D-F

D

Delicious: A free social bookmarking/sharing website that is powered by Yahoo! which allows users to save, tag, and share favorite websites.

Digital: Made available in electronic form; readable and manipulable by computer.

Digital Composing: Composing or writing in an electronic format, typically on a computer.

Digital Curricula: Courses offered in electronic format, usually through a combination of e-mail and course management software such as Blackboard.

Digital Deposit: Submitting an electronic, or digital, document to a database or index. 

Digital Discourse: The unique conventions of writing in an electronic or online medium, such as a blog, discussion board, e-mail, or website.

Digitally Disseminated Research: Research that is published onto a website and/or archived in an electronic database.

Digital Environment: A created world within a computer or a group of computers; online role-playing games such as Everquest or World of Warcraft are good examples of digital environments. 

Digital Identity: The technological or electronic experience of one’s identity and/or the identity of others; one’s personal self-concept as it relates to the internet.

Digital Imaging: Creating images in a digital format, usually for display on a computer screen. The images are composed of small picture elements, or pixels, and are most commonly created by use of a digital camera or scanner. Images created or converted to digital may be manipulated through image editing software such as Adobe PhotoShop.


Digital Immigrant: Coined by Marc Prensky (2001); an individual not born into technologies; those who grew up in a “non-digital” world and then moved into the digital. The habits of these people will often show a mix of the two worlds, as in Prensky’s example of printing out material to edit rather than editing on screen.

Digital Literacy: A certain level of knowledge of and familiarity with electronic devices, interfaces, and media; the ability to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, and analyze information using digital technology.

Digital Natives: Refers to people who are extremely comfortable with technology and computer use due to lifelong exposure and use.

Digital Pedagogies: Theories and styles of teaching that incorporate computers, the internet, and other technology.

Digital Space: An electronic medium, usually a computer.


Digital Text: Electronic text, usually sans serif font.


E

Embedded Files: Files that were created in one program and then inserted in another.

F

F2F (face to face): A term used to describe traditional classroom teaching when compared to online instruction.

Facebook: A social networking site similar to MySpace and very popular with college students and young adults. At times, this is also used as a verb, as in “to facebook someone.”

Facebook Stalking: Studying someone’s Facebook profile for the purpose of learning about that person; does not necessarily have a negative connotation. It may serve the same purpose as pre-caller-ID phone practices by teens such as prank calling or planned extension-line listening to conversations (usually two or more girls) where one girl might question a “cute” boy about her listening friend. 

Fail/Epic Fail: Often used as a noun or adjective in online circles, particularly forums, to denote disapproval of a particular user or situation.

File Extension: A file extension is the one-to-five-letter suffix that appears after the dot in a file name. The extension shows what type of file it is and signals to the operating system what program should be used to open the file; for example, .doc files are native to Microsoft Word. Open source software goes out of its way to include compatibility with as many of these extensions as possible. For example, Open Office Writer has its native extension (.odt) but can also open and produce Word’s .doc and .docx as well as extensions for Wordperfect and Works.

Firewall: A synthesis of hardware devices and software programs that protect a computer network from hackers or other unwelcome access.

Flamer: A person who posts to a forum or discussion board in an unnecessarily hostile or insulting manner, usually in complete disregard of the topic of the discussion. Usually done for entertainment value for the flamer, not to actually learn anything or add to the discussion.

Flaming: The act of disrupting a discussion board or forum with a hostile post; for example, telling a forum for grieving parents “you all need to just get over it.”

File Format: This is the way a file is saved or stored to be used by the program that created it or other compatible programs.

Font: A type set of one particular face and size, (what your letter characters look like).

Freeware: Software that available without a fee, like Mozilla Firefox or Open Office.

FTW/FTL (For the Win/For the Loss): One of these acronyms may be attached to a noun in online circles, particularly forums, to denote approval/disapproval of the subject.


FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt): A rhetorical tool used in sales and public relations to boost positive perception of one’s own product while denigrating perception of competing products by insinuating that one’s own product is safe and stable while competing products are too risky. Often used by corporations with dominant hardware and software products to squelch competition by casting emerging and/or competing products as unsafe or a bad risk.