Digital Literacy and Course Design

This paper presents a course planning model for lower and upper secondary schools in the fields of digital literacy and computational thinking. The examples in the paper are based on a Danish regional project entitled "crossinglT," in which about 35 unique courses were developed and conducted by local educators. Duration of the courses ranged from approximately two hours to four a week for fifteen weeks. The model highlights four perspectives in course planning: (1) a traditional planning perspective, with a focus on learning objectives, learning activities, practical organisation, evaluations, etc; (2) methods for teaching digital production such as iterative design cycles, pair programming pedagogy and video tutorials as well as textbooks; (3) the field of digital literacy including, for example, computational thinking skills, ethics, critical thinking and societal perspectives; and (4) Environment, including local company participation, career learning and cross-school teaching. The model can be used for both planning and analysing courses in the fields of digital literacy and computational thinking. The article offers specific examples of teaching methods and specific cases from practice. Teaching in this field does not have a long tradition in Denmark. The model provides specific advice for well-rounded didactic planning in the fields of computational thinking and digital literacy.