Lesson 6 - Developing Basic Digital Skills

In order for teachers to better adapt of the digital world, it must be made to know to them the basic skills to develop. Of course, primarily, it should be the 3 R’s: Reading, writing, and arithmetic. There are six skills essential in equipping the students to become successful – fluency skills. These are:

Solution Fluency – This refers to the capacity of students to devise creative solution to problems, apply and evaluate the effectiveness of the solution.

Information Fluency - This refers to the (a) ability to access information not only in the internet but on other resources too; (b) ability to retrieved information; and (c) ability to evaluate and reflect on the validity and accuracy of information and be able to rewrite the information in own words.

Collaboration Fluency – This refers to the teamwork be it virtual or actual, of the learners. There is partnership among learners in learning.

Media Fluency - This refers to the ability to evaluate information from chosen media and the ability to creatively make one that can also be published.

Creativity Fluency – This refers to the ability to creatively create stuffs.

Digital Ethics – As a digital citizen, the digital learner is guided by principles that would help him/her do right decisions. Before he/she clicks, he/she thinks.

Higher Thinking Skills

Entering the new world of information and communication technology opens the way for complex and higher cognitive skills. While Bloom's Taxonomy of Thinking Skills can serve as a general framework of skills, a new era of creativity in the digital world has led to introducing a kind of framework that requires information processing, idea creation and real-world problem-solving skills. The following taxonomy may be proposed.

The above taxonomy is patterned after new scientific knowledge on how the human brain works. The right hemisphere of the brain works sequentially through a series of events like talking, reading, and writing. It is logical and good at decoding along the literal level of meaning. Individual analysis of images, events and ideas is what the left brain is good at. On the other hand, the right hemisphere of the brain takes care of synthesis, emotional expression, context within a bigger picture in order to create meaning.  Instead of parts, it sees many things at once all parts of of a geometric figure, the various elements of a situation, the understanding of meaning. For example, drawing the literal meaning is done by the left brain, while understanding the meaning or theme in a figurative literary piece is done by the right brain.

In this approach, skills are developed and the learning outcome is achieved by students themselves. The structured problem solving-process known as 4D's also exemplifies the instructional shift in digital learning:

• Define the problem
• Design the solution
• Do the work 
• Debrief on the outcome

The teacher will have to move away from the center stage of the classroom, and allow students the limelight of the teaching-learning process. This is the same as the shift from teacher-centered to student-centered learning, which is the new teaching paradigm most appropriate for learning in a digital age.