Digital Literacy in the Disciplines

Working with students to develop digital literacies by creating

interactive contentTerry McAndrew

Higher Education AcademyJISC TechDis

“I wish I could shut up, but I can’t and I won’t” - Desmond Tutu

TED talks – Changing Education from the Ground Up (Sir Ken Robinson)

Survey of company needs• Creativity• AdaptabilityProviding new alternatives relevant to digital

world“Education for [process conformance] is not

sufficient”

Organisational needs

Find something colleagues alongside (3-4) should know with respect to digital technology in teaching and explain why they should adopt it in a sentence. E.g. Dropbox – ideal for distributing audio…

Record it on paper or share it on this TitanPad (if you have a device).

http://titanpad.com/7gfLXD44DW

ICEBREAKER (4 mins)

The ability to effectively engage with a range of digital technologies to create, navigate, manipulate and evaluate information

Getting the best out of the solutions and affordances of what is available

DL - working definition

Division of project work against HEA themesAssessment and feedback; Education for sustainable

development; Employability; Flexible learning; Internationalisation; Retention and success; Reward and recognition; Students as Partners

Small targeted “nano-projects” – TechDis HEAT• Slicing CLL projects to reveal a different facet

Research; Visitors and Residents (Alison leCornu)Students as Partners (9 mini-projects)

Approach

Online resource use looks like…

Making teaching inclusive (e.g. Audio Feedback)

Building on the JISC project work towards the HEA community

Establishing leads within specific discipline clusters (2*4, + 1)

Utilising the affordances of the digital technologies available – highlight discipline issues

Common system constraint – using Xerte 2.0 for production system

Digital Literacies – a discipline approach

Extending JISC programme

Generic Approaches

‘Questions that remainWhat are good examples of students using digital means to

develop and express their academic understanding?What are good examples of research and teaching staff

integrating digital know-how into their scholarly activities?What useful ways have we found of defining subject-specific

digital identities (perhaps in relation to research and scholarship as well as teaching/learning)?

How are subject communities sharing methods, insights and experiences, within and across community boundaries?’

JISC programme

Google?Meta-search?Socially (email, twitter, colleagues?)

What can you do with it?

How do find ‘stuff’ for your teaching?

IPR – it’s a digital doddle!

Learning registry networks

Enabling new partnership model for discipline-wide use

Discipline focus towards communityRegular updatesFlexibility within reasonMeeting curriculum needs

Project requirements

Free and open source project – no user licence issuesOffers new production opportunities to studentsTeachable – no coding required, just pedagogyMobile ‘friendly’ (HTML5)Feeds of resources for discipline use (RSS)Accessibility supportCreative CommonsSupport network and examples available

Beyond ‘beta’ – but still growing…

Xerte ‘baseline’

XERTE.ORG.UK

Many page types – select from list available

Xerte Templates

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/toolkits/play_560

Staff unable to learn Xerte enough to teach itConfidence low; students disengage

Xerte is “always in beta” – but so is the environment

Students fear to share problems onlineInfrastructure support issues – new barriers e.g. authentication.

Territory – “WE DO THE E-LEARNING”

Risks

Students usually work on the production of an assessed oral presentation…The production of a detailed powerpoint and accompanying written report are integral to this assessment.

…been reasonably low-tech and interactive only at the point of the face-to-face presentation

Xerte will transform and expand an existing task by enabling students to be more creative and to include more interactivity.

The existing task lends itself very well for use with Xerte and so represents a clear opportunity to pilot how Xerte fits with module and curriculum aims.

Scenario

• Enhanced student/staff digital literacy in creating online resources for language teaching• Enhanced knowledge of effective OER creation• Installation and uptake of Xerte• Enhanced awareness of how Xerte/creating online materials

fits into teaching• Establishment of a new set of digital champions who can

advise staff/students across the university• Promotion of innovative teaching in …• A practical model for involving students in the creation of

interactive materials as assessed work

Typical Outcomes

University of Leicester (Alan Cann) – Digital Literacies for employability: personal development using employability scenarios.

University of Leeds (David Lewis) – Developing a new type of final year undergraduate research project based on “digital resources”.

University of Ulster (Catherine Hack) – Developing Open Educational resources which support students preparing for careers in health or life science sectors.

Glasgow Caledonian University (Jane Guiller) – Enhancing students’ digital literacy through the creation of reusable learning objects in cyberpsychology.

‘Local’ projects

#HEAdigilit tag

Xerte Sandbox (TechDis)

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HEA Annual Conference, 2-3 July 2014, Aston University