Why Web Literacy Should Be Part of Every Education

[Commentary] Like reading, writing, and arithmetic, web literacy is both content and activity. You don’t just learn “about” reading: you learn to read. You don’t just learn “about” arithmetic: you learn to count and calculate. You don’t just learn “about” the web: you learn to make your own website.

As with these other three literacies, web literacy begins simply, with basics you can build upon. For some it can lead to a profession (i.e. becoming a computer programmer) while for most it becomes part of the conceptual DNA that helps you to understand and negotiate the world you live in. Making web literacy the fourth literacy begins with the premise that not only are humans capable of learning together--we’re doing it, contributing to peer learning online, every day of our lives. That is a major educational paradigm shift, the great gift we’ve been given by those who built the web on open architecture. Web literacy explains the world we live in and gives us the tools to contribute to that world.

[Davidson is a professor at Duke University. Mark Surman is the executive director of Mozilla.]