Digital Literacy

Interesting post Deborah, I will "Scoop.it. Good to see the comparisons with "everyday life"

April 26, 2011 - Bobbi Newman

Blog post by Josie Fraser, good round up of what digital literacy is. "Not being able to code doesn't make you digitally illiterate. Not being able to participate in  social, economic, cultural and political life because you lack the confidence, skills and opportunity to do so is what makes you digitally illiterate."

Scholars and teachers alike agree that today's students need more than alphabetic literacy to communicate effectively in a world increasingly suffused with digital media and information. 

Today the Guardian will launch a campaign to improve IT and computer science teaching in schools and universities - and we want input from as many teachers, lecturers, pupils, parents and developers as possible

Two years ago, in Towards a comprehensive definition of digital skills, I depicted digital literacy according to five different categories, being those categories technological literacy, informational literacy, media literacy, digital presence and e-awareness. Explaining these concepts with a single example (that is, all the concepts using the very same example for all of them) is not always easy, so you end up using different examples with each category or concept. Today I just found that single example that can be used to explain all of them...

The aim of this project is to produce an online module to support the use of OER materials that will focus of on the ways ICTs/digital technologies can support teaching, learning and administration. The OER that are created, collated and re-purposed will be made available through a creative commons licence. The OER (unit resources) can be used individually as well as accredited by universities in order to gain 30 M-level credits and can form an online module 'Digital Literacy and Creativity'.

"Our ability to communicate - Unlike our parents, who recall sitting down at a desk to deliberately draft a letter with paper, pen, envelope and stamp, today's youth have radically expanded options in how we communicate our observations, reflections and emotions. Oral and written communication have merged into a constant flow of commentary that tends to incentivize wit, irony and novelty. Of greatest significance, online communication is often many-to-many rather than one-to-one, an adjustment that has proven difficult for older generations.

"The 2011 ECAR National (USA) Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology gathered stratified data from "3,000 college students from 1,179 colleges and universities" via an opt-in invitation-only online questionnaire, in June 2011."

ISC has recently funded a £1,5 million Developing Digital Literacies programme which runs from July 2011 to July 2013, with benefits realisation activities continuing until the end of December 2013. The aim of the programme is to promote the development of coherent, inclusive and holistic institutional strategies and organisational approaches for developing digital literacies for all staff and students in UK further and higher education. To inform the development of this programme, JISC commissioned Helen Beetham to conduct a Review and scoping study. The review describes work that has already been funded by JISC and its partner agencies in the area of digital literacy, and the context in which this work is taking place.

Digitally Ready is a JISC funded project, funded under the Developing Digital Literacies programme Our project will develop a holistic and inclusive approach drawing on both the strong history of successful JISC and general e-learning project delivery and harnessing our expertise, resources and evidence base to: * Baseline our digital competence, needs and desires using JISC audit tools;* Develop a strategy for the University of Reading to ensure all members of the University have the digital literacies for their current role and have access to resources to ensure they are Digitally Ready for their future and to better support the University's aims and objectives;* Develop change management processes to ensure realisation of the strategy;* Begin implementation of the strategy;* Document our methods so that they can be applied to other institutions and lead to further areas of study.

Digitally Ready is a JISC funded project, funded under the Developing Digital Literacies programme Our project will develop a holistic and inclusive approach drawing on both the strong history of successful JISC and general e-learning project delivery and harnessing our expertise, resources and evidence base to: * Baseline our digital competence, needs and desires using JISC audit tools;* Develop a strategy for the University of Reading to ensure all members of the University have the digital literacies for their current role and have access to resources to ensure they are Digitally Ready for their future and to better support the University's aims and objectives;* Develop change management processes to ensure realisation of the strategy;* Begin implementation of the strategy;* Document our methods so that they can be applied to other institutions and lead to further areas of study.

From the outset, the PriDE project will be interested in exploring what it means to be 'digitally literate' within the subject disciplines. The Faculty Learning Communities will this discuss this idea in their creative think tank sessions with the aim of articulating a digital literacy statement. These statements will then be shared with the wider community on this blog as one of the project outputs. In time, these statements will be joined by a list of Faculty digital literacy attributes and, potentially, some more specific lists of attributes for particular stakeholder groups - learners, academics, support staff.

Welcome to the Digital Literacy @ University of Worcester Blog This blog for Digital Literacy, bringing you interesting pieces of information encouraging all to join a community interested in discussing the impact technology is or might have on our lives whether we are students or staff. Exploring Open Education Resources - cost, quality, best practice frameworks.Running an annual survey for Digital Literacy (with a prize) to help us find out what you want, need and aspire to:Exploring social networking virtual worlds for administrative, teaching and communication affordances.Exploring online lunchtime seminars for staff.

Project Digidol aims to embed processes and practices that enable the development of Digital Literacy in all staff and students across all areas and levels of the (Cardiff) University. It is understood that this will be as much about changing attitudes and beliefs, as it will be about realising practical knowledge and skills. Organisational change and effective change management will be key aspects of the project.

A film outlining the use of film technology in university teaching by Dr Jon Anderson, Cardiff University in the School of City and Regional Planning