1. 7ED021 week 6 20 th February 2012 Digital literacy/ies, fluency/ies and inclusion issues for learning and teaching

2. Structure of today’s session Review last week’s learning, clarify any issues and discuss the blogging experiences Consider, define and explore the concepts and practices of digital literacy/fluency Review own e-inclusion and e-safety practices and discuss the implications for educational contexts. Self nominate for blogging activities this week 1.Dave 2.? Peer sharing - Christa.

3. Warm up - activity 1 in small groups Consider the table - Learning Over Time (Weigel et al. 2009). What skills/attributes/competences will be required for (lifelong) learning in the last 2 (future) categories? You have 10 minutes then you will feedback to the large group.

4. Digital literacy/fluency/agility Terminology? What do you know already?

5. By digital literacy we mean those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society. 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 PDP; managing digital reputation and showcasing achievements. Beetham (2012) Beetham (2012) for the JISC

6. B (Belshaw 2011)

7. Ele ElectracyElectracy describes the kind of “literacy” or skill and facility necessary to exploit the full communicative potential of new electronic media. Infotention Infotention – managing information (overload), managing attention (Rheingold) – subject/tools and knowledge navigation.

8. To be digitally literate is to have access to a broad range of skills, practices and cultural resources that you are able to apply to digital tools. It is the ability to make, represent and share meaning in different modes and formats; to create, collaborate and communicate effectively; and to understand how and when digital technologies can best be used to support these processes. Digital literacy involves critically engaging with technology and developing a social awareness of how a number of factors, including commercial agendas and cultural understandings, can shape the ways in which technology is used to convey information and meaning. (FutureLab 2010, p4)

9. The shift to open - from last week The term Open Educational Resources (OER) emerged in the early 2000s; since then OERs have gained increased attention for their potential to obviate demographic, economic and cultural educational boundaries, through free access, redistribution and reuse. (Conole & Alevizou, 2010 p.71)(Conole & Alevizou, 2010 p.71) Small group activity – you will need a mobile device or access to the classroom pc. Activity 2 - go to http://bit.ly/oSMNcW - spend 10 minutes exploring this FutureLab OER – what does the content and format suggest about changing literacy and learning practices? Feedback to large group.http://bit.ly/oSMNcW

10. What do students need to know, what practices do they need to develop in order to flourish in a world in which they will need to communicate in multiple ways with different technologies and media and in different formats? (FutureLab 2010 p.11) Literacy to fluency Beyond basic digital literacy is the need to support a vision that defines digital literacy as a life skill that is connected to the everyday lives and situations of youth and their communities. Call it “design literacy”—that is, the capacity to engage in critical thinking, inquiry and discovery, and real world problem solving. Tools literacy is foundational; design literacy is transformational. (Watkins 2012, p.9)

11. Other words for these two levels are transactional (literacy) and transformational (fluency). In the years ahead, digital fluency will become a prerequisite for obtaining jobs, participating meaningfully in society, and learning throughout a lifetime. (Resnick 2002) Activity 3 – In groups consider the JISC model DL anatomised: access, skills and practices – how do education sectors need to adapt/change to support the wider literacy development? 10 minutes then feedback.

12. LLIDALLIDA project findings (2009) Tutors need to be proactive in helping learners to develop learning and digital literacies Learners...lack critical media and information literacies, and struggle to translate the capabilities they do have into different contexts. Because of this they remain strongly influenced by their lecturers in the technologies and strategies they use for learning. Tutors’ confidence and capacity to be innovative in their use of technologies are critical to learners’ development. Learning and digital literacies need to be embedded into the curriculum Tutors and central service staff, including ‘outreach’ and hybrid staff such as subject librarians, must work together to embed opportunities for literacy development into the curriculum.

13. Learners need to be engaged in their own development The focus of provision in curricula should therefore be on developing understanding and practice through authentic academic tasks, in digital contexts where appropriate. Academic staff need to be engaged in rethinking their own knowledge practices Academic staff have few opportunities to reflect on the impact digital technologies are having in their field; those opportunities which do exist, eg around curriculum (re)validation and review, do not always foster an open and enquiring approach. Curriculum teams and professional bodies need to consider what literacies and competences graduates will need, bearing in mind that they are likely to have several careers and that none may be in the field they have studied. They also need to consider what values, identities and attributes uniquely qualify graduates in their field, against a backdrop of change.

14. Something missing? E-safety is an output of digital literacy, something that flows out of it once an individual is fluent. Fluency is the top end of the literacy scale – and fluency is the result of practice. To divorce e-safety from practice, to conceive it as something that can be taught in isolation is ill-advised and, ultimately, futile. Belshaw Another OER – E-safety for vulnerable adults How is this different to the Reflective Writing RLO from week 5?

15. Social justice and digital inclusion Too often, discussions of the role of digital technologies for learning skate over the wide variety of differences which exist between different groups of learners. Often, ‘the learner’ is presented as a single, unitary figure defined solely by age; as ‘children’, ‘teenagers’, ‘adults’ etc. And yet, there are clearly wide differences in the ways in which different groups of children respond to, benefit from, or are excluded by specific uses of digital technologies. (Facer Foreword in Abbott, 2007 p.1) One major driver of the change of understanding in this area has been the widespread adoption of the social model of inclusion, rather than using the medical model which sees learning difficulties as biologically determined. Within the social model, learning difficulties are seen to be created by the context in which learning takes place. (Abbott, 2007 p.2)(Abbott, 2007 p.2)

16. Being inclusive Need to be anticipatory and proactive – at practice/wider support/policy levels Accessible and safe learning environment for all Student Enabling Centre Staff development on inclusive learning and teaching and training - TechDisinclusive learning TechDis Legal requirements of e-learning? JISC TechDisJISC TechDis Reasonable adjustmentReasonable adjustment, Equality Act 2010Equality Act 2010

17. What are your experiences of technology and wider inclusive practice? (FutureLab, 2009 p.45)

18. Summing up Round robin review of this week – something I am taking away..... This week’s blog posts Abbott – E-inclusion: Learning Difficulties and Digital TechnologiesE-inclusion: Learning Difficulties and Digital Technologies RSC JISC – E-safety/e-responsibility webinar recording from 2/2/12 (lots of clicks).E-safety Practice share - Christa