I utilize a variety of teaching methods.  I model the habits of mind and discpline that a solver of problems must have.  I do know that the ability to generalize what we learn from one instance to another instance is a critical component of being a successful problem solver.  If we continue to see each and every problem as a unique problem requiring a unique solution we will never become successful problem solvers.  Our success as problem solvers lies first in our ability to find the ways that problems are alike.  Once we are able to make connections between old problems and new problems, we have a history to draw upon that should ultimately make us not only effective problem solvers but more efficient problem solvers.  If, in our education, we are not presented with new problems and guided through understanding those problems so that we might make those connections to old problems, we will not become effective or efficient problem solvers.  This has been my argument with the university regarding its policy on E-courses.  People with more decision making power than I have believe it essential to have a common interface for our courses so that students don't have to spend time learning a new interface.  I contend that the time students might spend learning how to negotiate with and navigate through a new interface is time well spent in that it contributes to their development as problem solvers.  That is, learning how to solve problems in one area contributes to being able to solve problems in other areas.  I am completely baffled as to why certain pockets of people on this campus continue to believe our students incapable of negotiating a variety of interfaces.  We ask them to accomplish this every day as they move from this teacher to that teacher and from this class to that class.  In my classes, students learn rather early that they should spend most of their time learning to ask "how" and "why" instead of "what."  I am adamant that throughout their educational experiences, today's students must be continuously exposed to different ways of thinking and different ways of working (different interfaces would be a good way to promote this) in order to develop efficient and effective problem solving strategies.  This ability to generalize then is what Labbo, et al. raise in their article.  Students must learn how to use computer programs, not how to use this computer program.  In our teaching then, we need to be showing students how to find similarities and differences so that they might know what is common to most.  Being able to know what is common to most becomes a perfect starting place for learning this one. My question then becomes:  Are we teaching students how to solve problems or are we simply teaching students the solutions to problems?

Posted by Karen McComas on 9/26/04; 9:01:45 AM to the Digital Literacy Department
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