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Video: Digital Literacy, Part 6
Brenda Kempster
Executive Director
LINK AMERICAS Foundation
November 16, 2010
MS. KEMPSTER: Digital literacy is recognized internationally now, and for many years has been building up a recognition as fundamental skill sets for people to live and work effectively in modern life. For example, in all aspects of our lives now, whether it be access to government services, or medical records, or even education now with many distance learning K-12 education and post secondary education, all have elements of being able to use the tools of technology in effective ways to solve problems.
And we are now recognizing in the United States more what has actually for the past decade been recognized internationally as fundamental learning skills of incorporating technology tools into problem solving. So countries such as those in the E.U., and Australia, New Zealand, China, have for a while built in the need to incorporate digital literacy skills into job certification, graduations from college and so forth.
So in defining digital literacy, I would say that it's a broad look at a new way of both using tools to learn and then incorporating those tools into everyday modern living.