1. +
Digital
literacies for a
modern context
Gráinne Conole, The Open University, UK
DIT Graduate Student Conference is: ‘What is good
educational research?’
15th June 2010

2. + Outline
 New literacies
 What are they?
 How are they being used?
 Types and frameworks
 Jenkin’sdigital
skills
 Downes’ framework for criticalliteracies
 Developing digital literacies
 Daring
to think differently: four models for
change

3. + Changing context of education
Changing technologies
Abundance of free online
content and tools
Ubiquitous, networked access
Increase in mobile and smart devices
Need new approaches
to teaching and
learning and to doing
research in education
Changing learners
Grown up ‘digital’, technologically
immersed, task-orientated, group-based,
‘just in time’, comfortable with multiple
representations

4. + But first some definitions….
 Literacy
 Originally ability to read and write
 Ability to communicate and interpret ideas
 New literacies:
 21st Century literacies, internet literacies, digital literacies, new
media literacies, multiliteracies, information literacy, ICT literacies,
and computer literacy
 Also mathematical literacies, scientific literacies, cultural literacies,
etc….
 Gee
 Language is always used from a perspective and occurs within a
context
 ‘Little d’ – language in use, ‘big D’ – language combined with other
social practices

5. + From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0
Shift from:
Web 1.0 – content repository& static information
Web 2.0 – user generated content/social mediation
Media sharing
Web 2.0
characteristics
Blogs & wikis Peer critiquing
User generated content
Social networking Collective aggregation
Community formation
Digital personas
Virtual worlds
Trends
Shift from content to social mediation
New practices of creation and sharing
Evidence of scaling up/network effects

6. + A typology of Web 2.0 technologies
Technology Examples
Media sharing Flckr, YouTube, Slideshare, Sketchfu
Media manipulation and mash ups Geotagged photos on maps,
Voicethread
Instant messaging, chat, web 2.0 MSN, Paltalk, Arguementum
forums
Online games and virtual worlds WorldofWarcraft, SecondLife
Social networking Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Elgg,
Ning
Blogging Wordpress, Edublog, Twitter
Social bookmarking Del.icio.us, Citeulike, Zotero
Recommender systems Digg, LastFm, Stumbleupon
Wikis and collaborative editing tools Wikipedia, GoogleDocs, Bubbl.us
(Conole and Alevizou, 2010), Review of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education
Syndication/RSS feeds Bloglines, Podcast, GoogleReader
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/1895

7. + Technological possibilities
Exploration
Peer Multiple
critiquing pathways and
communicative User-generated
channels content and
publishing
Inquiry-based Open
activities Affordances (Gibson) approaches
All"action possibilities" latent in an environment
but always in relation to the actor and therefore
dependent on their capabilities.
For instance, a tall tree offers the affordances of
food for a Giraffe but not a sheep.
Social collective
Networking
Participation Personalisation

8. + A complex and evolving relationship
Representation Preferences
Communication Interests
Evolving
practices
Connection Skills
Interactivity Context
Affordances of Characteristics
technologies of users
Basic Symbolic 1st wave technologies 2nd wave technologies
communications representations (phone, radio, fax, networks, mobiles, the
& gestures (words, numbers) TV, CD/DVDs) Internet)

9. + From email to Google wave

10. + A Tweet is simply 140 characters…
Examples of
use Issues
Posting queries Your ‘a-ha’ moment
Commenting The right network
Backchannel Your digital voice
Crowdsourcing Inappropriateness
Gathering opinions Personal/private
Sharing Too much!
events/ideas Use with other tools
Brainstorming A passing fad?
Social presence

11. + Redefining ICT…
Communication
Virtual worlds
Video
Online games
conferencing
Social
Audio networking
conferencing sites
Google
wave
Forums
Wikis
Instant
messaging Blogs
Twitter
Email
Web Social File sharing Mash
pages bookmarking sites ups
Interactivity

12. + Mapping to pedagogy
Use of RSS feeds and
Personalised learning
mash ups
Situated, experiential, Location aware devices,
problem-based learning, Virtual worlds, online
role play games
Google, media sharing
Inquiry or resource-
repositories, user-
based learning
generated content
Reflective and dialogic Blogs and e-portfolios,
learning wikis, social networks

13. Connectivism
+ Personalised learning and Connective
knowledge
Critical
literacies
online

14. + Role play - virtual operating rooms

15. + Inquiry-based learning

16. + Reflective and dialogic learning
Blogs
E-Portfolios

17. + New skills for the digital age
Play
Visualisation Performance
Negotiation Appropriation
Simulation Multi-tasking
Networking
Distributed cognition
Transmedia navigation Collective intelligence
Judgment
Jenkins et al. 2008

18. + Downes’ Critical Literacy framework
Syntax Semantics
Ability to recognize and use Ability to connect
forms, grammars, patterns communicative elements to
and other structural underlying purposes/goals,
properties of theories or meaning,
communication. understanding.
Cognition
Pragmatics Capacity to infer, or detect
Capacity to use faulty inferences, to use
communicative elements in communicative elements in
actions order to describe, argue,
explain or define.
Change
Context
Capacity to reason
Capacity to locate a
dynamically, to detect and
communication in a wider
comprehend processes and
environment
flows
Critical literacies needed to make sense of new technologies

19. + Developing literacy skills
 Adopting a reflective, design-based approach
 Development of ‘formal’ representations of learning and teaching process
 Can be used to guide design, enable sharing and discussion, offer a guided
learning path
 Learning with/through others
 Use of Web 2.0 tools to encourage more interaction and sharing of practice
 Visualisation
 Using different Visualisation techniques to represent information and show
connections
 Metaphors of meaning
 Exploration of new metaphors to describe interactions in digital environments
beyond space and time

20. + A reflective, design-based approach 20
Shift from belief-based, implicit approaches
to design-based, explicit approaches
Learning Design
A design-based approach to
creation and support of courses
Encourages reflective, scholarly practices
Promotes sharing and discussion

21. + Consists of…. Cloudworks
Conceptual
course
views
Theoretical
Collaboration
perspectives
Visualisation
Resources
Excel template
CompendiumLD

22. + Five conceptual course views
Pedagogy profile
Learning intervention
Dimensions Task swimline
overview
Learning outcomes

23. + Dimensions
view
 Breaks down
nature of course
against the 4 higher
level categories

24. + Pedagogy profile view
 10 mins reading
 5 mins interactive activities
 10 mins quiz
 20 minsf-t-f session with
advisor

25. + Learning through/with others

26. + Cloudworks
 A space for sharing and discussing
learning and teaching ideas and designs
 Application of the best of web 2.0 practice
to a teaching context
 To bridge the gap between technologies
and use
 Teachers say they want examples/want to
share/discuss
 New skills needed for engaging with new
technologies’

27. + Key concept: A
cloud
Clouds:
Ideas
Design or case studies
Tools or resources
Questions or problems

28. + Flash Debate: Is twitter killing
blogging?
49 comments
Matt has set up a 1027 views
quick survey to ask  summaries & additional content
people how using 19 links
twitter has  6 references
impacted on how
much they blog or
not.

29. + Evolving: socio-technical co-evolution
Content Event support, Open reviews, expert
seeding flash debates, etc consultation, etc
Social
interventions
Vision
Virtual
ethnography
Technical
interventions
Beta release RSS feeds, activity Events listing, voting,
streams etc favourites, etc

30. + The power of visualisation
Compendium
Cohere

31. + Metaphors and meaning making
Space
Ecological perspectives
Organism perspectives
Time Network
Systems perspective
Function
Political perspectives
Geo-spatial perspectives
Mathematical perspectives

32. + Reflection…
 New technologies require new literacy skills, how can
thesebe developed?
 What new waysofthinking about and describing interactions
in digitalenvironments do we need?
 What can we do about the ever increasing digital divide?
 What are likely to be the implications in education,– for
learners, for teachers, for institutions?

33. + Sources
 Rich data networks image
 http://suifaijohnmak.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/communication-
sep08_leskovec_tdef_page_03_480.jpg
 Yin-Yang image
 http://learn4kicks.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/yinyangconceptmap.gif
 Imperial collage second life island
 http://knowledgecast.wordpress.com/2009/07/10/icl-tour2/
 Personal Inquiry project
 http://www.pi-project.ac.uk/resources/
 E-Portfolios
 http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/e-portfolios