Digital Literacy is a vital preparation for life

In a recent interview on the Today progamme, Anthony Seldon typified the view of many educationalists by arguing that ICT is just the latest new technology that, like audio and video, can be used by teachers to impart the traditional curriculum. Although he mentioned in passing that young people need to acquire ICT skills, he underestimated their importance.

Seldon: "When parents walk around schools, if they are being shown by a Head the magnificent ICT, I think that this is a warning sign that a school is getting it wrong. ICT is at best an only adjunct, it can be a wonderful resource, and yes it is necessary absolutely for children to have these skills for all their different kinds of employment in the future ......
Humphries: "So it is more than just an adjunct, it is essential - in terms of preparing people for what they are going to face in the world?"
Seldon: "It is a facilitator to what learning is."

Of course ICT is an excellent resource and facilitator, but to limit its importance to this sphere is to misunderstand the nature of this particular technology. The digital revolution is changing the world. Digital natives will live and work in a different world to the one which we now experience. They have already transformed their own world and we will be able to track their impact on society year by year as they become a greater proportion of the workforce.

Schools have a responsibility to prepare young people for the world that they are going to inhabit and not the one of the past. The ubiquitous ability to access information is changing both the patterns of work and the skills required by both higher education and the workplace. At a mouse click, we all can have access to more information than the human brain can hold. The value of factual knowledge is decreasing: the value of the higher skills of understanding and evaluation is going up. Clearly young people still need educating and Independent schools have established educational traditions and these will continue to be the core of what we do. However, it is likely that young people who combine traditional skills with high levels of digital literacy are going to be the leaders of society in years to come.

Marc Prensky, who coined the term “digital native”, is probably right when he argued recently that it will be people who have “digital wisdom” that will shape the future. For him, the digitally wise will combine human understanding with digital enhancements. The digitally wise will be able “to find practical, creative, contextually appropriate and emotionally satisfying solutions to complicated human problems” in the future.

“Technology alone will not replace intuition, good judgment, problem-solving abilities, and a clear moral compass. But in an unimaginably complex future, the digitally unenhanced person, however wise, will not be able to access the tools of wisdom that will be available to even the least wise digitally enhanced human.”

Digital technologies are already making a difference in many areas of business life. Digital tools already enhance memory, they provide up to the minute information, they allow levels of analysis incapable by the human brain. These enhancements allow us to make better decisions and judgements – here lies digital wisdom.