Digital Inclusion in Education: Mapping and Management

Abstract

Digital technologies have an impact on transforming learning and literacy in combination with other social and economic factors. This impact implies future complexities in relation to digital inclusion. Digital inclusion in education is understood as a blend of issues on digital literacy, digital skill, and the digital divide. In this paper, mapping and management of issues of digital inclusion in education are discussed. Reviews related to access to technology and outcomes of the internet and technology used to obtain the skills are discussed to understand the grounds of digital inclusion. Digital-related determinants such as ICT experience, ICT use, and ICT training are mostly covered in 21st-century digital skills studies. Mapping of digital inclusion is strongly related to socioeconomic background, race, and gender as one dimension, the gap between capacities, abilities among low and high educated students as second dimension and the differences in outputs among students in terms of access, usage, motivation, and skills as the third dimension. Management of digital inclusion needs to be undertaken on why students are not able to evaluate and integrate digital information effectively, to critically judge the suitability of a large amount of information online, to understand the ethical and social usage of information, to interpret the reference to a paper and journal, to search databases effectively, to determine the validity of the information found online and understanding copyright issues.