Digital Literacy

Doug Belshaw, JISC infoNet

JISC E- Safety Resources

"The session reinforced to me just how diverse people's views on digital literacies are. Most new to the field make the assumption that digital literacy is singular and consists of basic skills in the digital realm. In effect, digital competency. Those more experienced in the field, such as Helen Beetham, talk of the importance of this baseline - the 'ABC' of digital literacy as she called it, but higher-level skills as well."

Well designed attractive guide, Includes sections on: Digital citizenship Protect your digital reputation When staff become online targets

"We need to stop digital literacy training that uses the internet and social media to achieve pre-defined outcomes. For example, working backwards from goals such as finding a job or setting up a business. This might address immediate student anxieties but it is a short-term solution. Based on my experiences of working with students and academics, I would make a case for digital literacy to be much more than the mechanical operation of tools and technology. It should enable us to use the social digital landscape for reflection and conversations. And in our ability to enter into dialogue on the basis of shared values, we become individual agents of change." Dr Abhay Adhikari

Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn

Article suggesting changing teaching methods to reflect the changing way people are relating to the world through technology. Examines the book: Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn

Papers presented at LILAC 2011 on the LILAC website

Some excellent statistics on UK demographics for the digitally excluded.

via a Doug Belshaw tweet - the latest post to this UCL blog "Distributed literacy in the digital department" refers to 'Digital Literacies' (Gillen and Barton 2010) This para helpful for understanding development from info literacy. Early last year the ESRC/EPSRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme published 'Digital Literacies' (Gillen and Barton 2010) useful overview of the theoretical background. It traced the conceptual evolution of the term from its origin as a synonym for 'IT skills' through the addition of 'soft skills', in an academic context mainly criticality and evaluation and on to the Web 2.0 notion of the student as a consumer/creator/collaborator. The latest manifestation revolves around the idea literacy as a 'situated practice' i.e. it is intimately linked to the specific context of use and cannot (should not?) be considered in isolation.

This resource is designed to support primary and secondary teachers to integrate the development of students' digital literacy into everyday learning. The materials, developed with primary and secondary school teachers as part of Futurelab's digital participation project, can be downloaded from our website.

BiblioBouts, an online social game that covertly teaches students how to do library research while they go about the business of completing a research-and-writing assignment.

Wolverhampton University blended learning unit Digital literacy case studies.