More Study Welcome

Last week a group of moderate Democrat legislators signed a letter directed to the head of the National Academy of Sciences to study "digital literacy among pre-kindergarten through high school students and the types of digital education programs that are being deployed in schools." source

Among the notable points:

• 2013: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) finds that American young adults ranked near the bottom for using digital skills to solve problems, including skills to acquire and evaluate information;
• Appropriate policies and measures need to be put in place to tackle this disparity through pre-K to Grade 12 education programs;
• Five aspects of digital literacy are highlighted for study:
• define skills and abilities that comprise 'digital literacy'
• summarize current levels of digital literacy across grades, ethnicity, SES and location
• characterize the range of program currently available to help students in preK-12
• review and synthesize research on effectiveness of digital education programs
• recommend federal, state and local policies to reduce gaps in abilities and educational offerings

More study, especially from the top, is welcome and overdue. Without policies, gaps will persist. Hopefully best practices in digital information literacy will become more widespread as a result.