Category Archives: digital literacy

Welcome to EDM122: Digital Literacies and Open Practice 2021/2022

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Jane at INTED in ValenciaI’m really delighted to be running this 15 credit module  as part of the Masters in Academic Practice for the fourth year running, so welcome to my new cohort at City University. This year I am delighted to be joined by a new member of the academic team at City, Dr Julie Voce, who is also Head of Digital Education. For those who are not at City, but who would like a taste of the module you are very welcome to join the webinar series. I have also made information available about the teaching days and the reading list from the blog.

Digital Literacies and Open Practice is an opportunity for staff and LIS students to explore two important and inter-related issues, that are central to the role that technology plays in education. It has been particularly interesting to discuss these issues in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning. The importance of considering your own, but also your students’ digital literacies has been only too apparent over the past 18 months. I have regularly had discussions with staff who made assumptions about what students might already know, about how to use technology and how to behave online. I think the need to embed digital literacies into the curriculum are now more important than ever before.

And the crisis has also highlighted the value of open practice, whether it’s about sharing teaching resources, helping students get access to digitised or electronic key readings, and the need for open access research. Last year I signed the Open COVID pledge, to try and be open in the work I write and publish.  I’ve also been running regular webinars for the education community on copyright and online learning, with my research partner, Chris Morrison. Chris will once again be delivering the first webinar in the series associate with this module.

I hope you can join some of this module and if you would like to understand a bit more about the rationale behind it and the feedback from the first cohorts, then I have published the paper I presented just a few weeks before lockdown at the INTED Conference in Valencia in March 2020.  I am looking forward to this module starting again and to sharing my passion for digital literacies and open practice with anyone interested, wherever they might be in the world.

The Impact of Teaching Digital Literacies and Open Practices

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Next week I am delighted to be presenting at the OER21xDomains conference, which is being held online on 21-22 April. I have had a paper accepted based on my experiences of running this module for the past 3 years. I will be bringing three former students (Kanan Barot, Ahmed El-Shareif and Hasan Munir) from the most recent cohort to the conference to share some of their experiences. I will also be talking briefly about the research I did in 2019 on staff motivations towards open practice. My session is on Thursday 22md April at 10am.

There isn’t much time in the session, so I am sharing additional content and resources via this blog post for those who are interested in the session. I’ll also share my slides and a recording (if possible) after the event.

Some of the experiences from teaching this module were written up and presented at the Inted 2020 conference in Valenica and so I recommend starting out by reading my paper from the conference entitled Understanding the Role of Technology in Academic Practice through the Lens of Openness. Here I presented some of the findings from the study I did interviewing academic staff about digital literacies, open practice and their experiences of being supported in these areas.

You may also want to refer to the conference session I ran at OER19 in Galway, Reflecting on Teaching in the Open where I was joined by three of my webinar presenters: Chris Morrison, Lorna Campbell and Dave White. Here my webinar presenters reflected on the value of being part of this module and what it meant to their own practice.

Finally, I have been given permission to share some of the video assignments from my past students, who created videos about aspects of digital literacy or open practice as part of the module. These were highly individual and reflect interests that they developed during their time studying the module. Some of the research suggests that existing pedagogic practices are amplified through learning about openness. My research suggests there is a very close relationship between digital literacies and open practices but there is a huge variation in experience. Peers are also tremendously important in supporting staff and helping them develop their confidence to be more open. The pandemic has undoubtedly had an impact on staff attitudes in both these areas and I think we are really at the start of seeing whether an ideological shift towards greater openness and the willingness to share, ends up being one of the lasting changes.

I hope to see you at OER21, I am looking forward to presenting there next week.

Embedding Digital Literacies in the Curriculum with Katharine Reedy and Hossam Kassem

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Hossam Kassem

Katharine and Jo at the book launch for Digital Literacy Unpacked

I’m hosting a webinar on Thursday 3rd December from 11am-12pm with Katharine Reedy and Hossam Kassem from the Open University. They will be talking about embedding digital literacy in the curriculum. The webinar is open to all and going to be run in MS Teams.

If you would like to join then do drop me a line, so I have an idea of numbers as it’s open to those not taking the module as well. I will send you the link to the meeting.

The Open University has a strong, and lengthy, track record, both in developing digital and information literacy products and services, and embedding the skills into the curriculum. We have been using learning design approaches to embed the skills, working in partnership with others across the university, including curriculum teams, Librarians and Learning Designers. During 2020 we have continued to evolve our approach and share it with colleagues in the wider sector to support the move to online learning.

Join Katharine  (editor along with Jo Parker of Digital Literacy Unpacked, from Facet publishing) and Hossam (a member of the Library Live Engagement team and Accessibility Lead) to hear about the OU experience.

 

Connection and presence in online teaching – a webinar by Dave White

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Dave WhiteI’m delighted that Dave White from the University of the Arts London has agreed to present a webinar for the third year running as part of my module. The session will be taking place on Tuesday 24th November from 11am-12pm. Dave is always well worth listening to, whatever topic he is speaking about. However, the title of his webinar on Tuesday is really relevant at the moment given the shift to online learning and the concerns many of us have about student engagement. I think the idea of connection and presence when we teaching online is really important and I’m looking forward to this session very much. Dave tells me more about the session and says:

“Moving teaching online has emphasised our need for connection and co-presence. It appears these don’t come for ‘free’ in digital spaces and must be deliberately designed into our online pedagogy. In this session we will explore the notion of Connectivism to reflect on the digital spaces and teaching practices which cultivate a sense of presence and collective belonging online.”

As ever, the session is open to guests from outside City, and anyone not taking the module. Just get in touch via this form if you would like to join and I will send you the invite details.

Webinar 3: approaches to developing staff and students’ digital capabilities

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Next week I have my third webinar, this time delivered by Sarah Knight and Lisa Gray who work for Jisc. As with other sessions please do let me know by registering if you would like to attend and you are not taking my module. The session is open to all. Sarah and Lisa tell us more about their session:

We are experiencing unprecedented times with the changes the pandemic has brought to every aspect of our lives and the experience for all our staff and students.  The fact that the skills needed to thrive in an increasingly digital world will continue to evolve with each new technological innovation presents challenges for universities.

The speed of change and the widescale adoption of new technologies by businesses, governments and daily living means that the future workforce not only needs to be digitally capable but digitally confident and resilient.

At Jisc we have been tackling these challenges since 2008 through our research to better understand and support the development of digital capability for students and staff – the skills needed to live, learn and work in a digital society (Jisc, 2014). Work has included: the development of our digital capabilities framework (Jisc, 2017) which has provided a shared vocabulary to describe digital capabilities; a series of profiles that breakdown of the capabilities relevant to particular educational roles; a ‘discovery tool’ a first step for staff and students to reflect on their digital skills which generates a personalised report suggesting next steps and developmental resources; organisational models; and curriculum resources.

This session will provide an overview of our research and how universities are developing the digital capabilities of their staff and students in the UK.

First Webinar on Digital Literacy, Copyright and Creativity

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Chris at CC Summit by Sebastiaan ter Burg2

On Tuesday 27th October at 11am the first webinar for the module EDM122 Digital Literacies and Open Practice will take place. This session is being delivered by Chris Morrison who is the Copyright, Licensing and Policy Manager at the University of Kent. Chris and I run the website copyrightliteracy.org and he is the creator of Copyright the Card Game and co-creator of The Publishing Trap, our game of open access and scholarly communication. Together we also run a regular webinar series on Copyright in a Time of Crisis, hosted by the Association for Learning Technology. We also have a fun podcast series called Copyright Waffle. Oh and we have a collection of novelty copyright t-shirts. No doubt Chris will be wearing one next week!

The webinar topic is based on a chapter that Chris wrote in the book Digital Literacy Unpacked edited by Katharine Reedy and Jo Parker. Chris’s chapter is available on open access in the Kent Academic Repository.

If you are not formally enrolled on this module and wish to book a place on the webinar then please complete the form to book your place. A link will be sent to you ahead of the webinar, with the joining instructions.

 

Welcome to EDM122: Digital Literacies and Open Practice

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Jane at INTED in ValenciaI’m really delighted to be running this 15 credit module  as part of the Masters in Academic Practice for the third year running, so welcome to my new cohort at City University. For those who are not at City, but who would like a taste of the module you are very welcome to join the webinar series. I have also made information available about the teaching days and the reading list from the blog.

Digital Literacies and Open Practice is an opportunity for staff to explore two important and inter-related issues, that are central to the role that technology plays in education. It will be particularly interesting to discuss these issues in light of the COVID-19 crisis and the rapid shift to online learning. The importance of considering your own, but also your students’ digital literacies has been only too apparent with the start of the new academic year. Students’ entire learning experience is being mediated by technology and I have regularly had discussions with staff who made assumptions about what students might already know, about how to use technology and how to behave online. I think the need to embed digital literacies into the curriculum are now more important than ever before.

And the crisis has also highlighted the value of open practice, whether it’s about sharing teaching resources, helping students get access to digitised or electronic key readings, and the need for open access research. A month or so I signed the Open COVID pledge, to try and be open in the work I write and publish.  I’ve also been running regular webinars for the education community on copyright and online learning, with my research partner, Chris Morrison. So I am delighted, that the first webinar, coming up on 27th October will be delivered by Chris, who will talk more about copyright literacy.

I hope you can join some of this module and if you would like to understand a bit more about the rationale behind it and the feedback from the first cohorts, then I have recently published the paper I presented just a few weeks before lockdown at the INTED Conference in Valencia. It all seems like a dream now, international conferences and overseas travel, after spending the last six months in my home office. But I am looking forward to this module starting and to sharing my passion for digital literacies and open practice with anyone interested, wherever they might be in the world.

Two webinars now available

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Katharine and Jo at the book launch for Digital Literacy Unpacked

We now have two more recorded webinars available from the module Digital Literacies and Open Practice. The first was a bonus webinar given a few weeks ago by Sam Aston and Chris Millson from the University of Manchester. Sam and Chris teach on the module ‘Open Knowledge in Higher Education‘ which inspired me to set up this course after I was a guest lecturer on it a few years ago running a session with Chris Morrison. Their webinar has a number of activities you can take part in to help you think about what open practice means and how to make small changes in your own teaching. A recording is available here.

The second webinar is from the editors of one of the set readings for this course, Jo Parker and Katharine Reedy who wrote Digital Literacies Unpacked. They talk about the approach to learning design at the Open University and how digital literacies, (but also employability and other skills) are embedded into the curriculum. A recording and the slides are available.

Embedding Digital Literacies in the Curriculum webinar on Friday!

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Katharine and Jo at the book launch for Digital Literacy Unpacked

I’m hosting a webinar on Friday 6th December from 11am-12pm with Katharine Reedy and Jo Parker from the Open University. They will be talking about embedding digital literacy in the curriculum. The webinar is open to all and going to be run in Adobe Connect – no password required.

If you would like to join then do drop me a line, so I have an idea of numbers as it’s open to those not taking the module as well

The Open University has a strong, and lengthy, track record, both in developing digital and information literacy products and services, and embedding the skills into the curriculum. We have been using learning design approaches in our work both within the Library service to embed the skills but also in wider work across the university working with curriculum teams. Join Katharine and Jo (editors of Digital Literacy Unpacked, from Facet publishing) to hear about the OU experience.

Open webinar 21st November, 2-3pm with Dave White

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Just a reminder we have another webinar tomorrow at 2-3pm with Dave White, who created the ‘visitor and resident’ typology. He’s going to be speaking about Networked values in hierarchical contexts. Last year’s webinar was a lot of fun and really interactive so please try and make the time to attend live – the session is open to all and as ever the session will be in Adobe connect.

If you would like to get a taste of what his webinar will be like, have a read of the blog post from last year. As ever I will be recording the session and making any slides available.

I hope you will join us.