• The ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information.  ¹ 
 
•  The ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers.  ² 
 
•  A person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment... Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments.  ³

For me digital literacy involves reading widely, keeping informed, knowing when and how to be critical and when to embrace new information, new ideas. It also means how to approach new technologies – hardware and software – skeptically, fearlessly, and with enthusiasm. It means being limber in how one thinks, agile in using technology, expecting as normal seismic shifts in new information and communication tools.

Digital literacy is also fun. Unlike print literacy, we expect through digital literacy to be offered visual and sound embellishments of text. Digital magazines should be beautiful to see and hear. They should be interactive, with opportunities for talking and writing about what we read with others.

Digital literacy opens a door to digital learning. We are seeing the dawn of online courses, digital chautauquas and online study circles. We are also seeing the early stages of using digital technologies to learn anywhere, anytime, and as fast or slowly as one wants, with more easily accessible and better learning resources.

need for more than one definition. In the age of Twitter and sound-bites we needed a succinct definition to share in appropriate venues. We also needed a longer fully developed version for getting into the depth and breadth of the issues.

After careful consideration we agreed that digital literacy is:

the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information requiring both cognitive and technical skills.

This definition is also in a forthcoming primer that looks more deeply into the necessary skills, the need for digital literacy, the digital divide and the role of all types of libraries.

As more and more students interact digitally–with content, one another, and various communities–the concept of digital citizenship becomes increasingly important.

Which begs the question: what is digital citizenship?

Well, first citizenship, which is formally defined as “the quality of an individual’s response to membership in a community.” This makes citizenship far more complex than a simple legal matter, but rather one that consists of self-knowledge, interaction, and intimate knowledge of a place, its people, and its cultural history.

So digital citizenship is nearly the same thing–”the quality of a response to membership in a digital community” would be a good first crack at the definition.

Revising that might more clearly articulate the differences between physical and digital communities, so a decent definition of digital citizenship then might be “Self-monitored participation that reflects conscious interdependence with all (visible and less visible) community members”

But that leaves out the idea of content itself, which leads us to a pretty good definition for educators: “The quality of habits, actions, and consumption patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities.”

Still too wordy? Maybe a shorter version for students–with some moral imperatives and implied advice–could be: “the self-monitored habits that sustain and improve the digital communities you enjoy or depend on.”

Digital Citizenship is a holistic and positive approach to helping children learn how to be safe and secure, as well as smart and effective participants in a digital world. That means helping them understand their rights and responsibilities, recognize the benefits and risks, and realize the personal and ethical implications of their actions. Helping a child become a good digital citizen cuts across all curricular disciplines and includes knowledge, awareness, and skills in three key areas:

  Safety & Security:  Understanding the risks that we face from others as well as from our own conduct, and the dangers posed by applications like viruses and phishing.

  Digital Literacy: Learning how to find, sort, manage, evaluate and create information in digital forms.  These literacy skills build on but are somewhat different from the traditional literacy of reading and writing.

  Ethics & Community:  Becoming aware of and practicing appropriate and ethical behaviors in a variety of digital environments. This area includes shaping your digital reputation and being a responsible citizen of the communities in which you participate, from social networks, to games, to neighborhood civic forums.

What is digital security?

  tag /   privacy - internet security - epassport - digital security - cell phone

• "Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action" (Scriven, 1996 ).
  
  
•  "Most formal definitions characterize critical thinking as the intentional application of rational, higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, problem recognition and problem solving, inference, and evaluation" (Angelo, 1995, p. 6 ).
  
  
•  "Critical thinking is thinking that assesses itself" ( Center for Critical Thinking, 1996b ).
  
  
•  "Critical thinking is the ability to think about one's thinking in such a way as 1. To recognize its strengths and weaknesses and, as a result, 2. To recast the thinking in improved form" (Center for Critical Thinking, 1996c ).
 
 Perhaps the simplest definition is offered by Beyer (1995) : "Critical thinking... means making reasoned judgments" (p. 8). Basically, Beyer sees critical thinking as using criteria to judge the quality of something, from cooking to a conclusion of a research paper. In essence, critical thinking is a disciplined manner of thought that a person uses to assess the validity of something (statements, news stories, arguments, research, etc.). 

 

Defining plagiarism:

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the act of plagiarism as:

"to steal and pass off the ideas or words of another as one's own"

Plagiarism is simply taking other people's words and/or ideas, using them, and then rather than giving credit to the person who thought of them, pretending that those words/ideas belong to you.