-Digital+Competencies

=**Digital Competencies**= ====Society has changed as a result of the development of the World Wide Web. Most of us now live in both the physical and virtual worlds. We bank, shop, pay bills, communicate with friends near and far, down load music, search for information, check the weather, and catch up on the news all online. Our students are no different. They are on their cell phones playing games, downloading music, texting friends, and updating their Facebook status numerous times a day. Recent efforts in education have been made to ensure our students of the 21st century are taught the digital competencies that will help them learn how to avoid the dangers and explore the possibilities of the internet.====

**Zhao (2009) defines digital competencies as "the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and ability to live a healthy and successful life in the virtual world".**
====The National Education Technology Standards (NETS) for Students 2007 suggest standards for applying technology to foster the development of the 21st century skills: creativity and innovation, collaboration and communications, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making, digital citizenship, and technology operations and concepts. Here is the link to the NETS for Students 2007 page []====

====Zhao in his book, //Catching Up or Leading the Way,// compiles his own list of the digital competencies he thinks learners of the 21st century need. Included in his list are being able to understand the difference and connections between the physical and virtual worlds; the ability to tell fantasy from reality. He also thought it was important that students realize technology will break down and they should have a positive attitude about the experience. If a break down or problem occurs, he said the students should be able to know where and how to obtain help.====

===="As the virtual world further expands, we need our children to become digitally competent so they can live safely and productively in this newly emerging world. They need to have the proper attitude, understanding, skills, and perspectives that can enable them to lead virtual communities, to manage virtual relationships, to defend our nation in cyberspace, to re-create the virtual world, and to direct the development of the virtual world for the betterment of humankind.” (Zhao, 2009)====

====So in the 2025 classroom students will use technology on a daily basis to develop these skills that will help them become well rounded adults. They will create and innovate using movie making sites (see the 21st century tools section) and making their own apps to make their lives easier (@http://www.appmakr.com/ - website to use to start designing your own app). When they look up information using technology they will be problem solving and learning how to research fluently, and their overall use of the technology will teach them how to use and be proficient at working with and trouble shooting technology. They will use the technology so frequently, the physical and digital world will be so highly connected, that they will be able to build the communities online that are needed to have a collaborative learning environment.====

**Protecting Their Online Identity**
====Sometimes students tend to share a little too much information online. Therefore we should also teach students how to protect themselves online. The video below shows what happens when a young fellow goes to a job interview, not realizing the interviewer has pulled up his Facebook account. Just one click and the interviewer had all the young man's personal information without restrictions. We need to emphasize to students that what they expose online, is almost like exposing it in the physical world.====

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====In the 2025 classroom, it should be the norm that teachers will guide students on how to protect important information and still be willing to collaborate without the fear of sharing too much. Social media will be very prevalent, so it will be the job of the teacher to show students how to correctly utilize it to collaborate and learn. They will need to understand the tradeoffs between sharing information and the consequences, and will need to realize the impact of putting things out on the internet. So part of the curriculum should focus on teaching students how to guide their digital competencies and manage it so they can effectively use technology to learn, collaborate, and grow.====