Kate Bramlett
Digital literacy is more than the ability to use digital tools effectively. Rather, students must develop motor, cognitive, sociological, and emotional skills to become digitally literate (Eshet, 2004). As the understanding of how to use digital technologies becomes increasingly important, K-5 students must develop the necessary skills to become digitally literate. According to Hague and Payton (2011), teaching digital literacy must occur in the context of the core curriculum and can be an asset to the classroom when teaching those core standards. Thus, teachers’ ability to deliver digital literacy curricula has become increasingly important in the K-5 classroom.
However, many teachers lack the necessary skills to teach digital literacy skills to students in the everyday classroom. Students engage with digital media at a younger and younger ages, and efforts should be made to help students learn how to safely navigate the technology-rich world in which they live. Equipping teachers with the know-how and skills to teach digital literacy will ensure that students become digitally literate.
"This framework sets the stage to empower teachers to understand digital literacy as an important role in the development of students while supporting cross-curricular and standards-based."
Hague & Payton’s (2011) handbook demonstrates how digital literacy can be included in the classroom. The handbook supports the theory that digital literacy can be used to support state-based curriculum requirements. However, existing frameworks lack instruction on how to put digital literacy pedagogy into practice (Hague & Payton, 2011) Eshet (2004) developed a comprehensive framework to define different areas of digital literacy, including photo-visual literacy, reproduction literacy, branching literacy, information literacy, and socioemotional literacy. Eshet’s framework explains how each area of digital literacy is important for students to learn. However, to date, there is no comprehensive training program for K-5 teachers who wish to develop a knowledge of digital literacy and how to effectively integrate it in their classrooms.
Thus, this creative project aims to develop a framework for a digital literacy teacher training program that will allow teachers to learn the necessary skills and feel equipped to teach digital literacy in the classroom. This creative project uses design thinking techniques to explore past experiences of teachers with professional development. This information was used to then create a professional development experience focused on how to teach digital literacy.
This creative project also includes similar case research to explore state-of-the-art digital literacy curriculum and unearth a baseline for the digital literacy teacher training framework. A survey sent to K-5 teachers in Muncie Community Schools assessed Digital Literacy knowledge. Design thinking sessions were conducted with 20 teachers to identify their knowledge of digital literacy, types of professional development related to digital literacy and technology integration that teachers have experienced, and the strengths and weaknesses of those professional development sessions. Design Thinking sessions were conducted in one-hour segments and included an ideation session and saturate-and-group. Results of the design thinking sessions provided feedback for the development of a digital literacy teacher training program.
The professional development framework for digital literacy teacher training results in development of a tool for teachers who wish to establish an understanding of the core areas of digital literacy. This program will enable teachers to teach digital literacy with confidence and structure in their classrooms. This framework sets the stage to empower teachers to understand digital literacy as an important role in the development of students while supporting cross-curricular and standards-based.