Digital Literacy and Awareness in Australia's New Global Frontier. Andrew Scarvell

Hacía mucho tiempo que no traíamos a este espacio un artículo concreto así que lo subsanaremoshoy ..para la lectura aquí tenéis
Digital Literacy and Awareness in Australia's New Global Frontier
An independent paper by Andrew Scarvell @ascarvell, digital economy Policy Analyst with the Australian Government
For submission to the First Media and Information Literacy Forum in June 2011, in Fez, Morocco UNESCO's First Media & Info Literacy Forum .. que hemos extraido del blog de Scarvell

...Introduction
‘Digital literacy’ has been identified as one of the areas in which Australia need to improve if it is to get people to engage online and participate in these benefits. To that end, Australia has announced a National Digital Economy Strategy which addresses targeted areas to raise Australian capability to engage online.
With the National Broadband Network (NBN) promising to providing basic access and 'supply-side' infrastructure, Australia now finds itself needing to focus on the demand-side: that is, ensuring that Australians are able to take advantage of the benefits that a fully networked society can provide.
With basic access considerations already addressed, increasing engagement levels will be driven by improving Australians’ digital literacy and making them more aware of the benefits available from greater online engagement enabled by ubiquitous, reliable, secure, always-on and very-high bandwidth broadband networks and services.
These benefits include improved accessibility to government services, healthcare, educational content and services, financial services, community integration, employment opportunities, participative democracy (digital citizenship) and freedom of expression.
The NBN will also provide a platform for research and innovation. Australian businesses and other organisations are expected to take advantage of high-speed broadband access provided by the NBN to improve access to global markets and improve international competitiveness. Some businesses are already positioning themselves to take advantage of this infrastructure. However, in order to take advantage of the opportunities, Australian entrepreneurs will need to improve their digital literacy and technology skills and awareness of the potential of the NBN and broadband.
In this context, the policy discussion in Australia is now moving away from broadband access as being the major barrier to people engaging online. Internet-connected computers and other access points will be increasingly available, including wireless access and access from public institutions such as libraries. Increasingly, the reasons why many people are not moving online understood to be:
 Lack awareness of the benefits online access and broadband can provide.
 Lack the basic ICT and Internet skills to get online and find the information and services they need.
 Lack the confidence to engage online safely (including concerns about cybersafety and cybersecurity).

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Fuente: [ ascarvell ]