Digital Intelligence

The other day on the World Economic Forum website, this post in the Human implications of digital media department caught my eye: 8 digital skills we must teach our children.  The title would be of interest to anyone involved in the use ICT in education, but it was the image I especially appreciated.  It beautifully represents as a collection (and it is huge!) the technology-related ideals and skills that educators have been naming and discussing for decades. Author Yuhyun Park describes “Digital Intelligence” as “the set of social, emotional and cognitive abilities that enable individuals to face the challenges and adapt to

Digital Intelligence © infollutionZERO Foundation

the demands of digital life. These abilities can broadly be broken down into eight interconnected areas:

Digital identity: The ability to create and manage one’s online identity and reputation. This includes an awareness of one’s online persona and management of the short-term and long-term impact of one’s online presence.

Digital use: The ability to use digital devices and media, including the mastery of control in order to achieve a healthy balance between life online and offline.

Digital safety: The ability to manage risks online (e.g. cyberbullying, grooming, radicalization) as well as problematic content (e.g. violence and obscenity), and to avoid and limit these risks.

Digital security: The ability to detect cyber threats (e.g. hacking, scams, malware), to understand best practices and to use suitable security tools for data protection.

Digital emotional intelligence: The ability to be empathetic and build good relationships with others online.

Digital communication: The ability to communicate and collaborate with others using digital technologies and media.

Digital literacy: The ability to find, evaluate, utilize, share and create content as well as competency in computational thinking.

Digital rights: The ability to understand and uphold personal and legal rights, including the rights to privacy, intellectual property, freedom of speech and protection from hate speech.”

However, I feel that the author does us a great disservice by talking only about children in this context, “Experts are predicting that 90% of the entire population will be connected to the internet within 10 years. With the internet of things, the digital and physical worlds will soon be merged. These changes herald exciting possibilities. But they also create uncertainty. And our kids are at the centre of this dynamic change.” I think that we are all at the centre of change – all of us Internet users.  The parallel in schools is teaching students “responsible Internet use” and leaving the teachers to their own devices.

It is not just children who need to learn how to deal with the digital world – every day the news media relays stories of people (and increasingly, their institutions) of all ages who have chosen less than clever passwords, been hacked, bullied, trolled, who have shown dubious judgement, etc., on one digital platform or another.  The central character in this video should be an “any age” being:

I clicked through to the DQProject website to find out more, which I will leave you to do for yourself, and make your own evaluation of what you find there.