Some kids love Frog and Toad and some kids would rather read about real amphibians! Today’s kid doesn’t need a heavy Britannica set. We have a digital encyclopedia online and available 24/7. Britannica Library Children [1] is a kid-friendly version of the classic Britannica encyclopedia. The database features all the things you know and trust in Britannica – authoritative articles, full color images – plus videos, an atlas, and country comparisons. Keyword searching and browse make for easy discovery.
When a child or adult uses an online encyclopedia, they aren’t simply discovering information, they are using and learning digital literacy. In a nutshell, digital literacy is the ability to find, evaluate, create, and communicate using technology. When you search a database you’re showing great digital literacy skills! Despite the prevalence of networks, devices, software, platforms, and on and on in our lives, many people still struggle with basic digital literacy skills.
This week’s open site, Digital Learn [2], is hoping to combat digital illiteracy by offering free online videos to get customers started with using a computer, navigating a website, setting up email, and more. Full courses run up to 22 minutes but, for those in a hurry, the courses are broken into segments. For example, if you have a customer who has been told they need to job search online but they don’t have time to watch the full course, perhaps the 4:00 video on Career Sites will do. All lessons come with pdfs so you can easily print a lesson or course for the customer who prefers written instruction. If you're considering holding a digital literarcy class, you might be interested in the Tools and Resources for Trainers [3].
There’s a deck of cards for the first two commenters!
Links:
[1] http://ezproxy.metrolibrary.org:2048/login?url=http://library.eb.com/levels/children
[2] https://digitallearn.org
[3] https://training.digitallearn.org
[4] https://my.metrolibrary.info/drupal/tags/databases