Communication and learning in a digital age

The latest issue of the online open journal eLearn Centre Research Paper Series has just been published. Issue 5 considers Communication and Learning in a Digital Age, and features papers from a number of scholars in the field, including my own paper on current research perspectives on digital literacies. The papers originate from a conference held in Barcelona in the Summer of 2012. Here is the introduction, written by Sandra Sanz and Amalia Creus (Open University of Catalonia):

Experience of time and technology also has an important impact on learning. The drastic reduction on lifetime of knowledge, connected with the overflow of information and fragmentation of sources, are just some of the features that are changing the way we learn. This situation challenges us to think more creatively about the interaction between communication technologies and learning, and to explore how our educational models are being impacted by the processes of social change that come with digitalization, the emergence of social media and the Web 2.0. 

Since February 2011 the group ECO (Education and Communication), driven by teachers of Information and Communication Studies at UOC, has been providing a forum for researching communication and learning, and for sharing teaching innovation through e-learning environments based on collaboration, creativity, entertainment and audiovisual technologies. 

The five articles in this edition of eLC Research Paper Series reflect the short but intense trajectory of the group. Some of them are a selection of papers presented at the International Conference BCN Meeting 2012, organized by ECO. The other articles were written specially for this issue by members of the group and give a picture of the themes and questions we are now exploring. 

For those who may experience problems downloading my Digital Literacies paper from the site (it doesn't work well on Macs) below is a downloadable .pdf version.



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Communication and learning in a digital age by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Dialogue, debate and destinations

I don't have the time or the inclination to calculate how many miles I have travelled in the last week, but it involved three car journeys, 11 train rides, numerous taxi trips and one flight. I managed to keynote four conferences in six days, respectively eLearning 2.0 at Brunel University, London; the CILIPS annual conference at the Apex Hotel in Dundee; the Solstice Conference at Edge Hill University, and finally the Digital Literacies Conference at Southampton University. I spent much of my time gazing out at the countryside going by from the windows of trains, but during the times my feet were on firm ground I did also manage to have some decent and productive conversations with old friends and new, and fielded questions from delegates during my presentations at all four events.

Some notable discussions took place, some of which I can briefly summarise here on this blog. I took issue for example with a statement by Rosemary Goring (Literary Editor and columnist for The Herald) who keynoted the CILIPS conference on Monday. She suggested that Libraries should conserve their traditional roles and that any change that took place should be 'geological'. Goring was essentially arguing that libraries should not be dictated to by technological changes, but in doing so she missed a fundamental point. Libraries must change, because the needs and perceptions of users is changing. In my own keynote speech the following morning, speaking to an audience of around 200 library and information professionals, I argued that libraries need to become more flexible and agile (and indeed many already are), to respond to new learning practices, and an increased interest in knowledge and research. Co-incidentally, in their packs, each delegate received a copy of Panlibus Magazine, containing an article written by me entitled 'Moving away from books'. I remarked that before they burnt me at the stake for heresy, there should in fact have been a question mark at the end of the title. The jury is still out on the future of paper based content, but for the record I see no immediate demise of the book. The question is: do you like reading or do you like books? (acknowledgement to James Clay for this question). If you like reading, then any avenue of enquiry (kindle readers, e-books, online search, even audio) remains open, whereas if you insist on reading only from books, then your scope is increasingly limited. I cited the fact that for the first time this year, Amazon is reporting selling more e-book downloads than it is paper based books. This and other technology driven changes demand that libraries move quickly to adapt to new trends and remain agile to maintain relevance in a digital age.

Other noteworthy debates took part at Solstice and the Digital Literacy conferences during the week. I was challenged by delegates at Solstice to elaborate on the legal and ethical issues of Creative Commons and other Copyleft approaches. Creative Commons, I explained, is a means of circumventing Internet Copyright constraints. It seems perverse in today's adverse economic climate, said Brian Lamb, to hoard knowledge in any form. I added to this that in a time when knowledge is needed more than ever, why do we allow edubusinesses and greedy publishers to commoditise knowledge and publicly funded research? I advocate giving content away for free, by publishing it (as with this blog post) under a Creative Commons licence that allows anyone to take any or all of the content for reuse, as long as they attribute the source and re-licence it under the same conditions (share and share alike). Many academics, I argued, feel uneasy about giving content away for free, preferring to perpetuate the old ivory tower mentality. But give away we must, if we are to reach audiences that extend beyond our own little academic fraternities. Gone are the days when we can rest on our laurels by publishing our research to a small and select group of elite scientists. The general public also need to know about advances in science, medicine, technology and education, and the best way to do this is to publish openly. I gave another challenge to those present to boycott closed journals, and publish in open access journals. I was not calling for publishers to give away journal content for free, but simply to reduce their prices to reasonable rates so that the average student can afford access. The ethics of this are clear - publicly funded research has been paid for out of taxes. It should therefore be made freely available to those who have paid their taxes.

Finally, a note about the Digital Literacies Conference at Southampton (pictured). With Salford University's Cristina Costa, I presented an 'unkeynote' - a kind of plenary workshop - and we had a whale of a time disrupting the proceedings and causing a great deal of mess and chaos. Yet out of the chaos came some order, from social tagging, online collaboration, critical thinking and intelligent searching activities, we led toward round table discussions, delegates explored the spectrum of new literacies that are emerging as a result of the introduction of new technologies into formal learning contexts. After several quick-fire 10 minute presentations, the second unkeynote, presented by Doug Belshaw and Sue Beckingham dwelt on essential elements of digital literacies, and was drawn largely from Doug's recent doctoral thesis. Doug helped us to think about digital literacies in a sort of periodic table of 8 'c's - their slideshow is here. As each table came to grips with the Cultural, Cognitive, Constructive, Communicative, Confidence, Creative, Critical and Civic aspects of using technology to learn, we were then asked to choose two and develop a learning activity around them. The result was a lot of great ideas that could be incorporated into learning activities in any education sector. Doug and Sue concluded an excellent presentation with the quote from Johnson (2008) who said 'functional internet literacy is not the ability to use a set of technical tools; rather, it is the ability to use a set of cognitive tools'.

I thank all of my hosts in London, Dundee, Ormskirk and Southampton for making me feel so at home. The Storify record of the event by Ivan Mendelez and the Flickr image collection by Farnoosh Behraman have captured some of the dynamics and atmosphere of the conference.

Images by Farnoosh Berahman


Dialogue, debate and destinations by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Connected educators

Are you a connected educator? Are you a teacher who has managed to harness the power of social media to connect with peers and experts around the globe? Coming hand in hand with these connections is a whole new culture of learning and teaching. Steven Anderson (@web20classroom) has a lot to say about the connected educator. They are transparent in their thinking, he suggests, and that means that they are not shy in sharing their ideas or giving away their content for free. Connected educators know that in doing this they become global educators, with their content being amplified across a worldwide community of practice. On the #authorspeak Twitter hashtag today there was a lot of commentary about connected educators. Connected educators are transparent in their thinking and tend to reflect more deeply on what they learn, simply because they have had to make the effort to connect with new knowledge.

Nicholas Provenzano (@thenerdyteacher on Twitter) was a major contributor. He said that the Connected educators are co-learners, co-leaders and co-creators of content and that they are never isolated. There are many avenues to connect with people from all over the world, he argued. He added that the Connected Educator uses social media to connect with others around the globe and engage in conversations online.

Kyle Pace (@kylepace), another contributor to the discussion, made the important point that the connected educator with a well developed network depends on that before going to Google. I would imagine that this is because a personal network is hand chosen, and therefore infinitely more trustworthy and relevant to one's own professional needs and interests. He knows that the Professional (and personal) Learning Network (PLN) as an important resource for learning in a connected world.

My own contribution on Twitter #authorspeak today was that connected educators are in a more powerful position than those who are isolated. They have a greater ability to check their facts, call on support and find out new things when connected to their personal learning networks than they do isolated. I also think that the ability (or perhaps more appropriately willingness) they have to share knowledge has become a part of the cultural capital of the connected educator. Sharing - the gift economy on which much of social media are founded - is probably the most important part of a connected educator's role. It is abundantly clear to me that connectivity is one of the essentials in the 21st Century teacher toolkit. We are now learning more from each other than we could ever learn on our own. So I will return to my original question. Are you a connected educator?


Note: The #authorspeak hashtag was a Twitter backchannel of a live presentation by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

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Connected educators by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Literacy, wot literacy?

I'm sat watching the evening news and I'm listening to a report about a decline in literacy, due apparently to a dwindling interest in book reading. 1 in 4 children will never read a book outside school, intones the BBC news man. Other statistics are thrown at me as I watch the news reporter build his case. 1 in 3 do not own a book and 1 in 6 children will struggle with their literacy, he says. Figures quoted are obtained from the National Literacy Trust he says. The BBC TV reporter goes on to suggest that kids today are "increasingly bombarded with new technology and new distractions" (images of children playing shoot em up computer games flash across the screen at this point), and that "the place of books, literacy and quiet reading ranks highly amongst the concerns of many parents." The BBC reporter balances his report by conceding that "kids do read, but increasingly it's not books." Well, that's helpful. I want to ask - so what do they read? But already, the channel has moved on to the sport.

Here's what I know: Increasingly, sales of books on Amazon are in electronic form, and this year, for the first time, the online store has reported that the sale of e-books has outstripped conventional book sales. But e-books are usually the preserve of adults. Few school children that I know actually read books on Kindle. Most don't own a Kindle or other e-book reader. Do children read other things then - on the Web for example, or on their games consoles? More to the point, what are kids interested in reading? Should they, as is the view of our esteemed Education Secretary Michael Gove, be tasked to read 50 books a year? What a splendid way of turning kids off reading altogether! I know that if I was forced to read a book a week when I was in school, I would very quickly have found a way of losing those books in a ditch somewhere.

I'm sceptical about the BBC news item, and the idea it is propagating that literacy is on the decline. Hasn't it always been thus? I can recall government statistics from when I was at school (oh so many years ago) saying that our country was in trouble, because of the poor standards of 'reading, writing and arithmetic.' I was messaged on Facebook yesterday by another Steve Wheeler (no relation, and certainly no friend) who going by his picture, is probably of the same generation as me, but behaving more in compliance with his shoe size than his age. Out of the blue, on my wall this stranger had written 'Your not Steve Wheeler I am.' By response I kindly pointed out to him that the correct grammatical construction should be 'You're not Steve Wheeler. I am.' He fired back a snide comment. I blocked him. No matter. The key point of this story is that every generation has its literacy problems. Is there really such a decline in literacy? Has it changed all that much from previous decades? If there is a decline, should we really be placing all the blame on 'new technology and new distractions?' There are so many questions. It's a complex issue.

The statement that new technology is distracting, and the implication that it is doing damage to literacy needs to be challenged. I would point those who are sceptical about the role of technology in education, and those who claim that it has had little impact on learning to the time just before Gutenberg introduced his movable type printing press. Literacy - reading and writing - was then the preserve of the elite, and it was zealously protected. Post Gutenberg, it became a world in which all could participate, and knowledge grew exponentially as a result.

Perhaps we should not be asking why children are reading less print books. Instead, maybe we should be asking 'what are the new literacies they will need in the society in which they will grow up and work?' Perhaps we should look more at how the emphasis on literacy is changing to digital literacies (notice the plural) ... the transliteracies and other new skills of communicating across social media and mobile platforms that are already assuming greater import as they transform our society.

No, I don't think the demise of the printed book is nigh. I believe there will be a place for print for a long time to come. And there are still many, many children who continue to read and enjoy books. But print is now having to move aside to make some space as newer methods of mass communication take a more prominent role in our world. The way we represent knowledge, the world around us, society, community, reality, is changing. So there you have it. Those are my thoughts on the topic. Do you read me?

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Literacy, wot literacy? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital literacy 3: Crossing the divide

Transliteracy can be defined as being literate across a number of platforms. In essence, it is the ability to be able to create content, organise, share and communicate across, and through, a variety of social media, discussion groups, mobile tools and other services that are commonly available. This assumes that we communicate differently depending on the tool we use. When I give a co-present presentation (face to face), it is qualitatively different for me and my audience to a remote presentation I give through Elluminate or Adobe Connect. It's not just the experience - I also behave differently, and manage my impression in a different way. I have argued in previous blogposts that the way we represent ourselves (using avatars, user names etc) varies for many depending on what medium we are using. I represent myself differently in Second Life to the way I represent myself on Facebook, because each environment prompts a different response from me. In LinkedIn, I manage a professional version of my online persona, which evaporates when I'm on Facebook. On Twitter I am a bit of a mixture. Sometimes I like to have a bit of fun, and at other times, I'm deadly serious. I have also discussed the idea that each tool has its own particular set of affordances which enable or constrain particular ways of using it. In many ways, however, although these tools are different, they all have a common purpose. Thomas et al (2007) put it very well:

"From early signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV and film to networked digital media, the concept of transliteracy calls for a change of perspective away from the battles over print versus digital, and a move instead towards a unifying ecology not just of media, but of all literacies relevant to reading, writing, interaction and culture, both past and present. It is, we hope, an opportunity to cross some very obstructive divides."

So for Thomas et al, the argument over whether media are different - for example whether digital will replace paper - is spurious. It's more important for us to recognise the significance of each tool, and how they can be used effectively in all their variations, and also in combinations. Ultimately, transliteracy should be about using whatever media and communication tools that are at our disposal, and also being able to discern which tools will be the most effective and appropiate in any given context. Do we learn better watching a Youtube video or reading a text? Are we better at presenting our ideas in pictures or as a podcast? I know my answer to that, and it may be different to your answer - we all learn differently.

Students today use a variety of tools to create and share content, and it's vital that they are able to do so in a seamless manner. It's important that students spend more time thinking about what they are learning and less time thinking about how to navigate around a website, or how to save a file. This is one reason why many students are more at ease using an external wiki than they are using an institutional Learning Management System. It's also the reason they choose to use Facebook rather than the institutional e-mail system when they want to send each other messages. But students do use all of these tools, and the trick is to ensure that they are comfortable with each, and have the requisite skills to exploit each tool to its optimum value. This is why transliteracy is becoming increasingly important as a digital literacy. It will assume even more significance, as more of us become our own broadcasters, publishers and directors.

Reference: Thomas, S., Joseph, C., Lacetti, J., Mason, B., Mills, S., Perril, S. and Pullinger, K. (2007) Transliteracy: Crossing Divides. First Monday, 12 (12), 3 December 2007.

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Crossing the divide by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital literacy 1: What digital literacies?

In June this year I presented a keynote speech at Middlesex University entitled Digital Tribes and the Social Web. One of the themes I developed during my speech was around the concept of new digital literacies. My argument is that new media and new opportunities for learning through digital technologies require new literacies. This is not just my view - it reflects the views of many other commentators including Lea & Jones (2011 in press), Beetham et al (2009) and Lankshear & Knobel (2006). Essentially, the literacies that have dominated higher education in the past are thought to be inadequate in the face of social network services, mobile technologies and pervasive computing.

Below are the digital literacies I have identified. They may not be exhaustive, and they may not be fully defined yet. But for me they constitute a kind of road map which enables me to develop themes and topics within the modules I teach to help students to maximise their learning potential using new and emerging technologies. I will try to develop my commentary around each of these in future blog posts.

Social networking skills

Transliteracy skills

Maintaining Privacy

Managing Identity

Creating content

Organising and sharing content

Reusing/repurposing content

Filtering and selecting content

Self broadcasting

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What digital literacies? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.