Practical example of a European initiative “SPreaD”

Digital Literacy has become one of the main competences in the 21st century. Without being able to use digital media effectively and responsibly the chances on the global market are very low. Nowadays more than 250 million Europeans are regular visitors to the Internet. Yet despite this encouraging figure, large sections of the population continue to be barred from the multiple new opportunities, such as Web 2.0 or mobile learning. But even those who are using the new digital media regularly are not imperatively digital literate. Digital literacy does not only mean that the people possess the technical infrastructure, it also means that they are able to maximise the possibilities these new technologies offer to them. What does this mean exactly? And why is digital literacy of such importance? In the following article we will give answers on these questions. After presenting the different theoretical point of views on digital literacy we will present one best practice example: the European project SPreaD. By developing a toolkit on the management of digital literacy projects SPreaD aims at disseminating digital literacy all over Europe and to raise awareness on this important topic. The SPreaD toolkit gives useful hints regarding the development, coordination and financing of large scaled digital literacy projects. So far we have received very positive response to the toolkit from all over Europe