Digital Literacy for Life

SQA is a supporting a new initiative from the BCS to promote digital literacy skills. Their Digital Literacy for Life (DLfL) programme aims to encourage schools to deliver digital literacy across the curricula and also to inform employers about the value of the "digitally literate empoyee". A new website to support this initiative was launched this week.

SQA is actively supporting the BCS. I am a member of the Education Committee and will try to ensure that Scottish centres benefit from the programme. I recently commented on the growing importance of digital literacy skills, and how SQA was reviewing its portfolio to ensure that it encompasses the required knowledge and skills.

Digital literacy is about more than basic IT skills (which are an important part of it). It includes a number of literacies and cognitive skills such as critical thinking, information literacy, network literacy and social media literacy. It's becoming so important that it's been referred to as "the fourth literacy" after reading, writing and counting.

I've recently completed an audit of my portfolio to check for digital literacy knowledge and skills -- and some updating is necessary. Watch this space for more information. In the meantime, don't hesitate to contact me if you want to know more about digital literacy qualifications.