ICTlogy

The Open University of Catalonia organizes the Conference on the European Higher Education Area, a virtual conference taking place from October 2nd to 20th, 2006.

There is a track entitled “The integration of generic competences into curricula” on which I’m presenting a communication. This communication is, actually, a book chapter I wrote last spring: Digital capacitation at UOC: technological literacy vs. Informational and functional competence. I copy and paste here the abstract so you don’t have to be browsing around:

Abstract

If the goal of competences training in the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is adapting to new times, it is evident that a correct digital literacy is an essential basis to work in the informational society. There is, nevertheless, a sort of bias in the definition of the term “digital literacy”, a bias that tends to shift towards the most technological side of the concept. Notwithstanding, beyond the knowledge of technology, there is a new world to discover concerning its use, what it is usually called informational literacy – the efficient and effective use of Information and Communication Technologies – and that, along with technology, requires a functional digital capacitation in the use of ICTs.

At the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) the student has at his arm’s reach a collection of services that will help him out through his way over (a possible) technological illiteracy and, above all, he is taught – implicitly and explicitly – in the use of these technologies through the interaction in the virtual campus, in the following of specific subjects and in exercises and practices solving.

This paper tracks the path of the evolution of the different capacities that form, as a whole, the total development of what we could call functional digital competence, and presents the moments or experiences in which the student acquires these capacities by studying in a virtual campus.

We’re used to see the Digital Divide defined two ways:

• Have vs. have not, concerning the ownership of ICT tools — a materialistic or infrastructual approach
• Possibility of access, access to ICTs, including, sometimes, access to digital services and content — a broader approach, but still quite simple

A correct definition of digital development and e-readiness relies on an accurate definition of what digital divide is (all in all, the same thing). Forgeting what Digital Literacy is and implies is, usually, what lacks in all this concepts around the Digital Divide and a functiona empowerment of ICTs.

Here come two interesting references to add to the well known Mark Warschauer seminal articles:

Selwyn, N. (2004). “Reconsidering political and popular understandings of the digital divide”. In New Media & Society, Vol 6 (3), 341–362. London: SAGE Publications

The author starts with four main questions:

(1) what is meant by ICT;
(2) what is meant by ‘access’;
(3) what is the relationship between ‘access to ICT’ and ‘use of ICT’; and
(4) how can we best consider the consequences of engagement with ICT

and answers back proposing four categories of digital development or, as he calls it, stages in the Digital Divide:

(1) Formal/theoretical ‘access’ to ICTs and content
(2) Effective ‘access’ to ICTs and content
(3) Engagement with ICTs and content
(4) Outcomes – actual and perceived Immediate/short term consequences of ICT use. Consequences – actual and perceived

Selwyn is somehow based — it’s cited in his bibliography — in the following work:

Carvin, A. (2000). “More Than Just Access: Fitting Literacy and Content into the Digital Divide Equation”. In Educause Review, November/December 2000, 38-47. Boulder: Educause.

Where the author categorizes the different skills that allow the user to fully access and benefit from ICTs:

(1) Basic Literacy: Can I read and write?
(2) Functional Literacy: Can I put my reading and writing skills to daily use?
(3) Occupational Literacy: Do I know the basics of working in a business environment?
(4) Technological Literacy: Can I use common IT tools effectively?
(5) Information Literacy: Can I discern the quality of content?
(6) Adaptive Literacy: Can I develop new skills along the way?

In my point of view, while Basic Literacy is a must, it does not belong to Digital Literacy in a strict sense. On the other end of the classification, I’d add e-Awareness, as the ability to understand what’s happening in the world and how ICTs are changing it and, thus, how do I have to react to this. Maybe this concept is included in the Adaptive Literacy category, but I guess I’d add it as a 6th category (provided I’d didn’t include the first one, Basic Literacy).

Highly recommended reading both articles.

As promised — I did it by e-mail ;) — here come the presentations I intend to use in little more than an hour here in Trento. Click to see the abstracts and/or download them.

• The Digital Divides or the third industrial revolution: concepts and figures. Presentation given in Trento, May 25th, 2006 in the homonimous seminar organized by the ICT International Doctorate School of the Università degli Studi Trento.
• From e-Readiness to e-Awareness (or the way back). Presentation given in Trento, May 25th, 2006 in the homonimous seminar organized by the ICT International Doctorate School of the Università degli Studi Trento.

We are about to publish the results of a seminar about competences teaching under the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)

My paper is about digital literacy in online learning campuses, but stressing on the fact that digital literacy is not technological literacy, but something more — until it becomes a full functional digital literacy.

The paper is in Spanish and I guess I’ll soon have a translation… into Catalan. Nevertheless, an abstract in English follows.

Peña López, I. (2006). Capacitación digital en la UOC: la alfabetización tecnológica vs. la competencia informacional y funcional. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
http://www.ictlogy.net/articles/20060316_ismael_pena_capacitacion_digital.pdf

Abstract

If the goal of competences training in the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is adapting to new times, it is evident that a correct digital literacy is an essential basis to work in the informational society. There is, nevertheless, a sort of bias in the definition of the term “digital literacy”, a bias that tends to shift towards the most technological side of the concept. Notwithstanding, beyond the knowledge of technology, there is a new world to discover concerning its use, what it is usually called informational literacy – the efficient and effective use of Information and Communication Technologies – and that, along with technology, requires a functional digital capacitation in the use of ICTs.

At the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) the student has at his arm’s reach a collection of services that will help him out through his way over (a possible) technological illiteracy and, above all, he is taught – implicitly and explicitly – in the use of these technologies through the interaction in the virtual campus, in the following of specific subjects and in exercises and practices solving.

This paper tracks the path of the evolution of the different capacities that form, as a whole, the total development of what we could call functional digital competence, and presents the moments or experiences in which the student acquires these capacities by studying in a virtual campus.

Paolo Massa has managed somehow that the ICT International Doctorate School of the Università degli Studi Trento (Italy) invites me to impart a couple of seminars on May 25th, 2006. The following day I’ll stay in Trento to deal with ICT4D research and training issues with people from the University. While the second seminar is yet to be agreed the content, the first one will look, more or less, like this:

The Digital Divides or the third industrial revolution: concepts and figures

It is usual to think about the digital divide as a very concrete aspect of the impact of ICTs, mainly concerning whether there is an existence of infrastructures (sometimes computers, sometimes computers connected to the Internet).

It is usual to think about digital literacy as the ability of someone to switch on a computer and playing some cards game, sending an e-mail and, optimistically, run some word processor and type in a love letter.

It is usual to think about ICTs as something that won’t make disappear the hunger in the world or heal the thousands of people suffering from countless diseases, specially in places where citizens live with less than one dollar a day.

It is usual to think about the digital divide as something that does not affect me, as I live on the sunny side of the world, in a developed country that will last this way for centuries.

With the aim to dismantle all these (almost) false assumptions, the seminar will try and give "correct" definitions for concepts such as Digital Divide, Digital Literacy, eReadiness or eAwareness and show examples on how ICTs can help underdeveloped and developing countries to reach higher quotas of welfare… and how so-called developed countries can exchange places with the lesser developed ones in case they do not pay attention to what is happening in a global world.

I’m trying to gather all kind of resources providing data and indicators about the state of the Information Society, specially those more related to development, digital divide and so.

Of course we’ve got ITU’s indicators and some others, but it’s getting really difficult to map the whole thing, from infrastructures to content and uses, including digital literacy, digital rights, etc.

I humbly ask for your help in this gathering of resources, with the promise I’ll be publishing the list in my ICT4D Wiki under one of these categories:

• Data
• Data Development
• Data ICT
• (or just a new one, we’ll see)

Hearty thanks in advance :)