How to become a Digital Literate

The fact that Internet provides us instantaneous information regarding any doubt we have does not mean that as human beings we only have to rely heavily on what is being shown to us. The following picture gives an example of what occurs nowadays in schools: 

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Thus, it is necessary to take into consideration the existence of some crucial criteria when deciding to use information from a web-page, especially if you are a teacher:

• Purpose: What is the purpose of the site or page?
• Authority and Responsibility: Who is the author? What are his/her credentials? Is there any way of contact him? Is the page authentic or is it a hoax? Are the authors up-front about their purpose and content? Is there a way to contact the authors? Do the authors give credit for information used?
• Objectivity: Does the content reflect a bias? Is it explicit or hidden? How does the bias impact the usefulness of the information?
• Appropriateness and Relevance: Is the content appropriate/relevant for your classroom or your assignment? Is the content appropriate for the age or developmental level of your students?
• Clarity: Is the text neat, legible and formatted for easy reading? If there are graphics, do they add to the content or distract? If there are advertisements, do they interfere with your ability to use the page? Are the pages well organized? Are there mistakes in spelling or word usage?
• Accessibility and Currency: Does the site load quickly? Can you move around the site easily? Is the site or page still there next time? Is there a text-only alternative for the visually-impaired? Is the information on the page up-to-date? Can you tell when the page was last updated? Are there dead links?

Some of these criteria have been applied in the analysis of two web pages: BBCLearning English and Tools for Educators, and we concluded that both of them are reliable and trustworthy, since:

• As regards Purpose, BBC's domain (.co.uk) corresponds to country, territory, or other geographic location; while TFE's domain (.com) makes reference to commercial nature.

• Looking at Authority and Responsibility, we have found that you can only reach BBC as a corporation, whereas TFE offers a more direct contact to the author, Mark Cox.

• Regarding Clarity, we can say that both sites are well organized in terms of content and none of them present spelling or word usage mistakes; nevertheless, if we pay attention to the design we may think that, as BBC has a more standard format, it is more authentic than TFE, which uses many different fonts.

• Accessibility and Currency: Both pages are up-to-date, load quickly and you can find them next time you look for them. Also, none of them show dead links.

BBC Learning English

Tools for Educators

If you consider all the criteria mentioned and analyze the web sites you want to use in a similar way as we did, you will probably become a Digital Literate, that is to say you will be able to understand, evaluate and integrate information in multiple formats that the computer can deliver.