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Developing Basic Digital Skills

The document outlines the Five Fluencies essential for 21st-century education: Solution Fluency, Information Fluency, Creativity Fluency, Media Fluency, and Collaboration Fluency, emphasizing their necessity for student success in a digital world. Each fluency consists of specific processes and skills that promote critical thinking, creativity, effective communication, and collaboration. Additionally, it highlights the qualities of a Global Digital Citizen, including personal responsibility and environmental stewardship.

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Michael Angelou Cabilao
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4 views

Developing Basic Digital Skills

The document outlines the Five Fluencies essential for 21st-century education: Solution Fluency, Information Fluency, Creativity Fluency, Media Fluency, and Collaboration Fluency, emphasizing their necessity for student success in a digital world. Each fluency consists of specific processes and skills that promote critical thinking, creativity, effective communication, and collaboration. Additionally, it highlights the qualities of a Global Digital Citizen, including personal responsibility and environmental stewardship.

Uploaded by

Michael Angelou Cabilao
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Developing Basic Digital Skills

At the very heart of the 21st Century Fluency Project are the Five Fluencies. We call
them fluencies and not skills because we believe this level of proficiency—not just literacy, but
fluency—should be the goal when we are teaching students the basic skills that are essential
for functioning in life.

It’s important to note that these are not optional skills for our students, or for us.
Everyone living in the 21st century and beyond will need these abilities. They must be
cultivated by every teacher in every subject, and at every grade level. And they will mean the
difference between success and struggle for the students of our current Information Age.

Solution Fluency

Our education system has taught problem-solving in a show-and-tell manner (we show
students the problem, and tell them how we got the answer) that has fostered a culture of
dependency, rather than discovery. But if you look at today’s economy, you’ll discover that most
left-brain tasks are already automated or outsourced via Internet in a global economy, leaving
jobs that require whole-brain thinking. This means creativity and problem-solving applied in
real time. The 6D system is a logical, thorough, and relevant approach for tackling problems!”

• Define the problem, because you need to know exactly what you’re doing before you start.
• Discover a solution, because planning prevents wasted effort.
• Dream up a process, one that is suitable and efficient.
• Design the process in an accurate and detailed action plan.
• Deliver by putting the plan into action by both producing and publishing the solution.
• Debrief and foster ownership by evaluating the problem-solving process.

Information Fluency

InfoWhelm is the experience of feeling overwhelmed with too much


information. InfoWhelm is both real, and increasingly prevalent (Vander Wekken, 2013).
Because of InfoWhelm, data is increasing dramatically, facts are becoming obsolete faster, and
knowledge built on these facts is less durable. Information fluency is the ability to unconsciously
interpret this avalanche of data in all formats, in order to extract the essential and perceive its
significance. Information fluency has 5 As, which are:

• Ask good questions, in order to get good answers.


• Access and acquire the raw material from the appropriate digital information sources,
which today are mostly graphical and audiovisual in nature.
• Analyze and authenticate and arrange these materials, and distinguish between good and
bad, fact and opinion. Understand bias and determine what is incomplete to turn the raw
data into usable knowledge.
• Apply the knowledge within a real-world problem or simulation using a VIP action (vision
into practice).
• Assess both the product and the process, which is both a teacher and a student practice.
Creativity Fluency

Creativity fluency how artistic proficiency adds meaning through design, art, and
storytelling. We are all creative people. This means that creativity can be taught and learned like
any other skill. It’s a whole brain process that involves both hemispheres working together. There
are 5 Is to Creativity fluency:

• Identify the desired outcome and criteria.


• Inspire your creativity with rich sensory information.
• Interpolate and connect the dots by searching for patterns within the inspiration that
align with your desired outcome and criteria from Identify.
• Imagine is the synthesis of Inspire and Interpolate, uniting in the birth of an idea.
• Inspect the idea against the original criteria and for feasibility.

Media Fluency

In our multimedia world, communication has moved far beyond the realm of text. Our
visual learning capacity needs stimulation with rich media from a variety of different sources. But
it’s more than just operating a digital camera, creating a podcast, or writing a document. There are
two components of Media fluency—one for input and one for output.
• Listen actively and decode the communication by separating the media from the message,
concisely and clearly verbalizing the message and verifying its authenticity, and then
critically analyzing the medium for form, flow, and alignment with the intended audience
and purpose.
• Leverage the most appropriate media for your message considering your content or
message and what the desired outcome is. Then consider the audience, your abilities, and
any pre-determined criteria. From here, the application of the other fluencies is used to
produce and publish your message.

Collaboration Fluency

More and more, working, playing, and learning in today’s digital world involves working
with others. It is the spirit of collaboration that will stimulate progress in our global marketplace,
in our social networks, and in our ability to create products of value and substance. Collaboration
fluency is the ability to successfully work and interact with virtual and real partners. The 5 Es of
Collaboration fluency are:

• Establish the collective, and determine the best role for each team member by pinpointing
each team member’s personal strengths and expertise, establishing norms, and the signing
of a group contract that indicates both a collective working agreement and an acceptance
of the individual responsibilities and accountability of each team member.
• Envision the outcome, examining the issue, challenge, and goal as a group.
• Engineer a workable plan to achieve the goal.
• Execute by putting the plan into action and managing the process.
• Examine the process and the end result for areas of constructive improvement.
Global Digital Citizen

The digital citizen uses the principles of leadership, ethics, accountability, fiscal responsibility,
environmental awareness, global citizenship, and personal responsibility, and considers his or her
actions and their consequences. The ideal Global Digital Citizen is defined by the presence of 5
main qualities:

• Personal Responsibility in ethical and moral boundaries, finance, personal health


and fitness, and relationships of every definition.
• Global Citizenship and its sense of understanding of world-wide issues and events, respect
for cultures and religions, and an attitude of acceptance and tolerance in a changing world.
• Digital Citizenship and the guiding principles of respecting and protecting yourself,
others, and all intellectual property in digital and non-digital environments.
• Altruistic Service by taking advantage of the opportunities we are given to care for our
fellow citizens, and to lend our hands and hearts to these in need when the need is called
for.
• Environmental Stewardship and its common-sense values about global resource
management and personal responsibility for safeguarding the environment, and an
appreciation and respect for the beauty and majesty that surrounds us every day.

1. Click this link for more information about the “Essential Fluencies”. Read diligently
and watch the video presentations to understand these fluencies better.

2. During the discussion about solution fluency, left-brain tasks and whole-brain
thinking are mentioned. To give yourself some perspective, click this link.
References

allthingslearning. (2012). Getting fluent with the five fluencies.


https://allthingslearning.wordpress.com/tag/media-fluency/

Vander Wekken, S. (2013). Infowhelm: Thinking about communicating in an age of


exponential information.
https://communication4health.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/infowhelm/#:~:text=Infowhel
m%20is%20the%20experience%20of,both%20real%2C%20and%20increasingly%20pre
valent.

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