Fluidity in the Networked Society - Self-initiated learning as a Digital Literacy Competence

In the globalized economies e-permeation has become a basic condition in our everyday lives. ICT can no longer be understood solely as artefacts and tools and computer-related literacy are no longer restricted to the ability to operate digital tools for specific purposes. The network society, and therefore also eLearning are characterized by fluidity and the key competence for social actors in this ever changing e-permeated environment is the ability to cope with change or Castells‟ conceptualisation self-programming. Castells‟ theory has influenced international definitions of future key competencies. Both lifelong learning and digital literacy understood as "bildung" have emerged as central for the definitions of and standards for future key competencies. However, definitions and standards only tell us about the desired destination and outcome of digital competence building. They tell us nothing about how we may get there. In the educational system ICT and e-learning are becoming an everyday condition and the basic challenge for the educational system is twofold: 1) The actually making of digital literate and self-programming social actors – students and teachers; and 2) How to develop adequate designs for teaching and learning for that purpose. We need research that aims to describe the phenomenology of acquiring digital literacy and self-programming in order to be able to identify relevant learning objectives and scaffolding. Findings from such studies are expected to be relevant for eLearning scenarios as well as for ICT and designs for learning in general. This paper presents a case study that aimed to explore the phenomenological appearance of self-programming as agency and learning among postgraduate students who participated in a specially designed eLearning workshop in the autumn 2009. The findings relate to both the individual and collaborative barriers and proactive strategies that come into play among the students. Drawing on the findings, it is argued that the presented workshop design contributes to the networked society‟s design for ICT, teaching and learning, as the design – at least for this small group of students – have proved to support the development of digital self-programming as a sustainable competence. In the autumn 2010 the study will be expanded to a larger group of students.