The Importance of Digital Literacy

       As an educator I think that it is my responsibility to aid my students in becoming digitally literate. We live in a digital world and teaching my students how to use the technology available to them is very important. I plan on incorporating technology in my classroom and having my students use technology to complete certain tasks and assignments.
       I plan on teaching third grade and I think it is very important for my students to master all of the basic computer skills but especially how to do research and search the internet to gather information while using safe internet practices. That is something that I would specifically like to teach my students and it's a skill i know will be useful for them. In third grade they are old enough to use the internet. Being familiar with the internet and safe websites and search engines is important because it will help them complete projects in my class and definitely in the future.
http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/bates/articles/Ed_Internet_Kafai-h_960624.html
       In my classroom I plan on incorporating internet searches into my lessons. I would give my students a specific question or problem and have them use the internet to do research and search for information on it. I would evaluate them on whether they used safe internet practices and whether they searched for quality information from trustworthy sites. This blog discusses the importance of doing internet research in classrooms and I found it very insightful.
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/elementary-research-mary-beth-hertz
I would direct my students to websites like ProQuest  and KidsOLR to help them search for information. Websites like this offer students links to trustworthy pages with information on many subjects. Sometimes schools have websites with online resources available too and if my school has that I will familiarize my students with that website.
       I wasn't sure where to start when I was looking for information for this blog post but I ended up using Google to search for information about digital literacy. I typed in terms such as, "importance of digital literacy", "importance of research skills for third grade", and "online resources for elementary students". Searching these terms led me to sources with information on these topics and aided me in putting this blog together. It's fitting I used Google because I would like to familiarize my students with using Google because it is very useful when finding quick facts or doing more in depth research. I evaluate my sources first by looking at the URL. I try to stay away from .com's and use sources with .org, .gov, and especially .edu URL's instead. I usually read information on several sites then determine which site has the most appropriate information and look at the publisher and see if the information is form a valid source. The sources I used in this blog were the ones that met my criteria for a valid source and had the information most appropriate for the topic I was discussing.

Bottom line... Digital Literacy is very important and I want my students to be digitally literate because I know how useful it will be to them in the future.

--Life-Long Learner