Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Becoming digitally fluent: competence as well as confidence.
Are children and young people acquiring the skills to navigate the truth and views they read online?
The Independent think tank Demos published a new piece of research in September , Truth, Lies and the Internet, examining the ability of young people to critically evaluate the information they consume online. The research consists of both a literature review of seventeen existing research studies conducted between 2005 and 2010, and new interviews with 500 teachers in the UK.
The research concludes that children and young people use the internet increasingly as a first source of information, and often as their only source of information but that skills of discerning what is reliable and accurate were often underdeveloped. “the amount of material available at the click of a mouse canbe both liberating and asphyxiating.” The research concludes that children and young people use the internet increasingly as a first source of information, and often as their only source of information but that skills of discerning what is reliable and accurate were often underdeveloped. “the amount of material available at the click of a mouse canbe both liberating and asphyxiating.”
Ninety-five per cent of the teachers polled reported that pupils brought information they found online into the classroom; 88 per cent thought internet-based research was important for schoolwork; and 75 per cent thought that internet content was important in the formation of their pupils’ beliefs. However, students did not demonstrate the skills to navigate this information meaningfully and effectively. The report found evidence that "students did not verify sources, had poor understanding of how search engines work, and were not good at differentiating between propaganda and accurate information. "
The report concludes that it is essential to prioritise developing a specific body of knowledge and skills to equip young people to make informed judgements. The report groups these skills in a competency called “digital fluency" and argues that this competency should be placed at the centre of the UK curriculum for all students.
Three key strands of digital fluency are identified.
1. basic principles of critical evaluation, which are useful in any context: fact-checking, provenance, and weighing up different kinds of evidence.
2 the special net savviness—how search engines work, how easy it is to fake websites—that is essential in the digital world.
3. the need to encourage students to use a range of different sources to avoid only imbibing one point of view.
Together, these develop digitally fluent students who can search, retrieve, contextualise, analyse, visualise and synthsise information they find online.
"Censorship of the internet is neither necessary nor desirable; the task instead is to ensure that young people can make careful, skeptical and savvy judgments about the internet content they encounter.”
The report is available to download for free from Demos. (Authors are Jamie Bartlett and Carl Miller.