Connected technologies are core to young people’s lives but assumptions about “digital natives” often overestimate their digital literacy skills. We assume that navigation and search are second nature whereas, in truth, they are often unsure how to change settings and scared of unintended consequences. Many parents feel lost in these new arenas and uneasy about allowing kids to fully engage What does media literacy mean in this fast changing mediated and networked world? How can digital tools and content contribute amongst the many other elements that frame children's learning? Does digital participation enable young people to understand their rights and responsibilities, or help them develop skills they'll need as future citizens? How can digital technologies connect peers and strengthen connections between learners and adults? Sonia will propose that a more realistic understanding of kids’ digital behaviour would inform the development of better frameworks that could both protect and nurture. A longer version of this talk can be found here — http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27219/

2. Digital literacy in the
networked world
Sonia Livingstone

4. Beyond the myth of ‘digital natives’
“I think in comparison to my parents and loads of the older
generation I know, I do know more. But I think there are a lot
of people that know a lot more than me… A lot of my friends
know a lot… And I learn from them.”
“It can be more reliable to go to the library, because when you
think about it anybody can write something on the Internet,
and it could basically be a load of rubbish written by a 2 year
old, and like with books they have to go through a publisher
and everything, so what's actually written down is true.”
“It’s like you don’t know who’s doing what, whose website it is,
who wants what, who wants you to learn what. So you don’t
know who’s put what information there, but … it’s reliable – but
you don’t know who’s put it, who wants you to gain what from
that information.”

5. Left to work it out for themselves?
“Yeah, it's IT, that's what it's called, and you
go, you have about 10 computers in a big
computer room and you work in groups to
do like stuff on the computer. They let you
go on the internet but it has to be
educational stuff you look up and all that.
That's boring but we don't listen to that and
we look up what we want when the teacher's
not looking.”
“We do have internet at school and we do
have IT lessons but they don’t really help us.
I don’t quite know where I’ve learnt it… I
think it’s just been fiddling around with it
basically.”

6. Struggles with digital literacy
“Every time I try to look for something, I can never find it.
It keeps coming up with things that are completely
irrelevant … and a load of old rubbish really.”
“I’ll try the BBC because they’re quite good at having stuff.”
“I don’t really find the internet that helpful really. When I’m
looking for things I can never find them. And it’s always so
vague when you do find them, and never pinpoint
something down.”
“If it’s got a long name, it’s probably like a home website
and it’s not likely to be that really accurate is it?”
“I like colour, I’m a colourful person. I just don’t like dull
things. Whenever I go on to it, it’s like dull, there’s no big
bubble writing, big letters, just ordinary typing, black and
white, and if there’s a really important word they’re just
blue, and that’s just boring for me.”

7. An after-school computer club
10 year old children are playing a maths game on the computer. The task is
to navigate a ship around a map of Scotland, calling at two ports on the
way. This must be completed within some 90 moves by entering the
direction (in degrees) and the distance (in km) for each leg of the journey.
One pair of boys has a child who understands maths and a stubbornly
determined child (as their teachers describe them). After an hour of
crashing, playing around and typing in rude words, they eventually succeed.
They are pleased, and they learned about navigation, direction and
distance.
Next to them is a 10-year-old girl working on her own. She crashes the boat
several times in rapid succession and becomes frustrated. She hasn’t read
the instructions and missed the importance of the compass. Even when I
point this out, she cannot manage this game. Receiving no feedback from
the game or her teacher, she gives up and plays a simpler drawing game
instead.

8. Candy, 13, doing her homework
Candy was trying to find a German website on food and drink to help her
school work. First, she checks with her father that ‘.du’ is the German url
suffix. He suggests ‘.dr’ for Deutsche Republik or ‘just to leave the last bit
off and see if it finds it’, but this doesn’t work, so she tries
www.esse.com.du.
This doesn’t work, so she tries .de, with no more success. The researcher
suggests www.essenundtrinken.com.de but this doesn’t work either,
because mistakenly Candy typed ‘trinke’ without the ‘n’. Even with the ‘n’
added, the url doesn’t work (the .com is a mistake).
Her brother, Bob, comes across to try to help, but he can’t remember any
German sites. Now Candy is trying www.yahoo.co.du. Bob suggests capital
‘D’. Her mother suggests .uk to see if ‘the whole thing is working’. Her
mother clicks on ‘refresh’ but Candy warns, ‘Don’t do that! It goes on to a
porn page!’
Finally, her mother tries www.yahoo.co.uk, which works. The family

9. What should digital learning be for?
• New ways to learn the traditional curriculum or new ways to
learn new things?
• To be assessed using tried and tested means (though shows
little benefit) or using more creative means?
• To support disadvantaged pupils or for all (though knowledge
gaps mean the already-privileged benefit more)?
• As part of the solution to existing problems in education, or as
part of a radical transformation of teaching and learning styles
and structures?

10. From digital literacy
to digital participation
Media literacy is “a technocratic and specialist
term understood by policy makers but not
really part of everyday language.”
“It is now vital to move away from media
literacy as a discrete subject and term and to
move towards a National Plan for Digital
Participation.”
“Increasing the reach, breadth and depth of
digital technology use across all sections of
society, to maximise digital participation and
the economic and social benefits it can bring.”

11. Participation in what? Problems of
design, purpose and responsiveness
• Producers - it is “about participation in the broadest sense,” because
services for young people “need to engage with young people in a
participatory way”. So, “we’re putting lots of bits of fun” in the “hope
that young people will throw lots of stuff at it” so that they can “check
they are hitting the mark”. After all, young people “need to know about
a lot more these days to make the right choices.”
• Teenagers – find the site “boring”, “so stereotypical”; after all, “you
can’t really get one [a site] that would please everyone.”
• “Well, we might think they should listen to us but from their point of
view, we can’t vote so there’s no point in listening to us… we can say
one thing, but they don’t have to do it.” (Luke, 15)

12. Should digital participation . .
• Invite youth to use digital media in their own right, or provide a
route to change some other domain that affects their lives?
• Reach out to new groups who may be disaffected or alienated, or
to provide opportunities for the already motivated?
• Enable youth to realize their present rights and responsibilities,
or to help them develop skills they’ll need as future citizens?
• Connect youth to each other as a peer to peer activity or
facilitate connections between youth and adults?
• Provide resources for youth to pursue their own interests or use
the resources to achieve pre-given adult goals or messages?

13. Thank you
s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk