Creation
Engaging in digital spaces to design, create, and revise content online.
Guiding Questions
- Do I understand the concepts of basic coding and algorithms?
- Am I able to break a problem down into simpler steps?
- When looking at data, am I able to recognize patterns and sort out the important information?
- Can I create or adapt digital content so that it is suitable for different purposes and audiences?
- Do I understand how to share but also protect my original work?
Context Why the skills in each domain are needed for digital opportunity, defined as "the condition in which individuals and communities have the information technology capacity that is needed for full participation in the society and economy of the United States" (H.R.3684)
Digital creation skills empower learners to tell their stories, share information with their community and beyond, and showcase their creativity—supporting their full participation in the digital content ecosystem. These skills are especially important for marginalized communities who have been historically underrepresented or excluded from accessing, interpreting, and authoring information. For example, learning to understand and use data opens the door for learners to inform data and data narratives about themselves, shifting their role from being the subject of data to being “data creators, data storytellers, and data visualizers.”2 In addition, digital creation skills allow learners to express themselves and their ideas in ways that transcend the use of language, such as graphic arts, photography, audio, and video.
Awareness What practitioners should know before teaching each domain (e.g., related topics, factors that may affect learners)
Practitioners should be aware of the following when teaching digital creation skills:
- Data literacy and ownership: Learners may need explicit instruction on what data is, how it is used, and the language used to communicate it.
- AI literacy: While generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) can be a powerful tool for creating content, learners should be aware of the concerns, risks, and ethical implications around using it, including bias and discrimination, misinformation, and user privacy and safety.3
- Limited connectivity and bandwidth: Slow and/or unreliable connectivity and limited bandwidth will affect what content learners are able to create.
- Sharing information and ideas: Cultural and social factors may affect learners’ ability or willingness to share certain types of information or express certain ideas.
Taking Action What practitioners and programs can do to be empowering when teaching each domain
Practitioners can take action to be empowering in the following ways:
Instruction and Training
I can:
- Learn from learners and identify the challenges they may face when it comes to digital creation.
- Provide opportunities for learners to create authentic digital content that is reflective of their voice, lived experiences, and/or creative interests in my instruction.
- Find and incorporate relevant learner-created content in my instruction.
- Apply best practices for making digital content accessible, such as ensuring all text is readable/scannable and adding alt text to images.
- Emphasize in my instruction that digital content should be designed and created with accessibility in mind from the start.
- Understand and provide instruction on the benefits, risks, and ethical considerations of using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in the process of content creation.
- Design digital creation activities that are appropriate for learners’ levels of knowledge, vocabulary, connectivity, and device access.
- Contribute to the body of open educational resources (OER) for practitioners in my field and make my content reusable.
Program Design
Our program:
- Provides regular opportunities for learners to share and showcase the content they create, including authentic content that is reflective of their voices, lived experiences, and/or creative interests.
- Website follows best practices for web accessibility.
- Regularly provides and/or shares information with staff and volunteers on training and resources on designing accessible content.
- Promotes the use of open educational resources (OER).
Related Empowering Practices
See the following domains for relevant skills and related empowering practices:
Communication, Information Skills, Privacy and Security, Workplace and Productivity
Citations