The first post is from Jurgen Werner who says: "It seems to me, as if there was no direct translation of the term. fairly obvious that it is more than literacy. So I would say it is the (web) user's capacity to evaluate information available on the internet (he finds on the internet) and to generate relevant knowledge from this information. In romantic terms it is the skill which enables the user to distinguish right from wrong, or important from rubbish.

My suggestion for translation into German is 'Netzkompetenz'".

Thanks Werner.

Second post is from Daniela Reimann. She says: "There is no such term 'Digitalkenntnisse', neither is there "Digital-Bildung'. (It would indicate that the education and the skills would be somehow "digital", but it is the characterictic of the medium which is digital. The term of the mid 90s in German would be 'Computeranwenderkenntnisse' ('computer applying skills or computer literacy) or what we called 'Medienkompetenz in der Informationsgesellschaft' in our previous BLK-model project ArtDeCom. The latter means a simple familarity with a machine that computes (see our paper 'Gaining Computational Literacy by Creating Hybrid Aesthetic Learning Spaces' - in: Proceedings of the International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (IEEE ICALT) Athen, 2003.)

I use the term '(asthetisch-informatische) Medienbildung' (media education, media literacy) which implies the issue of shaping as well as an understanding of the algorithmic machine and informatic models, rather than the German term of 'Medienkompetenz' which is stressed in the discussion without clear definition. ('Competence' in German fits with the UK term of skills rather than with 'competence'). The term of 'Medienkompetenz' stems originally from media pedagogy (of the 70s focoussing on film/cinema and Tele as well as other mass media."

Interesting indeed. Until we get this reply / comment button working please feel free to email me on attwell@uni-bremen.de and I will make sure your views published here.