Digital Citizenship
As students nowadays are increasingly involved in electronic environments, they need new strategies and literacy skills like media, information, visual literacies, etc. that they have not been familiar with; the ability to communicate through graphics, hypertexts, and other information resources requires the development of new skills. (Karchmer 2001: p442). The current technological revolution, as Kellner (2002) argues, demands a major restructuring of education today with new literacies, new pedagogies and new curriculum. As a result, it has become important to understand and identify the new skills, strategies and competencies that the Internet needs to include them in education.
Challenges to new literacies learning and/or application in education
Abdallah (2008) suggests that the new age of ICTs intrudes new challenges in the educational, social and economic situations in such a way that new skills and competencies are increasingly required from students to find a place in the competitive world. Teachers and books are no longer the only sources of spreading knowledge. Other sources, such as the Internet, have begun to replace them at an unpredictably rapid rate. Digital technologies are now pervasive at home, in school, and in the workplace. Students need to be prepared as healthy skeptics who can sort out untruths and make effective use of online information in order to learn and succeed in an increasingly complex world.
Action plan which formulates ways to overcome selected challenges to new literacies learning in the 21st century
Educators must recognize that online reading and the critical evaluation of online information may be the defining challenge for reading instruction today. We can convey a digital literacy spiral curriculum to support outcomes-centered teaching and student-centered learning for students to overcome the challenges to new literacy learning in the 21st century, Also, we can run sharing sessions among schools to promote effective practices on digital literacy. Furthermore, continuous trainings and instructions are provided for the teachers to understand and directly apply the power and capacity of the latest technologies to transform communication, teaching and learning within the education community.
