This post was a discussion board contribution for week 0 of the Digital Literacy and Open Education module. There are a few aspects here that could be expanded on further in the future, but the post was already far too long so it will have to stay as it is for the moment.
After reading the first chapter of Rennie and Morrision one of the aspects that struck me was the increasing importance of digital and information literacy. It has never been easier to access vast amounts of information, but it has also never been easier to share misinformation, whether for malicious or accidental reasons. Assessing and verifying information sources and evaluating how our internal biases come into play is vital, and higher education has guide students towards building those skills.
The widespread belief that a source like Wikipedia can never be trusted is one example where these skills are vital. Many people blindly trust what is written in ‘traditional’ sources and have a blind distrust of information from disruptive or digital sources. The same people who cling to discredited or disputed notions like digital natives and learning styles because they came from traditional publication are often the same people who vilify any information on Wikipedia as unreliable. No matter the medium used we have to evaluate the sources critically. Just watch out for the tinfoil hat wearing, climate change denying, flat Earthers – if you find yourself surrounded by them online it usually means you made a wrong turn somewhere.
Ideas like digital and information literacy in education are also related to social justice. With the entire wealth of human knowledge available from devices we carry with us everywhere it has also never been more important to acknowledge our biases and privileges which can become entrenched in the echo chamber of social media. How do my social and political leanings along with the context I have grown up in affect how perceive ideas?