About

 What is Digital Inclusion?

 

Digital inclusion, as a concept, refers to taking action to ensure that everyone has access to online resources, as well as the education to make that access and use that access meaningfully.

Digital inclusion isn’t about getting people online for recreation, but is more focused on activities that are necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and essential services. It seeks to reduce and ultimately to eliminate historical, institutional and structural barriers to the access and use of technology.

 
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Our Mission

The Digital Inclusion Working Group’s mission is to eliminate the digital inclusion gap in St. Petersburg and Pinellas County. The group’s vision is that we are a digitally inclusive city where all individuals have access to online resources, as well as the skills to use them meaningfully. Though many individuals possess smart cellular phones, that is not enough to fully participate in the digital economy.

 

Are you Digitally Literate?

National Skills Coalition defined four levels of foundational digital skills:

  • No digital skills: People with no digital skills failed to meet one or more of the three baseline criteria to even take the full digital skills assessment: 1) prior computer use, 2) willingness to take the computer-based assessment, or 3) ability to complete four out of six very basic computer tasks, such as using a mouse or highlighting text on screen.

  • Limited digital skills: People with limited digital skills can complete only very simple digital tasks that have a generic interface and just a few steps. As an example, people at this level would have a difficult time sorting email responses to an event invitation into pre-existing folders to keep track of who can and cannot attend an event.

  • Proficient digital skills: People at this level would typically struggle with tasks that require the use of both generic and specific technology applications. For example, a person might not be able to complete a task involving with the use of a new type of online form, and the need to navigate across multiple pages and applications to answer the test question. This task may have multiple steps, and may require the use of tools (such as the “sort” function) to solve the problem. The person may have to identify the goal themselves, and engage in higher-level reasoning to solve the problem.

  • Advanced digital skills: At this level, a person might have to make use of an online form that they are encountering for the first time. In doing so, they might have to define for themselves the goal of the problem they are solving, and use inferential reasoning in solving the problem. They might need to navigate across different online pages and applications, carry out multiple steps of a task, and evaluate the relevance of a set of items to discard distractors.

Source – National Skills Coalition