Text
Text
source: http://xkcd.com

Digital Literacy:
Your Message is
Your Medium
EdTech 2012
Martha Rotter
@martharotter

Allow me to tell you a
story....

Digital Literacy

Digital Literacy
20 years ago

Digital Literacy

Digital Literacy today

"Technology is most definitely used as an
excuse to turn things in late. Technology
might be the cause of a student's fake
problems, but it is also because of technology
that teachers don't accept that as an excuse.
There is pretty much always another way to
write that paper.
It basically takes proof of a crashed computer
to get any sort of extension on an
assignment."
Matthew Jenks, Colorado University

Text

Text
[Not Digital literacy]

[Not Digital literacy]

[Not Digital literacy]

[Not Digital literacy]

[Not Digital literacy]

[Not Digital literacy]

Some rights reserved by marcus_jb1973

Some rights reserved by kk+

How happy am I that
there was no Facebook
when I was a student?!

"When people talk to me about the digital
divide, I think of it not so much about who
has access to what technology as about who
knows how to create and express
themselves in the new language of the
screen.
If students aren't taught the language of
sound and images, shouldn't they be
considered as illiterate as if they left college
without being able to read and write?"
George Lucas, filmmaker

Let’s talk about digital
devices in the
classroom today.

Some rights reserved by Brian Sawyer

Some rights reserved by seeinside

Technology in the classroom is a
distraction and should be used
sparingly (if at all) for learning.
versus
• Technology in the classroom is
essential to helping children learn,
especially given the shift in available
jobs from manufacturing to
technology-related professions.

In a series of surveys conducted
with Notre Dame students:
• iPads encouraged exploration of additional
course topics
• helped them manage their time
• provided new functions/tools for learning
• increased their learning
• made their courses more interesting
• Though they were not instructed to do so, most
students also said they used the iPads to do
reading for other courses and leisure reading.

Not all perfect:
• Some students cited what Angst characterizes as “technical
and behavioral challenges”
• More than half the students reported feeling frustrated
when highlighting text and taking notes within e-books on
the iPad.
• Another drawback was the fact that multiple “windows” or
files couldn’t be kept open, side-by-side, on the iPad, unlike
a full-fledged computer.
• Students also indicated that they considered the device,
which starts at $499, expensive
• More students preferred to be loaned an iPad and purchase
the corresponding e-books (and eventually return the iPad)
than buy the iPad outright (and own it).

“It wasn’t the eReader function of the iPads that won over
the students. It was a host of other features that support
learning. For example, students were able to
instantaneously check statistics I mentioned in class or pull
up information to add to the discussion as I talked about
various companies’ projects.
Moments before the start of class, I could place a video
into students’ dropboxes, and the majority of them would
arrive having already watched it and able to discuss it.
Those sorts of things made the class more interesting and
dynamic and could never have happened in the past.”
Corey Angst, Assistant Professor of Management,
Notre Dame

“Do you know how hard it is to get a
far below grade level 6th grader to
read? One of the main reasons is
shame. They don’t want anyone to
know they are reading a 3rd grade
book. They would rather act defiant or
claim a dislike of reading.
This just isn’t the case with Kindle. No
one knows what you are reading.”
Christopher Daley, Salon.com

To Block or
Not to Block?

New Content,
New Containers

Stop Believing That People
Don’t Like To Read
from 37Signals A/B Test results Aug 2011

Stop Believing That People
Don’t Like To Read
from 37Signals A/B Test results Aug 2011

Introducing new
content into
classrooms
(both virtual and in-person)

Booki.sh

Pinboard
Text
Pinboard.in

EPUB 3

image from http://craigmod.com/bibliotype/

by mikebaird

Experiential Technology

Lessons I’ve Learned
from teaching web dev:
• Know the difference between “taking a
look”, “learning”, and “mastering”
• Taking a look means understanding its
purpose
• Learning means knowing how to use it
• Mastering means being able to handle
it in complex situations

Some rights reserved by j u s t i n . z

Why Not....
• Have students learn with you & create new
content for themselves and each other
• Create a classroom digital library of
content & materials; let students contribute
anything they think is useful or interesting
• Build archives of material, both for former
and new students
• Publish your notes so students can have
more access to them on a variety of
devices

Who would you hire?

Ability to learn

Ability to learn
(dealing with ambiguity)

“In Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche wrote
that the ‘apparent’ world is the only one:
the ‘true’ world is merely added by a lie.
All of us in higher education can live
without the lie.
We know better.
Higher education is not a rehearsal and
learning is not preparation. Learning is
learning. And all of us live in but one
world.”
Deanspeak,TheDigitalQuad.com

by twicepix

Further Resources:
• Apple Education site: www.apple.com/
education/ipad/
• Kindle Education site: http://
www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?
ie=UTF8&docId=1000412651
• EPUB resources & guides: http://
labs.oreilly.com/2009/03/epub-resources-
and-guides.html
• Free EPUB How-To Books: http://
search.oreilly.com/?q=epub&x=0&y=0

Your message is your medium.

Your message is your medium.
Your message should
be readable on all
mediums

Thank you.
@martharotter