Earlier today, the’Aspen Institute and’Knight Foundation released the second in a series of white papers focused on implementing recommendations of the Knight Commission’s groundbreaking report,’Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action proposes a detailed plan that positions digital and media literacy as an essential life skill. It outlines steps that policymakers, educators and community advocates can take to help Americans obtain that skill ‘ and thrive in the digital age.

The Knight Commission’s’recommendation is to integrate’digital and media literacy’at all levels of education, and for’public libraries and other community institutions to become’additional centers of digital and media training. One way Knight Foundation staff think this could happen is through the’creation of digital tools that can accelerate the teaching of 21st century literacy skills not just in schools but throughout communities.

The paper was written by’Renee Hobbs, professor at the’School of Communications and the’College of Education at’Temple University and founder of its’Media Education Lab,

The first white paper, Universal Broadband: Targeting Investments to Deliver Broadband Services to All Americans, by Blair Levin,’the lead author of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan,’was released’earlier this year’to mark the one-year anniversary of the Knight Commission report. It outlined a’detailed, sensible plan for deploying broadband networks to 99%’of the U.S. population in 10 years ‘ without requiring any additional federal funding. The plan’s release comes as the federal government prepares to announce the final stimulus grants for broadband expansion.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action