Digital Literacies:challenges for staff and students

bit.ly/AJCannAlan Cann, University of Leicester

What is Digital Literacy?

• Glister, P. (1997) Digital Literacy, New York: John Wiley.

• European Commission Report DigEuLit (2006): "the confident and critical use of ICT for work, leisure, learning and communication".

• JISC (2013): "By digital literacy we mean those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society: for example, the skills to use digital tools to undertake academic research, writing and critical thinking; as part of personal development planning; and as a way of showcasing achievements."

Academic LiteraciesLea, M.R. & Street, B.V. (1998) Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach. Studies in higher education, 23(2), 157-172.

Is digital literacy a thing?

What is digital literacy?

• What is literacy?

• Is the digital modifer helpful?

• Digital football?

• Library-enhanced learning?

• Information literacy?

Digital literacy is a crock

Digital literacy is a terrible term. It is misleading and submissive. It is manipulative and has significant economic overtones for everyone. Some advocates for technology in schools have adopted the term ‘digital literacy’ unwisely to describe what many others argue for as ‘media education’. Digital literacy is a low status term comprised of ‘digital’ (new media, untrusted, volatile and disruptive) and high status literacy. The end result is a mutt of term.

deangroom.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/digital-literacy-is-a-crock/

Is the current moral panic about digilit reinventing the wheel?

Digital literacies

scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/search/label/digilit

The instrumentalization of technology does not serve learning

Nuanced

Pedagogynottechnology

• Who owns your online identity?

• Where is the boundary between "work" and "personal”?

• How does a discipline develop digital literacy and identity?

• Policies - permissive versus enabling

• Best practice

Best Practice?

Students? Staff? Libraries? Policies?

"the visual web"

Twitter - increasingly visual• https://twitter.com/PHE_uk• https://twitter.com/WeNurses• https://twitter.com/DementiaFriends• https://twitter.com/CR_UK• https://twitter.com/wellcometrust• https://twitter.com/WTeducation• https://twitter.com/WellcomeLibrary• https://twitter.com/WellcomeDigital• https://twitter.com/alzheimerssoc• https://twitter.com/UKCochraneCentr https://twitter.com/SarahChapman30• https://twitter.com/MHRAgovuk• https://twitter.com/NICEcomms• https://twitter.com/DonaldsonLiam• https://twitter.com/NHSLeicester• https://twitter.com/Leic_hospital

Facebook - visual for impact