Before digital literacy can become the fourth pillar of education – alongside reading, writing and 'rithmetic – educators must first agree on what being digitally literate actually looks like and where the gaps in understanding lie. And what about digital media platforms themselves – should they be involved in this instruction? 

 

Sara Custer speaks with Jo Coldwell-Neilson, associate dean of teaching and learning at Deakin University, who argues that nobody is actually a digital native, and Joel Breakstone, director of the Stanford History Education Group, who says that the approach to teaching digital literacy needs to be updated, but there are reasons to be optimistic.