Digital literacy: Workshop with activities to improve digital literacy of foreign language studentsStefan August Schlaefli Fust, EEP Language Centre, University of Cyprus
Digital literacy or competence is in our days in all the areas of knowledge acquisition. Searching for information on the Internet has become a basic skill for studies, work and leisure. Normally digital literacy goes parallel to reading competence that is one of the basic skills not only in learning a foreign language. The European Parliament and Council identify in 2006 eight basic competences which “all individuals need for personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment”:
1) Communication in the mother tongue;
2) Communication in foreign languages;
3) Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology;
4) Digital competence;
5) Learning to learn;
6) Social and civic competences;
7) Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship; and
8) Cultural awareness and expression.
This workshop intends to present some activities to improve the digital literacy of our students using guided or semi guided exercises that direct the students in order to find and where to find information on the Internet and how to transform it for the purposes of different activities (writing speaking etc.) The majority of our students already are digital natives and use different devices that provide them with immediate access to an infinite quantity of information, nevertheless when it comes to use all these possibilities efficiently the problems start: either they do not know where to search and if the data found is true or they are unable to transform the information found for their purposes. The proposed activities have the goal to call the attention of the students about where they can find trustworthy information and how they can transform the data without simply “copy and paste” it.
During the workshop, participants will be invited to reflect on how their students use digital information for language learning and how language teachers can improve the digital competence of our students. Some activities created for students at the Spanish Language Section of the University of Cyprus will be presented and the participants will have the opportunity to solve some of these exercises by themselves and afterwards create their own exercises for the languages they teach.
Some of the exercises presented in the workshop use google forms and can be corrected automatically with an external application. In this sense participants will learn to create their own tests or quizzes with google forms and how to correct them automatically.`
Computers or handhold devices for participants with access to internet
Google Drive account for participants
Digital literacy or competence is in our days in all the areas of knowledge acquisition. Searching for information on the Internet has become a basic skill for studies, work and leisure. Normally digital literacy goes parallel to reading competence that is one of the basic skills not only in learning a foreign language. The European Parliament and Council identify in 2006 eight basic competences which “all individuals need for personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment”:
1) Communication in the mother tongue;
2) Communication in foreign languages;
3) Mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology;
4) Digital competence;
5) Learning to learn;
6) Social and civic competences;
7) Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship; and
8) Cultural awareness and expression.
This workshop intends to present some activities to improve the digital literacy of our students using guided or semi guided exercises that direct the students in order to find and where to find information on the Internet and how to transform it for the purposes of different activities (writing speaking etc.) The majority of our students already are digital natives and use different devices that provide them with immediate access to an infinite quantity of information, nevertheless when it comes to use all these possibilities efficiently the problems start: either they do not know where to search and if the data found is true or they are unable to transform the information found for their purposes. The proposed activities have the goal to call the attention of the students about where they can find trustworthy information and how they can transform the data without simply “copy and paste” it.
During the workshop, participants will be invited to reflect on how their students use digital information for language learning and how language teachers can improve the digital competence of our students. Some activities created for students at the Spanish Language Section of the University of Cyprus will be presented and the participants will have the opportunity to solve some of these exercises by themselves and afterwards create their own exercises for the languages they teach.
Some of the exercises presented in the workshop use google forms and can be corrected automatically with an external application. In this sense participants will learn to create their own tests or quizzes with google forms and how to correct them automatically.`
Computers or handhold devices for participants with access to internet
Google Drive account for participants