Week 1: Fluency, Citizenship, and Praxis
Hi there! This is my first post for DGST 395: Applied Digital Studies, and I’ll be summarizing our topics from the first week of classes. Aside from introductions, and discussing how the syllabus and canvas are laid out, we focused on Dr. Whalen’s 3 themes for the course: Digital Fluency, Digital Citizenship, and Digital Praxis.
Digital Fluency is, in a sense, the curiosity to deepen one’s knowledge of digital topics. To be fluent in a language is to not only memorize and replicate words and phrases, but to understand and comprehend the language as a whole. Digital Fluency relies on being able to understand digital tools, and navigate the internet effectively.
Digital Citizenship is the idea of knowing how the digital world can interact with the physical world. The digital world allows people to connect, share information, and collect information quickly, and Digital Citizenship is informing oneself on how to utilize these tools ethically.
Digital Praxis is utilizing these tools effectively and efficiently. In the same vein as digital fluency, curiosity in developing one’s skills with digital tools is essential to Digital Praxis. For example, I have developed my Digital Praxis through Intro to Video Production and Digital Approaches to Fine Arts; in these classes, I taught myself to use the Adobe Creative Suite applications in conjunction with one other to produce the best work possible.
These three themes are setting the stage for what is to come in DGST 395, and that was made evident by the emphasis Dr. Whalen put forth this week. I’m thrilled to see what comes next.
