The Role of General Artificial Intelligence in Digital Literacy Training: An Empirical Study Based on the Information Technology Course

Abstract

The digital transformation of human society is accelerating as a result of the introduction of new-generation information technology (IT) like artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, and digital literacy has become an essential skill in the digital era. In this context, digital literacy training is deemed a crucial component of modern basic education. However, current digital literacy education in many schools remains focused on the operational use of digital tools with disregard for the human-machine-collaboration-assisted autonomous learning, which is highly advocated in the intelligent era. This dampens digital literacy development in students. Meanwhile, researchers found that generative artificial intelligence (GAI) has the potential to create flexible, open, and inclusive human-machine collaboration environments, facilitating students’ self-organized learning. Based on the self-organized learning theory, this article advances the GAiSOLEs (generative AI-based self-organized learning environments), an instructional model for fostering students’ digital literacy, with a quasi-experimental study conducted with the information technology classes to verify the effects of the model on student digital literacy development.