2. Exploring the digital world
YouTube users upload 48
hours of video, Facebook
users share 684,478 pieces
of content, Instagram users
share 3,600 new photos, and
Tumblr sees 27,778 new
posts published.
Image source: DOMO-Data-in-One-Minute-visualnews (2012)
<http://www.visualnews.com/2012/06/19/how-much-data-created-every-minute/>
With such masses of data, where do we begin our search?
The first step towards being academically literate, is being information literate –
knowing where to find data and sort through the masses of irrelevant stuff!
3. How we learn
Social Constructivism
Wikipedia: groups construct knowledge for one another, collaboratively
creating a small culture of shared artefacts with shared meanings.
Ground Theory Review: in attempting to make sense of the social
world, social constructionists view knowledge as constructed as
opposed to created.
Two heads are better than one goes the old cliché, but when two
minds, or three or four…or more, tackle the same problem, they bring a
greater range of experience and expertise to the task.
4. Technology for collaboration
Technology has made
information much more
immediate and accessible
and we are now able to
share our ideas and
develop projects
collaboratively through a
range of online tools.
Social-Media-in-Business-Social-Media -Applications-Guide (2012) <http://
socialmediainbusiness.com/tag/social-me dia-applications>
6. What’s credible, what’s reliable?
Determining what is reliable information as you search the
Web can be a bit daunting – try using the following
questions to help sort through the web-muck!
• What is the nature of the content – advertising, social
network, commercial, peer reviewed and informative?
• How current is the information?
• Who is the author of the Web site and what are their
goals/objectives for posting information?
• What are the author’s qualifications and are contact
details provided?
(Adapted from Metzger, 2007)
7. Finding your academic voice
Writing academically requires you to write critically by engaging
deeply with a variety of sources in order to express your own
thinking with authority. Some of the thinking skills you need to do
this are:
• Evaluating - choosing, deciding, judging, prioritising,
recommending
• Analysing - structuring, surveying, outlining, organising,
distinguishing
• Interpreting - explain, clarify, describe, translate, define
• Arguing - debate, question, discuss, convince, dispute
