Digital+Literacy+Plan

=C.I.S. DIGITAL LITERACY PLAN=

A. ESSENTIAL QUESTION:
===//"How do we create a sustainable program which best prepares our learners to successfully learn, understand, communicate, and thrive in a rapidly evolving media landscape where digital and artistic presentation of information hold as much (if not more) sway in shaping our collective understating of the world as the traditional mediums of printed text and oratory?"//===

B. STATEMENT OF BACKWARD PROGRAM DESIGN:
===CIS Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) program will not be thought of as a separate discipline, but rather as an extensive toolbox of evolving possibilities, which strengthen our ability to achieve our school’s mission/vision. The ICT faculty will be leaders and champions of:===
 * 1) **Facilitating and inspiring student learning and creativity;**
 * 2) **Designing and developing digital-age learning experiences and assessments;**
 * 3) **Modeling digital-age work and learning;**
 * 4) **Promoting and modeling digital citizenship and responsibility; and**
 * 5) **Engaging-in and designing professional growth and leadership opportunities.**

===The overall structure of the program will be built from the ground up with a focus on the principle of sustainability. This will allow the ICT program to deal with the unique challenges posed by the international school environment and a new school startup situation.===

===Approximately 15% of the program's objectives will be devoted to basic technology operations and concepts (e.g., keyboarding and software applications tutorials) with the remaining 85% directly integrated into classroom units of inquiry. The core objectives being infused into the units of inquiry will come directly from National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) and our stated view on digital literacy.===

**C. HOW DO WE DEFINE LITERACY?**
===Literacy is "the capacity to analyze, interpret and understand information within a particular category of information or within a particular medium. Each category may require specific tools, concepts and vocabulary to unlock the full meaning of the information provided."=== (Jamie McKenzie Ed.D)

DAOW Explained by Dr. Jason Ohler

 * 1. Why is ORAL STORYTELLING important in digital storytelling?**
 * **Because it is how storytelling began and has endured for millennia.** It has a history rich in timeless skills, perspective and sense of audience. Good teaching is often a matter of good storytelling. No matter how high tech we become, telling stories to each other orally will endure as one of our primary and most powerful forms of communication. It will always be an important skill to have in the workplace, in our communities and in our schools.
 * Because it provides a skill set that can be used alone, as well as transferred to the digital storytelling format. Whether you're no tech, low tech or high tech, it informs your digital storytelling practices.
 * I know only one thing about the technologies that await us in the future: We will find ways to tell stories with them.
 * Because video material of people telling oral stories will become increasingly important in digital storytelling. Video material has largely been excluded due to expense and complexity, but this is changing rapidly as digital video gets less expensive and easier to use. Video will present opportunities as well as challenges. The current de facto format for digital storytelling consists of still images with voice-over narration. This format is a relatively flexible, powerful, reflective approach to story creation. As video enters the digital storytelling arena we need to make sure we don't lose these qualities.
 * Because more and more students will tell stories with media accompaniment. Delivering a PowerPoint presentation is a good case in point. The average audience now expects a blend of media and oral presentation. Therefore, let's spend some of our educational energy focusing on oral presentation to help them be successful.


 * 2. Why is WRITING important in digital storytelling?**
 * **Because while writing may not be the final product of a digital story, it is the pathway students must take to create it.** Writing is the primary tool used to plan and create a digital story. The saying "if it ain't on the page then it ain't on the stage" is just as true for digital storytelling as it is for theater and movies. In fact, media production is a great way to engage kids in writing in an authentic way. Anecdotally, I have heard from teachers that students who don't want to write school reports are happy to write video plans and scripts because it is not perceived as "school work." Bottom line: No matter how sophisticated our technology becomes, the future of digital storytelling will involve writing and conventional forms of literacy.
 * **Because the writing skills that students employ in the process of creating their digital stories embrace many aspects of writing that are valued in school and the workplace.** Digital stories compel students to synthesize creative writing and personal reflection with clarity and organization. In the case of academic digital stories, writing is used to plan, script and create a story that demonstrates content area understanding.


 * 3. Why is ART important in digital storytelling?**
 * **Because in a world in which students are required to create websites, digital stories and other forms of new media as part of their school work, art is becoming the next literacy, or 4th R.** Thanks to our struggle to use multimedia effectively, the language of art is taking center stage.
 * Because digital stories are essentially multimedia art projects, shaped by story.
 * Because no matter what technologies await us in the future, we will try to tell stories with them, and to do so we will need to understand design - the grammar of art.


 * 4. Why is DIGITAL LITERACY important?**
 * Digital literacy = using technology effectively, creatively and wisely
 * The "D" in the DOAW of literacy stands for Digital. Our goal with digital literacy is to use technology "effectively, creatively and wisely." That is, we want our students to achieve:
 * effectiveness - to master technological skills
 * creativity - to use technology as an imagination amplifier
 * wisdom - to see and evaluate technology and its impacts within the larger context of community.
 * Media literacy as a subset of digital literacy

The wisdom we want our students to cultivate is both theoretical and practical. We want them to see and understand the persuasive power of technology and media, especially the power that flies beneath most people's radars. And there is no better way to "pull back the curtain and expose the wizard of technology OZ" than to have students create their own media. This is typically the domain of "media literacy."

Digital storytelling is a great media literacy vehicle. When students persuade with media, they see how media producers persuade them. Digital storytelling provides a great means to teach media literacy. Both computer-based and green-screen performance-based storytelling "lift the hood" on media persuasion and show students how media makers use technique to influence what we think and how we feel. Media literacy has always carried the connotation of being wary of how media is persuading our perceptions. That is, because media is so powerful, we need to be especially aware of its power to persuade.


 * Media literacy: Recognizing, evaluating and applying the methods of media persuasion. I** recommend you make media literacy an explicit goal of your new media project. In my opinion, students cannot understand how media persuades until they become media persuaders themselves. There is yet another component of digital literacy that is worth mentioning here: media fluency.

In one sense, it simply means being very media literate. That is, it's the next step in language development that allows media developers to speak the language of media like a native. But it carries with it a different connotation than media literacy. Even though media literacy addresses "applying the methods of media persuasion," it is usually associated with just reading media. That's because media literacy was born during an era when very few created media, while the rest of us watched it and were left to suspect what the media persuaders were actually doing and saying.
 * Media fluency: The ability to use a number of media to create a coherent and compelling narrative.**

On the hand, media fluency is a response to being able to both read and write media. In an era of inexpensive, widely distributed digital tools, we can now produce media, not just watch it. This signifies an important evolutionary step in the production of information, media, and, above all, stories.

Media literacy allows us to read media; media fluency allows us to write it. Media literacy and media fluency are both important. Media literacy is needed to fully parse and understand what the media fluent person can do. Media allows us to critically consume media; media fluency allows us to effectively create it.

= D. SUSTAINABILITY =