I started this bog some three and a half years ago to encourage the use of social media and campaign for better access to the web at work. Since then we’ve seen a number of developments which support the assertion in that first blog post that social media is really ‘just the web’.
Martha Lane Fox in her 2015 Dimbleby Lecture made the point that it’s not OK not to understand the internet. The Royal Society of Edinburgh’s 2014 report Spreading the benefits of digital participation argued that
every individual, business and organisation must have basic information literacy and digital skills … Scotland must seize every opportunity to develop these skills through formal education, workplace learning, lifelong and community learning
Scotland’s Digital Participation Strategy, published in 2014, states
A world class Digital Scotland will be one in which internet access is considered as a utility on a par with access to electricity and gas, and where digital literacy takes its place alongside conventional literacy and numeracy at the heart of our education system. Access to the internet should not be considered a luxury in a modern country
To help realise this vision over 100 organisations have signed Scotland’s Digital Participation Charter committing themselves to
ensuring that everyone has the access, motivation and basic digital skills required to participate fully in our digital world
So, shifting the focus away from social media specifically, I’ve retitled the blog Just Do It! Digital participation at work. We’ll be looking at the digital literacy skills that people will need in order to be, in the words of the Digital Participation Strategy,
creative in their use of technology, innovative in developing services and applications and comfortable using the internet as an everyday, anytime, anywhere technology ….
These skills will be especially relevant to the evidence informed practice and knowledge exchange elements of the 2015 Vision and strategy for social services in Scotland.