Digital Literacies and Open Practices starting next week!

I’ve been really busy these past few months putting together a new module, based on two of my key interests and I’m really excited that it is going live next week. EDM122: Digital Literacies and Open Practices is a 15 credit module, being taught as part of the MA in Academic Practice at City, so any staff interested in enrolling get in touch ASAP as I might have a few places left! The course explores what these concepts mean, how they relate to teaching, learning and research in higher education and our own academic practice. We’ll explore staff and student digital literacies and spend some time in the first teaching day mapping out the complex and overlapping terminology in the field. I’m really grateful to my colleague Ali Press, who is going to be co-teaching with me and who is preparing a glossary of terms – we’ve discovered some literacies we didn’t know existed! I’m keen to share some of my experiences with colleagues but also to hear what ‘openness’ means to staff teaching at City in the widest sense, so we will be starting off reading the article Fifty Shades of Open.

In addition to the Moodle site, we have a course blog, and I’ve also got a webinar series with 5 speakers scheduled this term, which will be recorded but with a limited number of guest places. I’m delighted that people like Dave White and Lorna Campbell agreed to be part of the webinar series. But I also have Jo Parker and Katharine Reedy from the Open University, who have just published the book Digital Literacy Unpacked. We also have Sarah Knight and Lisa Gray from Jisc joining us as well as Sue Watling from University of Hull. The series kicks off on Friday 25th October with a webinar from Chris Morrison, my copyright literacy partner-in-crime, from the University of Kent.

And then on Wednesday 24th October from 12.30-2pm we’ll be screening Paywall the movie, with a panel discussion of experts. We’re being joined by colleagues from the Library, Educational Technologies and the publishing industry. Do sign up for this session if you’re interested – and it ties in nicely with Open Access Week when there are a range of activities taking place at City.

Launching this module was one of my ideas when I joined City last April and so I am really delighted to be able to have got it off the ground. Thanks to colleagues in LEaD for all their support, and the Library will be pleased to know I have finally got my reading list for the course sorted out with almost a week to go! And who knows, there might even be some cake on offer during the teaching days!