This is the set of slides that we have used at our presentation at the Department of Media and Communication at Leicester.

1. Participatory Cultures - a Pilot
Study on HE Students’ Digital
Literacy
Palitha Edirisingha, Tracy Simmons and
DimitrinkaAtanasova
University of Leicester
16 May 2012
A research project funded by the College of Social Sciences

2. Research Aims
• To identify HE students’ access to and the use
of digital technologies and web 2.0 tools for
their formal and informal learning in HE.
• To identify their level of media
literacy, awareness and to develop strategies
for addressing gaps in levels of literacy.
• To make recommendations for supporting
students to further develop their
competencies with online information.

3. Methods
• Questionnaire surveys of 100 undergraduate and
postgraduate students to identify their ownership of and
use of digital devices and web 2.0 tools
– First round (2010-11) returned: 53
– Second round (2011-12): returned 41
• Focus groups (4) with students (3 – 4 in each group) to
gain a deeper insight into their use of web 2.0 tools in a
learning context
– First round (2010-11) 3 groups (10 students in total)
– Second: 1 group of 3 students
• Workshops with students to develop and validate
appropriate online activities and learning tools to improve
their level of web awareness and literacy.

4. Key Theoretical Concepts
Participatory
culture
Online
affinity
spaces
Digital / media
literacy

5. Participatory Cultures
Jenkins et al (2008) ‘participatory culture’:
– ‘a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic
expression and civic engagement, strong support
for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some
type of informal mentorship whereby what is
known by the most experienced is passed to
novices’ (p. 3).

6. Participatory Cultures
• It is also: ‘one in which members believe their
contributions matter, and feel some degree of social
connection with one another (at least they care about
what other people think about what they have
created).’ (p. 3).
• Access to such a participatory culture has a number of
beneficial effects for learners including: opportunities
for peer to peer learning, the diversification of cultural
expression, development of skills valued in modern
workplace, and a more empowered conception of
citizenship (Jenkins et al, 2008).

7. Participatory cultures
• Participatory cultures as supporting the
emergence of self-directed learning activities
beyond formal educational contexts (Francis
2011)
• HE students between ‘a top down culture-
industry model of education (associated with
mass media) and an emergent web-based
participatory culture (associated with new
media)’ (Francis 2011, p. 21).

8. Online affinity spaces (Gee, 2004)
• As a critique of the applicability of Wenger’s
(1998) ‘Communities of Practice’ to online
communities. ‘New comers’ learning from ‘old
timers’.
• The importance of ‘space in which people
interact, rather than on a membership in a
community’ (Gee 2004, p. 77).
• ‘Start by talking about spaces rather than
“communities”’ (ibid, p. 78)

9. Online Affinity Spaces
• … ‘particular type of space’ to describe the
nature and patterns of online interactions
facilitated by technological tools.
• having both ‘content’ and ‘interactional’
dimensions.

10. Literacy / literacies?
• Participatory cultures is argued by Jenkins, (2008)
and see also *Ryberg and Dirckinck-Holmfield
(2010) are ‘transferable’ to the academic context.
• *Locating multiple sources, aggregation of
material, editing and revision of material, critical
reflection and evaluation.
• Our research highlights some of these elements
but there is a variation amongst students and still
a need to focus on the ‘critical’ in their
understanding of online sources.

11. UK Policy
• Policy concerns:
• Digital Britain Report (2009), sets out the
strategy of the government in placing
technology at the centre of the UK’s economic
recovery, but in doing it recognises the
importance of people having the ‘..
capabilities and skills to flourish in the digital
economy’ (DCMS, 2009: 1).

12. UK Policy
• Media literacy is ‘the ability to
use, understand and create media and
communications in a variety of contexts’
(Ofcom, 2011b)
Ofcom (2011b). UK adults’ media literacy.
London: Ofcom.

13. Higher Education
• Prof. Sir David Melville (2009) Committee of
Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience.
• Research commissioned by this committee, into
the use of web 2.0 in HE by academics, found
that though students in HE may well be pervasive
users of social networking sites, blogs, virtual
environments and other multi-media forms, but
they lacked deep critical skills to analyse and
validate information on-line.

14. HE
JISC defines digital literacy as those capabilities which
equip an individual for living, learning and working in a
digital society (JISC LLiDA, 2009).11 For example: the use of
digital tools to undertake academic research, writing
and critical thinking; digital professionalism; the use of
specialist digital tools and data sets; communicating ideas
effectively in a range of media; producing, sharing and
critically evaluating information; collaborating in virtual
networks; using digital technologies to support reflection
and personal development planning; and managing digital
reputation and showcasing achievements.(Knight, 2011:8)

15. Findings

16. Please go to the following URL and
view / download the data from the
2010-2011 questionnaire survey
http://goo.gl/kraQF
And next three slides based on
2011 - 2012 data

17. Ownership of computer and other digital devices (% reporting)
2012 data
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Desktop 35
laptop 100
Smartphone 82.5
Phone 17.5
Camera 92.5
MP3Player 87.5
Tablet 42.5
eReader 10
GameDevice 25
2012 data set 1, n = 40

18. Devices used to access internet during term-time (% reporting)
2012 data
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
UniComputer 85
OwnComputer 100
MobilePhone 77.5
[55% in 2011]
iPodTouch 7.5
OtherDevices 10
Tablet 25
2012 data set 1, n = 40

19. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Update SNS
Watch Television
Listen to radio
Frequency of using Web 2.0 tools and activities – 2012 data
Write blog
Use SBMS
Contribute to wikis
Play video games
Download / share music
Use 3-D virtual worlds Missing
Chat (e.g., MSN)
VOIP
Rarely/never
Share digital photographs
Sometimes
Share videos
Record own music
Frequently
Mix music
Make graphic art
Contribute to bulletin boards
Microblogging
Subscribe to RSS feeds
Programming
Selling on ebay
Online shopping
Online banking
Use ‘Apps’

20. International Dimension
• Students are embedded in virtual structures
from their country of origin and therefore
bring them with them whilst studying at
Leicester.
• Baidu, ICIBA, Renren
• QQ small group work (language familiarity)
• no limits to size of groups, quick and easy.
• Inclusions/exclusions-Google Wave

21. Participatory Culture
• ‘Participatory culture’ book review
recommendations, Yahoo answers, Baidu
answers.
• Instant message, to contact peers.
• But contested notions of ‘quality’ and
‘authority’ related to peer to peer
information.
• In general a sense of what is an ‘academic’
source and what is not.

22. Participatory Culture
• Creators? Students in our sample keep
updated blogs, contribute and comment on
other blogs.
• Reflexivity, students use these blogs as way to
reflect on their own experience as learners.
• Share and reflect on their experiences as
overseas students. They often get responses
and comments on their blogs.

23. Authority and Status
• YouTube: for one participant useful basis for preparing
an essay, other participants reject it as not an academic
sources they can ‘use’ or ‘untrustworthy’.
• Wikipedia, some sense of the limitations of this
information, but it is often a starting place for
background information and to follow up references.
• See The Guardian, Economist, BBC as ‘reliable’
information they can refer to.
• Dominance of Google infrastructure: Google
Scholar, Google Dictionary, Google Wave Google Books.

24. Resources
• Reflections from the workshop
• Students pooled a huge array of online
sources, some (not all) in their first
language, familiarity from their country of
origin.
• They do however, develop new sources as a
result of their study, some through tutor
recommendations others through peers.
• Some gaps in their knowledge e.g. primary
and secondary sources.

25. Recommendations and thoughts
• The cultural context of media literacy needs to be
focused on more closely.
• Participatory cultures vary-Jenkins very much rooted in
US and particular types of activities online (gaming for
example).
• As learners and teachers we need to recognise this
cultural context.
• Provide direction and intervention (where there is
scant access to physical books, the web is seen as a
solution). Not all students have the ability to determine
good quality sources online.
• Do students need a PLE?

26. Finally…
• Vertical and horizontal space of the new media
environment raises a number if challenges
• Expert and ‘non-expert’ information
• Moving across ‘expert’ or ‘academic’ information that
flows downwards: reading lists, Library e-
link, alongside peer to peer (horizontal) information.
• Seamless spaces on-line QQ, off-line: group study
rooms in the library.
• Students have useful mobile technology an iPhone
provides multiple uses: mini photocopier, access web
material, arrange group meetings etc.

27. Thank you