Digital Literacy

Publisher Information (on Amazon.com page for this book):

"The Internet is fast becoming the newest segment of popular media. It's called upon by millions as naturally as the telephone or the television. Yet, though the Internet is easier than ever to use, the means of information sharing that it involves require a whole new mindset. Without these new thinking skills, what Paul Gilster calls digital literacy, the benefits of this exciting medium may be diminished or lost.

Digital Literacy isn't a book about how to get around the Internet. That ground has been amply covered. Digital Literacy provides Internet novices with the basic thinking skills and core competencies they'll need to thrive in an interactive environment so fundamentally different from passive media such as television or print.

Digital Literacy shows readers how to evaluate sources of information found in news groups, bulletin boards, and other online sources. It demonstrates how to focus search strategies. And it leads readers through the new rhetorical tools of hypertext and hypermedia in which they literally chart their own path through vast pools of information, gathering and deleting ideas as they go. Paul Gilster also addresses other issues shaping activity on the Internet, including the copyright issues of online information.

Ultimately readers learn how customize the Internet for maximum benefit as both a professional resource--scoping out the competition or the latest stock trends--or for personal education or entertainment--looking up the weather, attending a lecture, or even taking a trip to a virtual world. The Internet opens infinite doors to users. Armed with the digital literacy skills presented here, they can take full advantage of this incredible universe".

From Cyberculture Editor (on Amazon.com page for this book)

Until the Net became popular, we were used to pre-packaged, filtered news and information fed to us by giant media outlets. Now there is an abundance of raw material available via the Net. Along with easy access to lots of good stuff, there are sites developed by hate-mongers, conspiracy buffs, and others presenting urban myths or worse as fact. It's imperative, then, that we move from the passive consumer of broadcast media to critical consumers able to quickly assemble reliable knowledge. Digital Literacy capably instructs users in developing a set of critical thinking skills and core competencies that are different from those we've used in the past. Paul Gilster covers topics such as questions to ask when viewing material on a Web site, how to separate form from content, and how links can manipulate the context of hypertext.