Digital Literacy

Digital Literacy

To those who are concerned with Digital Literacy, what is it and why is it earthshaking?

Last week, I was selected for a two-day training program with the British council, under the supervision of the Moroccan Ministry of education. The theme was about Digital Literacy. The objective of the training aimed to drive teachers to integrate technology in the Moroccan classroom. We talked a lot, debated, argued and felt frustrated about the variable meanings of digital literacy, reasons to implement this knowledge in our teaching practice, and ways to do so.

Once I went back home, my head was bombarded with thousands of questions. I sensed that policy-makers have started to recognize the presence of digital world in real life. I mean, it is true, governments collapsed; people were imprisoned, killed, labeled as terrorists because of occasional unknowns, somewhere, behind computer\phone screens called them to go out to streets, mass and riot against the corrupted governments. They were told so and convinced that that was the right way to create change.

Our students are potential targets to the same influence too. They need to learn how to safely, securely navigate and communicate information online. We must weaponize them with digital knowledge. If not so, in the future, our students will become the weapon themselves that will shoot astray and hit what comes in the way. The need to integrate digital literacy in the Moroccan school’s curriculum is of an immediate urgency.

Digital literacy is not merely about functional skills that allow us to switch on or off machines, nor the ensembles of clicks to upload photos or videos online. It is about the basic purpose behind doing so. The ethical, academic, social side of it matters most. Our digital existence is itself a maneuver to find, evaluate, build and communicate information online. It, in first hand, impacts the outside more than the inside.

We as Moroccan theorizers, educators and teachers need to go through a cleansing ritual to cleanse the existing knowledge and thinking about education. This way we can refine our practice as teachers, and therefore redefine our perception of how knowledge is taught. One way to do so is to think about technology as a means of education. It allows access to varied digital environments which are enriched with different types of content.

In a non-stop basis, the digital world is fed with improving knowledge. Students need to take part in this process. They have to shape this world and leave their digital marks on it. For this reason, teachers are to embrace new approaches and embed them in their practice. They have to inspire students to use technology meaningfully, with good intentions and purposes. And, for some reasons I can’t think of any noble, meaningful purpose than education.