This presentation was delivered at the European Conference in E-learning, University of Groningen, 25-26 October 2012 by Anna Gruszczynska and Richard Pountney

1. Digital Futures in Teacher
Education: Exploring Open
Approaches towards Digital
Literacy
Anna Gruszczynska,
Guy Merchant
Richard Pountney
Sheffield Hallam University

3. Research questions
Context
The Open Education Resources (OER) movement (2008-)
and the release of content for Higher Education (HE)
Key questions
• What is the relationship between Open Educational Resources
and digital literacy within professional development for
teachers?
• What understandings of digital literacy and openness emerge
through a reflexive approach in project methodology?

4. Frameworks for digital literacy
• Engagement with existing frameworks (JISC, 2011)
• Digital literacy as a continuum between the purely
social and the purely technological
• Move from the singular ‘literacy’ to the plural
‘literacies’ to emphasise the sheer diversity of existing
accounts (Lankshear and Knobel, 2008).
• Digital literacies as "the constantly changing practices
through which people make traceable meanings
using digital technologies" (Gillen and Barton, 2010).
• Critique of the concept of digital natives (Bennet et al.
2008)

5. DeFT Project
Local teachers and pupils, teacher educators
and teacher educations students involved in:
• sharing and developing good practice in
teaching
• understanding more about digital
literacy
• developing guidance on Open Academic
Practice and Open Educational Resources
in the school and university context
Project outputs will be shared via an open textbook (pulling together case
studies and supporting resources) and the "Digital Bloom" installation

6. Locating digital literacies

7. DL investigations: new avenues
• Methodological approaches: exploring the
ways in which understandings around DL
are expressed and shared through
reflection in action
• Re-examining DL in the context of the
debate around ICT in the curriculum and
the removal of the programmes of study
• Exploring the place of DL and OERs in
professional development of teachers

8. Next Steps
For more information:
Dissemination Project: • Project blog
Open Practice in www.deftoer3.wordpress.com
International Teacher • Project website
Education (OPITE) www.deft-project.org
• Twitter @deftoer3
• Digital Bloom
Contact: www.digitalbloom.org
Anna Gruszczynska • Slideshare
a.gruszczynska@shu.ac.uk www.slideshare.net/deftoer3
Richard Pountney • Open Textbook
r.p.pountney@shu.ac.uk www.digitalfutures.org
(from 1 November 2012)