Teachers often ask me: what skills actually make up AI literacy?
It’s easy to think of AI as something entirely new, but in reality it builds on literacies we’ve always needed: media literacy, data literacy, and digital literacy.
Together, these literacies give teachers and students the habits of mind to question AI outputs, recognize bias, protect privacy, and use tools thoughtfully. In other words, they’re the skills that make AI literacy work in practice.
I put together this guide as a quick reference: what each literacy means, the skills it covers, how it connects to AI, and some practical classroom questions or activities to start building it.
References
- De Abreu, B. S. (2019). Teaching media literacy (Second edition.). ALA Neal-Schuman.
- Gilster, P. (1997). Digital Literacy . New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
- Kharbach, M. (2025). AI Literacy and Data Literacy: Skills Every Teacher Needs. Retrieved from https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2025/08/ai-literacy-and-data-literacy-skills-every-teacher-needs.html
- Kharbach, M. (2025). Digital Literacy Simply Explained. Retrieved from https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2025/05/digital-literacy.html
- Kharbach, M. (2025). What Is Media Literacy. Retrieved from https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2022/11/what-heck-is-media-literacy-all-about.html
- National Forum on Education Statistics. (2024). Forum Guide to Data Literacy (NFES 2024-079). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
