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Guiding Learners Toward Digital Fluency
This document provides an overview of digital literacy and fluency. It defines key terms like digital literacy, digital fluency, and participatory culture. It discusses the importance of these concepts for learners and educators. It also outlines several models for understanding digital literacy development. Additionally, it provides examples of digital literacy skills and competencies like digital scholarship, managing online identity, and using mobile devices. It discusses some challenges to digital adoption in higher education. Finally, it describes some university initiatives to promote digital fluency among students and faculty.
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Guiding Learners Toward Digital Fluency
- 1. Robin Ashford /@rashford Assoc Librarian / Asst Professor George Fox University Guiding Learners Toward Digital Fluency
- 2. TODAY – Definitions,overview, why becoming digitally fluent matters -Digital Literacy -Digital Fluency -Participatory Culture - Learning -Digital Media–Mobile -Campus Initiatives
- 3. ‘We are allteachers and we are all learners’- Harvard President Drew Faust Unsplash By Matthew Wiebe
- 4. The NMC HorizonReport 2014 Higher Ed Edition - Significant Challenges Impeding Ed Tech Adoption in Higher Education: “Low Digital Fluency of Faculty” And in the 2015 Horizon Report , again under the Significant Challenges category: “Adequately Defining and Supporting Digital Literacy” Significant Challenges
- 5. “Another facet ofthis challenge is in the attitude shift required of instructors; if they are reluctant to embrace new technologies and the promotion of digital literacy, students will not see the importance of these competencies to succeed in the work- force.”–Horizon Report 2015 https://youtu.be/ikcPU5Q6tPs
- 6. Digital Literacy isthe ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills. - American Library Association http://connect.ala.org/node/181197 http://goo.gl/kDy1BK
- 7. Digital literacy isthe knowledge, skills, and behaviors used in a broad range of digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktop PCs, all of which are seen as network rather than computing devices.
- 8. We define digitalliteracies as the capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society. – JISC
- 9. Jisc 7 Elementsof Digital Literacies And associated competencies • Media Literacy Critically read and creatively produce academic and professional communications in a range of media. • Communications and collaboration Participate in digital networks for learning and research. • Career and identity management Manage digital reputation and online identity. • ICT literacy Adopt, adapt and use digital devices, applications and services. • Learning skills Study and learn effectively in technology-rich environments, formal and informal. • Digital Scholarship Participate in emerging academic, professional and research practices that depend on digital systems. • Information Literacy Find, interpret, evaluate, manage and share information
- 10. Digital Literacy asa Developmental Process “Literacy is about development so understanding digital literacy in this way is important; we acquire language and become increasingly proficient over time and eventually reach a level of fluency.” Beetham and Sharpe ‘pyramid model’ of digital literacy development model (2010) http://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/developing-digital-literacies
- 11. A recent changein the academic library world: Metaliteracy – Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education In addition, this Framework draws significantly upon the concept of metaliteracy,7 which offers a renewed vision of information literacy as an overarching set of abilities in which students are consumers and creators of information who can participate successfully in collaborative spaces.8 Filed by the ACRL Board February 2, 2015 http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
- 12. DIGITAL LITERACY andwhy it matters Video: University of Derby Digital literacy skills are needed to: help students become employable > know new ways to learn > assessed work is submitted electronically and feedback given online > communicating and collaborating on content can be facilitated through a variety of online platforms “With all these new opportunities come new requirements and responsibilities for everybody. We need to understand how to evaluate and look at the authenticity and validity of the wealth of information available to us.”
- 13. Digital Fluency Digital Fluencyis the aptitude to effectively and ethically interpret information, discover meaning, design content, construct knowledge, and communicate ideas in a digitally connected world. http://www.region10.org/digital-fluency/index/
- 14. 7 Elements ofDigital Literacies Digital Scholarship - Participate in emerging academic, professional and research practices that depend on digital systems. “Digital technologies have transformed how knowledge is embodied, organized, disseminated, and preserved. Use of these technologies has the potential to expand and equalize access to cultural and scholarly resources across sectors of society.” – Mellon Foundation https://mellon.org/programs/scholarly-communications/
- 15. Digital Humanities Digital humanitiesis an area of research and teaching at the intersection of computing and the disciplines of the humanities. Digital humanities embraces a variety of topics, from curating online collections to data mining large cultural data sets. -Wikipedia "Humanités Numériques" by Calvinius - Own work : http://www.martingrandjean.ch/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/HumanitesNumeriques.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons –http://goo.gl/t2fy7r
- 16. UCLA Digital HumanitiesResearch Projects Digital Humanities - Definitions - Examples - Resources http://guides.lib.washington.edu/digitalhumanities UIUC Digital Humanities
- 17. Digital Thoreau isa resource and a community dedicated to promoting the deliberate reading of Thoreau’s works in new ways, ways that take advantage of technology to illuminate Thoreau’s creative process and facilitate thoughtful conversation about his words and ideas.
- 18. Online collaborative annotationtools Lit Genius Introducing Hypothes.is for Education
- 19. Career and IdentityManagement Literacy Manage digital reputation and online identity DIGITAL IDENTITY Digital Identity Is how to represent your best authentic self online. It is taking control of what others see and find about you online. -Paul Gordon Brown Unsplash By Matthew Wiebe
- 20. While none ofus can control everything that is known about us online, there are steps we can take to better understand our online identities and be empowered to share what we want, when we want. - Internet society Unsplash / By Luis Llerena
- 21. Participatory Culture New MediaLiteracies, Web 2.0, Social Media "Web 2.0 Map” by Markus AngermeierVectorised and linked version by Luca Cremonini http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 “Web 2.0 describes World Wide Web sites that emphasize user-generated content, usability, and interoperability.”
- 22. The influence ofparticipatory culture on education https://youtu.be/HYbSD_GdkjU
- 23. De v el o p i n g D i g i t a l S k i l l s Inquiry, play, & exploration Digital Fluency Boise State Univ “We believe this aptitude thrives when inquiry, play, and exploration are valued and encouraged as meaningful learnin experiences.”
- 24. Learners fully engaged#learning - #Minecraft https://youtu.be/Tpa7zyIiuSo
- 25. Digital Learning: Creativity ECMP355 Computers in Edicatopm - Undergrad Course at University of Regina https://youtu.be/416h9j7DVM0
- 26. Developing Digital SkillsInquiry, play, & exploration examples from my own learning
- 27. Convergence of Print& Digital – Augmented Reality Playing with the AR App IMAG-N-O-TRON Playing with Flying Morris in the GFU Library NYTimes AR Example
- 29.
- 30. Guide: Twitter forTeaching & Learning http://libguides.georgefox.edu/twitter
- 31. CURATING & SHARING Sharingyour best content Storify, Scoop.it, Pinterest, etc. https://storify.com/rashford/tptech14
- 32. by sea turtleon flickr WHY MOBILE MATTERS ICT literacy Adopt, adapt and use digital devices, applications and services
- 33. Mobile device ownershipcontinues to increase, with 86% of undergraduates owning a smartphone in 2014 (up from 76% in 2013) and nearly half of students (47%) owning a tablet (up from 31% in 2013). EDUCAUSE CENTER FOR ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH - 2014 http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ss14/ERS1406.pdf
- 34. Changing librarian roles- Guides & Tools: Mobile Apps for Research & Education http://libguides.georgefox.edu/MobileApps
- 35. Digital Content: LibraryE-books & DRM (Digital Rights Management)
- 36. http://libguides.georgefox.edu/content.php?pid=461430&sid=3777009 E-book guides: Becauseusing library e-books on any device is not as simple as we’d like
- 37. Teaching Library ResearchClasses on Mobile (For programs gone mobile – iPad & tablet initiatives, etc.) • Blog Post: http://librarianbydesign.blogspot.com/2012/06/teaching-library-research-on-ipad.html
- 38. Digital Fluency Effortsby Colleges and Universities Boise State University Binghamton University Proposal for UMW Digital Learning Initiative Penn Stae “Consuming and Creating in the Digital Age: How Fluent Are You?”
- 39. Digital Fluency Initiative–GeorgeFox University This wordle was generated from faculty comments regarding perceived needs for technology on the GFU campus from the Digital literacy at George Fox University Faculty Survey administerd on Dec. 14th, 2014. Over 152 responses were recorded.
- 40. Diigital Fluency Initiatives– George Fox University Email (partial) to Faculty from the Provost, May 2015: Introducing The Digital Fluency Initiative We are pleased to announce that the university has provided faculty development funds in support of The Digital Fluency Initiative, a program designed to support faculty in the use of pedagogically-informed technology. This summer we will launch a 1-year pilot with 15 faculty and a team of faculty mentors. In addition, we will be joined this fall by about 10 newly hired faculty. Faculty who wish to participate can apply via the online application form.
- 41. Fear 3 Reasons WeFear Technology: 1) Fear of Dissonance 2) Fear of Losing Your Job 3) Fear of Perception Inside Higher Ed article by Eric Stoller
- 42. Fear of Perception:“No one wants to look like they don't know something in front of their peers. Okay, maybe some people are okay with it, but most professionals seem to have a lot of anxiety around the perception of not knowing something…If you don't know how to use a new technology, don't worry, everyone else is figuring it out, too.”
- 43. This boy hasa great attitude about failure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDDEEHDf1Y
- 44. Thank you! R ob i n M . A s h f o r d - A b o u t M e Unsplash By Matthew Wiebe
Editor's Notes
- #4 This presentation will explore aspects of digital literacy, and why working toward digital fluency matters for learners today…and, of course, we’re all learners
- #5 Before we begin with definitions and the rest I thought we should look at why this matters. How many are familiar with the NMC Horizon Report? The NMC Horizon Report is a collaborative effort between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). It is is an ongoing research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in education. Six key trends, six significant challenges, and six important developments in educational technology are identified each year. “A large part of the challenge is based on insufficient professional development, which is the result of a number of issues that range from a lack of funding, low administrative support, the paucity of formal digital literacy agendas, or ambiguity around the definition of digital fluency. It’s a big issue, many institutions are working to address. –later in this presentation I’ll discuss a new George Fox digital fluency initiative. Just two weeks ago we were awarded a grant for a pilot program to begin this August.
- #6 Looking closer we see another facet of this challenge is what the Horizon Report refers to as an attitude shift required of instructors. In my opinion, all who work in higher education need that attitude shift. Students need to see that digital literacy is important in all of our work, and that we are all working to develop digital skills and competencies that can be used to help them succeed, and for us to be more effective workers; we are all learners in this digital age.
- #7 Now - Let’s look at a few definitions. There are many definitions for digital literacy, this one is from the American Library Association.
- #8 And from Wikipedia we have yet another definition.
- #9 From the UK, we have the JISC definition. To help with thinking about this they have outlined 7 elements of digital literacy for consideration with competencies attached to each of the 7 elements that we and our students can work to develop. I found that especially helpful.
- #10 “Digital literacy looks beyond functional IT skills to describe a richer set of digital behaviours, practices and identities. What it means to be digitally literate changes over time and across contexts, so digital literacies are essentially a set of academic and professional situated practices supported by diverse and changing technologies.” http://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/developing-digital-literacies
- #12 We’re all aware of the broader, more traditional, information literacy. The recently published Association of College and Research Libraries IL framework has not been without controversy, partly around terminology such as Metaliteracy. Regardless of what it’s called I think this acknowledges important changes for academic librarians. Our roles are evolving as our students and others are creating and collaborating. Librarians have been focused on digital resources for many years now but the last couple of years has seen a shift in efforts beyond assisting with library databases to ways we can more deeply collaborate with faculty and assist students in digital projects of all kinds.
- #13 The University of Derby link on this slide is to a short youtube video by the title, why digital literacy matters. I think they do a good job touching on key points a few of which I pulled out here.
- #14 Again, as with digital literacy, many definitions exist on digital fluency. For myself in determining the difference between digital literacy and fluency it helps to think about learning a language. You can know the vocabulary and even how to properly conjugate verbs, etc. However, a person fluent in a language takes what they’ve learned a few steps further, they know when and where and how to use that language, and can fluidly choose the best words for any situation.
- #15 Digital Scholarship is listed by JISC as one of the 7 elements of digital literacy. Associated competency: Participate in emerging academic, professional and research practices that depend on digital systems. The Mellon Foundation link on this slide takes you to some amazing work being done though various grant funded programs. Many of us have Institutional repositories now loaded with valuable digital scholarship, in addition to special collections. How might we leverage what is available to us to add additional value and new knowledge for our students and community. I find looking at projects like those funded through the Mellon Foundation inspiring and am always thinking about ways we can be involved with content to create additional value. It may not be as elaborate as what can be done with thousands of grant dollars but I think through partnerships, and some of the simpler tools being developed, we may all begin to more fully utilize our content.
- #18 Digital Thoreau is a collaboration among the State University of New York at Geneseo, the Thoreau Society, and the Walden Woods Project. A variety of platforms for social reading have sprung up in recent years. Students in the course Literature and Literary Study in the Digital Age at the State University of New York at Geneseo have contributed to the encoding of the fluid text Walden. Our smaller institutions don’t always have had the technical abilities needed for projects such as this but the technology is getting simpler and easier to use out of the box tools are slowly being developed and often made freely available.
- #20 Digital identities as Career and Identity Management Literacy under the JISC 7 elements of digital literacy . Sometimes referred to as our digital footprint, digital identities, digital footprints, and online reputations, are becoming an increasingly important topic inK-12 and especially higher education.
- #21 The quote in this slide is a major focus of the course I teach on developing our online identities, which I’ll be talking about tomorrow morning so won’t go into great detail here except to say, this is an important element of digital literacy for our students today. Understanding that they will be googled and that what shows up in the search results, much from their activity on social media sites, is critically important to many future careers. Believe me, they need far more help in this area than I imagined when I first began teaching this course in 2012. Not only that, in my experience, they are very appreciative of any help we offer.
- #22 From Media literacy, Communication and collaboration, Learning skills and ICT literacy, many of the 7 JISC digital literacies are important for students and staff to fully partake of our 21st century participatory culture. Web 2.0 was a phrase popularized in late 2004 at an O’Reilly conference. That’s when many of us began playing with wikis, social bookmarking, and blogs. In the early days many thought Web 2.0 was a fad, now it’s the Internet.
- #23 The influence of participatory culture on education – Henry Jenkins has been speaking, researching and writing about participatory culture for many years and is a respected leader on this topic. Understanding that our participatory culture has changed how we work, play, and learn is critical IMO to understanding why working toward digital fluency is important.
- #25 All of us can become engaged in playing a game on our smartphones or in watching the newest video meme on youtube but what about in the classroom? Here’s an example of students being fully engaged and immersed in learning. I love that it showcases a rich merging of the physical and the digital. I found this project very inspirational.
- #26 This course is for education majors in the ECMP 355 Computers in Education course taught at the University of Regina, it’s still being taught and a google search of ECMP 355 will bring up many examples of student’s work. A great example of creative work that summarizes well his course learning.
- #27 Developing digital skills for regular folks, remember, I’m not a techie. Nothing too sophisticated, but I have plenty of fun, and the learning just happens.
- #28 Been playing and experimenting with various augmented reality (AR) platforms for several years. This is still an evolving technology in which the most successful implementations appear to be by companies that can afford to invest in the research and development of creative experiences. I’ve not seen a high level of AR implementations yet in education. Oculus Rift and other virtual reality/augmented reality developments may soon change this. Bottom right image is one I took while playing with an augmented reality book in the library office. The print book is titled “The fantastic flying book of Mr. Morris Lessmore.” I’m able to use my mobile device to take Morris off the pages of the book and fly with him through the office right through my workstudy students raised arms. Great fun
- #29 Commercial companies can afford to do amazing things with augmented reality (AR) technology. I’ve yet to see the same quality AR produced by individuals or academic institutions. In the images above I’m using the Haagen-Dazs Concerto Timer app on the lid of the ice-cream containers to display violinists playing a concerto while my ice-cream becomes “properly tempered” and ready to eat (when the concerto is over). Clever and creative marketing.
- #30 First, I’ll state up front that I’m a fan of twitter (though years ago I wrote a blog post rant about how it seemed the most ridiculous narcissistic network I had ever come across), I’ve learned a tremendous amount from the sharing on the platform over the years (it is my number one professional development network). I’d like to engage with others there more than I do and I’m working on that (a time management issue). Ultimately though, there is great digital literacy potential with this tool. This is a fun event, and I think a great way for budding writers to try to grab an audience…there are so many possibilities here. News post: From May 11-15, the Association of American Publishers and Penguin Random House will team up again to present the third industry-wide #TwitterFiction Festival. We will invite authors from across the industry to create original fiction, using the Twitter platform. Writers everywhere can also submit their own ideas once again for the chance to be featured in the author showcase. As in previous years, anyone at anytime can jump in and join the fun by telling stories on Twitter using the #TwitterFiction hashtag.
- #31 I created a guide, linked on the library website, for those in the GFU community, who are interested in using twitter for teaching and learning after receiving many inquiries from faculty about twitter. Creating guides to address topics important to digital literacy is one way librarians and other educators can assist our communities in becoming more digitally fluent. The guide is accessible to anyone from our library course guides along with other helpful miscellaneous guides from this link: http://www.georgefox.edu/offices/murdock/CourseGuides/index.html#misc
- #32 People are sharing everywhere online. We can pull together the best content to create resources from which others can benefit.
- #33 And I can’t leave out Mobile - Mobile literacy falls under the ICT literacy (Competency: Adopt, adapt, and use digital devices, applications, and services) element of the JISC model - Smartphones and cupcakes, two of my favorite things…and now let’s look at a few stats on why mobile matters.
- #34 - Among device owners, in-class use is 74% laptops 66% smartphones 62% tablets —ECAR student study, 2014
- #35 Librarians especially need to be involved with helping students with mobile and other literacy needs.
- #36 Library purchased e-books necessitates our involvement.
- #37 Downloading e-books on mobile devices requires use of the bluefire app, which works on any mobile platform. Many students need help with this process. The most annoying part that we really can not do anything about, whether downloading onto mobile or laptops, each of our vendors require free accounts to be created before books can be downloaded. There are challenges and advantages to making e-books available to our students and we do our best to assist with the process. At my institution faculty have also begun assigning library e-books as text in some classes, thereby saving students the cost of purchasing.
- #38 Having large numbers of mobile devices on our campuses eventually has an effect on many aspects of our work.
- #40 What can be done campus wide? At GFU, in response to the Horizon Report quotes on slide #3, we will begin with a faculty initiative described further on the next slide.
- #41 A three year grant funded initiative. Pilot program begins August 2015.
- #42 I regularly run across people in higher ed who are anxious about technology. Undergrads, grads, faculty and staff struggle with this. Recently Eric Stoller wrote this post for inside higher ed- It’s a short worthwhile read but the fear I want to focus on here is reason number three, Fear of Perception, which I’ve quoted on the next slide.
- #43 The following slide is our final and I’d like to end with a video that I watch often. It makes me smile every time and I believe the message is relevant.