Digital Literacy Skills Among Black Pre-Service Florida Teachers

Introduction

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced educators worldwide to shift conversations and reimagine what has been considered the fundamentals of quality teacher preparation. These foundational competencies often emphasize specific instructional skills or associated characteristics, including applying appropriate technology and the level of digital language mastery. Digital literacy is a broad term associated with the aforenoted skills, and the value of digital literacy has become increasingly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, assessing digital literacy among teachers is crucial in determining their ability to facilitate the “skills and knowledge for tomorrow’s world” (OECD, 2013). Many assume that the use of smartphones and computers automatically transfers to digital literacy. However, research shows that primary use of web-supported technology is not synonymous with digital literacy (Eldakak, 2012). Gilster (1997) defined digital literacy as the understanding and use of various forms of computer-presented information. Digital literacy has grown since Gilster’s 1997 definition, as it now includes mobile technology, which is the number one method by which users connect to the Internet (Haucke, 2018). The impact of digital literacy skills among teachers is even more important than among the general population, as teachers’ abilities impact their quality of instruction and students’ learning.

In an e-publication, the University of Southern California identified seven reasons digital literacy is essential among teachers: (a) improving the technology, (b) making thoughtful cultural and platform decisions, (c) expanding conceptions of the digital world, (d) enabling differentiation, (e) teaching digital citizenship, (f) moving beyond Google, and (h) closing the digital divide (Levy, 2018). Ultimately, digital literacy affords teachers more profound instructional potential, and technologies can potentially promote knowledge construction and transform teaching into an active learning experience for students (Amiri, 2000); it also catalyzes collaborative and participatory learning, as well as higher-order thinking (Knobel, 2008).

Preservice teachers (PSTs), those education students who are undergoing guided teaching practicums and supervised by veteran teachers, will become certified teachers who are expected to integrate 21^st century skills and technology into their classrooms much like veteran teachers who, because of the global pandemic, have been forced to teach on digital platforms, many for the first time. Digital literacy has been taken up within fields outside of education and informed by social and cultural theories rather than a checklist of proficiencies or competencies (Jones & Hafner, 2012; Knobel & Lankshear, 2008; Knobel & Lankshear, 2014). As career educators, we have witnessed the widespread introduction of Internet-based learning and course management activities into higher education (Guri-Rosenblit, 2009; Kirkwood & Price, 2005, 2013), examining digital literacies within teacher education programs as a more robust and complicated venture.