Online Skills in an Offline Environment: Creating Information Literacy Tutorials for the SolarSPELL Offline Digital Library

Abstract

Digital and information literacy skills are necessary to succeed in today’s knowledge economy but for the millions of people in the world without internet access, a frustrating Catch-22 exists: How can they develop digital literacy skills without internet access? When they get access, what good is the internet to them if they don’t have the skills to use it productively? One answer is an offline digital library called SolarSPELL. This report from the field describes a series of instructional videos the author created to foster digital and information literacy skills among novice SolarSPELL users.