Digital Futures is a resource that aims to help educators understand and explore what it means to be digitally literate. It discusses how the definition of literacy has changed over time and explores different views on literacy, including as a set of cognitive skills, as a social practice, and critical literacy. The resource also examines how digital literacy can be incorporated into school-based literacy teaching by using technologies to encourage creativity, critical thinking, and home-school connections. Challenges of using digital technologies in schools are also addressed, as well as visions for the future of education.

1. Digital Futures
Support materials for use with the DEFT resources
Digital Futures

2. Aims of DEFT
• Understanding more about what it means to
be digitally literate
• Exploring and sharing the potential of digital
technologies
• Sharing and developing good practice in
teaching

3. Exploring what is meant by literacy
What do you understand by the term
‘literacy’?
2
• Do you feel this term has changed its meaning during
your life time?
• Has it changed since your parents and grandparents
were young?
• What does literacy mean in the everyday lives of
the children you teach?
1
Video: Glynda Hall from the University of California presents the changing nature of literacy
7

4. Your use of literacy in everyday life
Map/list all the literacy-related activities you have done so far
today/over the past 24 hours …
2 3
Compare them with others. 4
Experiment with grouping your uses of literacy in different ways: eg
forms of texts, purposes, audiences, use of technology etc. What do
you notice about your use of literacy in everyday life?
5 6

5. Views on literacy
• As a set of cognitive skills
• As social practice
• ‘Autonomous’ and ‘ideological’ models of literacy (seeee Brian Street 1985)
• Critical literacy
• Video: Exploring definitions of literacy, what it means to be a literate
person in the 21st century and implications for teaching
Other links:
Merchant G (2007). ‘Writing the future in the digital age’. Literacy, 41(3): 118–128.
Glynda Hull 2012www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAlqheqLZg
Lankshear C and Knobel M (2011). New literacies: changing knowledge and classroom learning (3rd ed).
Buckingham: Open University Press.
Lankshear C and Knobel M. (2006). ‘Digital literacy and digital literacies: policy, pedagogy
and research considerations for education’. Digital Kompetense: Nordic Journal of Digital
Literacy, 1(1): 12–24.
Beavis C and O’Mara J (2010). ‘Computer games: pushing at the boundaries of literacy’. Australian Journal of
Language and Literacy, 33(1): 65–76.

6. Digital literacy
How would you define ‘digital literacy’?
In this project digital literacy has been defined as …
‘… a blend of ICT media and information skills and
knowledge situated within academic practice contexts
while influenced by a wide range of techno-social
practices involving communication, collaboration and
participation’ (JISC 2011)
How does your definition compare with this?
Compare views on the nature of digital literacy – or should we
use the plural: literacies?

7. Exploring what is meant by literacy
for students at home and at school
• What does literacy mean in the everyday lives of
the students you teach?
• What are the similarities and differences in the
ways in which they use literacy in their home and
in school?
• What are the implications of any similarities and
differences?
Worth reading:
• Marsh J (2004). ‘The techno-literacy practices of young children’. Journal of Early Childhood Research,
2(1):51–66.
• Levy R (2009). ‘You have to understand words … but not read them´: young children becoming readers in a
digital age’. Journal of Research in Reading, 32(1): 75–91.

8. Exploring school-based literacy
• What kinds of literacies are used in school – in the formal and informal curriculum?
• What interpretation of literacy is conveyed by current policy documentation? Which skills
and aspects of knowledge are emphasised? Which skills and aspects of knowledge are the
focus for assessment? What references are made to digital literacies in curriculum guidance,
statutory documentation and assessment materials?
• Merchant (2007) refers to competing discourses, ie ICT as:
 A set of skills/tools
 A vehicle for learning
 Transformative, ie having the potential to change the nature of learning in a
radical way
What do you perceive to be the main discourse in statutory documentation – current and
past? What about the discourse of your current school literacy and ICT policy?
Draft National Curriculum for English KS1 & 2
Draft National Curriculum for KS3
Draft National Curriculum for KS4
Worth reading on responses to the National Curriculum Review:
Response from UK Literacy Association
Response from Naace - professional association for those concerned with advancing education through the appropriate use of ICT"

9. Exploring your students’ experiences
of literacy
• What does literacy mean in the everyday lives of the students you teach?
• How do your students’ uses and experiences of literacy compare with your own –
in the past and present?
• What are the implications of any similarities and differences?
• What do you think of Prensky's idea of ‘digital natives’? Do you feel this would be
an appropriate term for your students? For you? Do you see yourself as a digital
immigrant? What do you see as the implications of such terms?
• Do you feel that your students can be considered as a uniform group in their uses
of digital literacies, or are there differences, as Selwyn and Hargatti suggest?
Worth reading:
Prensky M (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. Available
at:www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-
%20Part1.pdf
Helsper EJ and Eynon R (2010). ‘Digital natives: where is the evidence?’. British Educational Research Journal,
36,(3): 503–520.
Livingstone S and Hesper E (2007). ‘Gradations in digital inclusion: children, young people and the digital
divide’. New Media & Society, 9(4): 671–696. Available at:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2768/1/Gradations_in_digital_inclusion_(LSERO).pdf
Selwyn N (2004). ‘Reconsidering political and popular understandings of the digital divide’. New Media &
Society, 6(3): 341–362.

10. How/why might you build on your
students' home use of literacy in your
classroom teaching?
Consider:
• The technology used
• Its purpose(s)
• The affordances of texts used or produced
• Particular language features of such texts or
groups of texts
Identify opportunities in your curriculum when you
are planning to teach this type of language use.

11. The role of digital literacies in school
• Why include digital literacies in the
curriculum?
Your views?
• Look through the case studies, blogs and materials and add
to your list

12. Why incorporate digital literacies in
school-based literacy teaching?
purposes and
motivation … audiences for
relevance to
students’ lives using literacy
opportunities to
communicate and
interact with those opportunities for
beyond the creativity and
classroom innovation
meaningful contexts for
applying and developing
language and literacy skills affordances of screen-
based texts and online
speed and ready communication
access of
information AND

13. AND
‘Literacy teaching and learning need to
change because the world is changing’
(Cope and Kalantzis 2000: 41)
What are your views on this statement? 7
Is the world changing? If so, how? And what are the
implications of these changes for education and for
literacy teaching and learning?
Worth reading:
Marsh J (2007). ‘New literacies and old pedagogies: recontextualizing rules and
practices’. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 11(3): 267–281.
Jenkins H (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture. Chicago:
MacArthur Foundation. http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-
A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

14. Review the role of digital literacies in
the curriculum
Look through the case studies to review the
following:
• Form of technology
• Activity and organisation
• Literacy use
• Links with formal curriculum
• Benefits
• Challenges/limitations

15. How can digital technologies be used
to encourage critical literacy?
• In the case studies, where have students been
encouraged to develop critical literacy? How?
• What opportunities are presented in your
curriculum to engage students in critical literacy?
Worth reading:
Burnett C and Merchant G (2011). ‘Is there a space for critical literacy in the context of
social media?’ English Teaching, Practice and Critique, 10(1): 41–57.

16. How can digital technologies be used
to encourage creativity?
• In the case studies, where have students been
encouraged to develop creativity? How?
• What opportunities are presented in your
curriculum to engage students in developing
their creativity?

17. How can digital technologies be used
to encourage home school links?
• What opportunities are presented in your
setting to use digital literacies to support links
with home?
• Future Lab: Connecting digital literacy between home and school:
http://bit.ly/RkDv4M

18. Challenges of using digital
technology in school
• What challenges do you and your colleagues
see in using digital technology with your
students?
• How might you overcome them?

19. Challenges of using digital
technology in school
How do the challenges you identified compare
with those noted by Burnett (2011): inadequate
access to equipment andcompeting pressures of
the curriculum?
How could you respond to these challenges in your
own teaching?
How can you embed digital literacy in your
practice, and not have it as an 'add on' activity?
Can you achieve a sense of 'appropriateness' in the
kinds of literacy teaching that you do?

20. Education for the future
What possible changes do you envisage for education in the future?
Worth watching:
• Mitchell Resnick on the power of ICT to generate creativity and innovation in the education process
• Keri Facer, Professor of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, and author, discusses the future of learning
in the context of an underlying shift in the foundation of society and its impact on the education superstructure.
Worth reading:
• Rethinking learning in the digital age: Mitchel Resnick, The Media Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Video
• Partnership for 21st century skills: Framework for 21st century learning: A holistic view of 21st century teaching and
learning that combines a discrete focus on 21st century student outcomes (a blending of specific skills, content
knowledge, expertise and literacies) with innovative support systems to help students master the
multidimensional abilities required of them in the 21st century.
• Beyond Current Horizons 2007: project considering the future of education beyond 2025: three potential worlds,: Considered
three
potential worlds, each built around a different set of social values – increasingly individualised, increasingly
collective or increasingly contested approaches towards life and education .

21. Education for the future
Other reading:
• Marsh J (2007).’New literacies and old pedagogies: recontextualizing rules and
practices’. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 11(3): 267–281.
• Jenkins H (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture. Chicago:
MacArthur Foundation. Available
at:http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-
E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF
• Facer K (2011). Learning futures: education, technology and socio-technical
change. London: Routledge.

22. Practical stuff
• Twitter in the classroom
• Using kindles and kinnects in class
• Future Lab: ‘It’s not chalk and talk anymore’: school approaches to developing
students’ digital literacy
• Mobile technologies and learning literature
review: www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/mobile-
technologies-and-learning-literature-review
•

23. attributions for pictures
1. gayturner
2. Ed yourdon
3. London College of Fashion short courses
4. Crossett Library Bennington College
5. zsrlibrary
6. Tommi Komulainen
7. old shoe woman