Digital Literacy for Post-Primary Students
Empowering the next generation to thrive in the digital world!
Welcome to NavigateDigital!
The purpose of this website is to support teachers in the development of their students’ Digital Competencies, by integrating tasks, activities, and assessments into their existing curricular practice. The site includes a comprehensive overview of the various Digital Competencies, including explanations of what these look like in practice.
Our mission is to create a community of practice around the integration of Digital Competencies into teaching and learning.
The integration into teaching section provides examples from other teachers about how they developed their students’ Digital Competencies and provides space for you to share your practice. You will also find information on courses and workshops we offer, so feel free to get in touch.
Digital Literacy is an umbrella term which is used to define and describe a range of skills (digital competencies) which enable individuals to participate confidently, actively and safely in a digital society.
These digital competencies can be grouped together under five main headings.
01
Critical engagement with digital sources of information
This group of digital competencies is focused on individuals being critical consumers of information sourced with online platforms and tools. It contains a range of skills including
a) The ability to effectively and efficiently find information
b) Evaluate this information in terms of its relevance, truthfulness, value, bias, etc.
c) Organise and manage information in a logical manner
d) Integrate this information into their work, their thinking, and applying information to solve problems and answer questions.
Digital content production and dissemination
This group of competencies is focused on individuals having the technical and creative skills to produce content using digital tools, and to publish and share their creations with relevant audiences.
It contains a range of skills including
a) The ability to plan a multimedia product, representing information using a variety of digital media (text, images, audio and movie)
b) The technical skills to produce multimedia content using a variety of tools
c) Exploring and exploiting the value of multimedia to repurpose existing content, create new meaning and solve problems
02
03
Participate in digital networks and communities
This group of competencies is focused on how individuals communicate and collaborate online in an effective and respectful manner. It is also concerned with the creation and management of an authentic digital identity.
It contains a range of skills including
a) Sharing, communicating and collaborating online,
b) Locating and participating in relevant personal and professional networks
c) Developing and maintaining a positive digital identity.
Safety, security and wellbeing
This group of competencies is focused on using technologies in a way that is safe and secure and that values the health and wellbeing of oneself and others.
It contains skills such as
a) Being safe online
b) Understanding privacy and security
c) Looking after wellbeing and the wellbeing of others.
04
05
Environmental Awareness
This group of competencies is focused on understanding the environmental impact of technology usage.
It contains skills such as
a) Understanding the human cost and ethics behind technology production
b) Understanding the environmental cost of producing technology hardware
c) Understanding the environmental cost of storing data in the cloud
d) Understanding the energy consumption of digital devices and their impact on the environment.