Access, Equity, and Empowerment: Supporting Digital Literacies for All Learners
Nathan C. Phillips
University of Illinois at Chicago
Michael Manderino
Northern Illinois University
Executive summary
Both the growth of new technologies and the technologically-associated transformations in the skills
needed to learn and work have implications for literacy education because people of all ages are
learning to read, write, work, and produce with digital texts and digital tools. In short, digital literacies
are an omnipresent element of learning in the 21st century, and supporting the development of
proficiency with digital texts and tools must be a priority for teachers, school leaders, community
educators, and other educational stakeholders.
Accordingly, educational standards that guide P-12 instruction in Illinois and nationally, including the
Common Core State Standards, explicitly identify digital literacies as an expected element of instruction
across content areas and grade levels. However, many educational settings, including schools and
community centers, do not have the necessary resources, including trained teachers and personnel and
access to technologies and digital networks, to make digital literacies a central component of instruction
and learning. This is especially true of educational settings in under-resourced communities.
Coordinated changes in policy could significantly increase access to and improvement of the learning
and teaching of digital literacies.
To inform the needed changes, we conducted a comprehensive review of research, policies, and
practices, and produced the following policy recommendations for enhancing access, equity, and
empowerment for literacy learners across K-12 schooling and in communities:
 promote teaching and assessment of digital literacies across grades and content areas
 provide professional development experiences that ensure all educators have resources, skills,
and support to incorporate digital literacies in day-to-day curricula
 build school and community leadership capacity to implement digital literacy learning for all
students
 provide financial support for infrastructure that enables equitable access to instruction and
technologies for all learners
 collaborate in and support the development of needed research in digital literacies.
These recommendations have implications for children, adolescents, and adults in school and
community instruction and learning, all of whom interact daily with digital texts and technologies, as
well as for teachers; school leaders; neighborhood, ward, city, and state leaders; researchers; and
private and government funding agencies.