Empowering Students to be Scientifically Literate through Digital Literacy

The objective of this chapter is to discuss the relationships between the three literacies that are mentioned above: digital literacy, science literacy and multiple literacies. The chapter will define digital literacy and scientific literacy and argue that being digitally literate would enhance the development of scientific literacy. It will look at the similarities in skills required for the two literacies (i.e., skills derived from learning science and learning to use digital technology). These are skills at both the operational and conceptual levels. The chapter will draw on these similarities to discuss how being digitally literate could better support the independent and personalized learning of science in the development of individuals who are scientifically literate. The use of multiple literacies pedagogy, the multimodal means of learning and communicating, as bridging the two literacies will be made. Specific examples will be used to illustrate the objective of this chapter. The chapter will conclude with a conceptual framework for the development of digital literacy in empowering students to become scientifically literate.