One issue that the Greenhow and Gleason (2014) article throws up is the gap of digital and technological literacy between early adopters and late adopters. As the pandemic has shown, technology and its use in the classroom across educational levels is only going to become more important with time. Therefore, the issue of building teachers’ digital literacy needs to be incorporated while conceptualizing research on teacher education.
Scholars and researchers who work with institutions, or at the national and state levels, to draw up policies on education, also need to understand what’s happening on ground. Their ideas of what a classroom is, and what happens inside one, is surely changing, especially accelerated by the switch to the online medium of teaching and learning during the pandemic. Even though the pandemic will one day end, thereby giving rise to the possibility of full-time in-person classes again, the model of education practiced till now will be affected and changed, keeping in mind our learnings from this phase. This is where, as Greenhow and Gleason mention, the importance of social literacy comes in while devising future paths of growth and knowledge in the field of education.
Reading your comment, I realized once again the huge impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on society and education. The gap between those who early adopt educational technology or social media and those who have not yet may have been further accelerated by the pandemic situation. Even when the pandemic is over, as you pointed out, a blended style of education will be pursued, in which virtual and in-person modality co-exist. Currently, digital literacy education in teacher education in Korea seems to be considered only in the technical aspect of simply integrating educational technology into class, and it seems that teachers who early adopted new technologies into their classes are also focused on how to skillfully use the technology. That being said, in terms of digital literacy, I wonder how teacher education in India is conducting.
The situation in Turkey is also similar. Based on my experiences during my undergrad, I can say that we took a couple of courses about educational technologies. All of them were related to learning how to use some websites and software in educational settings, but we had not talked about the culture on the Internet, ethical considerations for using Web 2.0 tools in classes, or interactions of students with social media and possible psychological effects on them. Even though at first sight knowing how to use digital technologies can be seen enough for educators, the pandemic showed us that there are many things to consider in digital environments, and teachers should be prepared for them as a part of digital literacy.
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