Beyond the Basics: Why Digital Literacy is Essential for Success in the Digital Age

Increasing developments in technology and digital communication continuously affect learners in both contemporary educational contexts, and informal learning environments. It is fundamental for educators to acknowledge the benefits and complications of digital literacies for secondary students, as they implicate learners’ potential for achievement in the twenty-first century. Additionally, a socio-technological society affects the relevance of digital literacy to dramatic arts education.

Various digital literacies exist within both informal learning environments and contemporary schooling contexts and involve an array of complex cognitive, motor, sociological, and emotional skills. A lack of these skills increasingly implicates one’s full potential of being a competent student or empowered employee and limits their ability to navigate digital reproduction, hyper-textual navigation and assess the quality and validity of the information. The current world socio-technological context, which promotes media technologies and digital and multimodal communication, requires learners’ understanding and awareness of the utilization of technological tools, along with practices of appropriate use.

Digital literacies continue to develop with technological advancements, consequently, these rapid changes in digital communication mean various reading and writing facilities are combined with complex music and graphics. The increased accessibility of digital technologies has altered the way society communicates, intensifying the importance of students gaining awareness of various digital literacies and technologies. Therefore, it is fundamental that educators alter pedagogical practices to account for the informal learning environment and become more specific in the way they describe the various processes of reading and writing that are occurring with digital communications technology. Subsequently, both primary and secondary school teachers need to develop relevant procedures for assessment that account for new technological advancements and, hence, reformed means of communication.

Conclusively, new technological advancements alter both how contemporary society communicates and societal practices. Therefore, teachers need to accommodate the advancement of digital literacy within the classroom to amalgamate students into society, teaching them to be active members of their community.

Understanding and becoming aware of digital literacies is important for contemporary learners, as the current world's socio-technological context promotes media technologies that change societal means of communication. Additionally, it is fundamental for learners to understand how to critically evaluate an array of digital texts and the navigation of multimodal literacies.

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