Reading the World

Two years ago I started sharing my thoughts about digital literacies. I wrote a series of blog posts arguing that multiple literacies are needed to make sense of the digital media we use. More recently, people have been asking me what I think is the difference between a literacy and a skill. It's a question that often turns up in plenary discussions at conferences. Let me try to address this question:

Skill is a dexterity or ability that comes from your knowledge and aptitude, and manifests itself in being able to do something well. Writing is a skill, but it is also a literacy. In fact it constitutes a set of literacies. Literacy goes beyond skill. Lankshear and Knobel (2006) argued for the 'embeddedness' of literacy within wider social practices. Their reasoning is that the act of writing involves more than the reproduction of a sequence of letters, words, sentences and paragraphs. Words in isolation mean very little - it is the context within which they are located that invests meaning. My recent post on blogging as literacy hopefully illustrates this logic. Literacy is therefore more than a skill. It is the capability to be able to interpret meaning within context. I often give the example of learning to drive to explain this concept.

When I learnt to drive in England, I learned all the basic skills needed to be a (reasonably) safe motorist, and thus to earn my driving licence. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre is still emblazoned upon my memory. Stopping at traffic lights, knowing what the colours of the lights mean, and reading the road signs, are all essentials of driving. But many of the skills I learnt are peculiarly British. Driving on the left hand side of the road is only common in a few countries around the world. When I found myself driving my family around France for our holiday a few years ago, I realised that my driving skills were not enough to be fully proficient. I was driving on the other side of the road for a start. We had to drive counterclockwise around roundabouts, and trying the interpret some of the road signs was taxing to say the least. It was also confusing to note that drivers there kept their indicators on whilst overtaking other vehicles - something we don't do in the UK. It took a week of driving around France before I began to feel comfortable. I had by then begun to developing some of the literacies - the cultural and social awareness of the new country I was staying in - and was starting to appreciate some of the nuances and social mores of driving in France. The same thing happened to me when I drove for the first time in America. There you find very few roundabouts, but you do encounter many four way road junctions. Here the unwritten rules are quite interesting, and I had to discover for myself what sequence people are expected to follow to drive across the junction when there are no traffic signals. Lankshear and Knobel cite the work of Freire (1972) who claimed that literacy was not only reading the word, but also reading the world. Authentic learning comes through immersion within the culture. This clearly resonates with the explanations above.

Digital literacies are characterised through the appropriate interpretation and use of digital media and technology. Literacies of this kind are acquired as the learner engages with the culture, mediated through the tools. You learn through social engagement online for example, that typing words in UPPERCASE represents shouting. It's a part of the social etiquette (or 'netiquette') of using social media, e-mail and texting tools. Many of these literacies are learnt serendipitously - through encountering problems and solving them while using digital tools. The question we should now ask is, should we be teaching these literacies more formally in schools, colleges and universities, and if so, how will we go about it?


References
Freire, P. (1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2006) New Literacies: Everyday practices and classroom learning. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill/Open University Press.

Image by Freefoto


Reading the World by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Blogging as literacy

The advent of the social web has given people everywhere a virtually limitless new territory to discover and explore. Many millions of people worldwide are enjoying sustained connections with their peers, family, colleagues and friends which they would never otherwise have experienced. Content too is being prodigiously generated, remixed, organised and shared on an unprecedented scale. Current figures suggest for example, that between 40 to 60 hours of video is being uploaded to YouTube every minute. Facebook is already the world's largest photo repository, and with almost 850 million accounts and over 100 billion connections, has to be one of the most influential communications devices ever created to bring people together.

My view is that in the social media universe, blogging is potentially the most powerful tool. Time and again, blogging is proving its worth in education and training, with countless learners discovering that sharing their ideas, sharing content and discussion ideas worldwide has a whole range of benefits. Blogging requires a particular set of literacies to ensure that its potential is realised. Dughall McCormick argues that in online learning environments, learners need to develop literacies that are similar to those required for letter writing or giving an explanation. I concur with these views, but would add that digital literacies are not simply extensions of more traditional literacies. They are new and agile forms of learning, because the environments are new, and constantly changing.

For me, one of the new digital literacies bloggers need is the ability to encapsulate ideas succinctly and in a form that is accessible and engaging. Another literacy is the ability to be able to devise posts that draw an audience and provoke responses. One of the most powerful aspects of blogging is its social dimension which includes open discussion. Still another is the skill of managing those responses and replying in a way that promotes further discussion and sustains the discourse. Knowledge about tagging, RSS feeds, trackback and other blogging features will enhance the presence of the blogger online.

I have previously written about some of the literary and visual devices that can be used to draw a blog readership. These include images and video that evoke or underline a message; catchy and memorable titles for blog posts; and useful/relevant hyperlinks that enable readers to drill down further into the topic if they so desire. Blogging encompasses an entire new range of literacies, and as learners get to grips with it, we can expect to see some new and powerful pedagogical practices emerging.

Image by Ed Yourdon


Blogging as literacy by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Libraries without walls

I recently wrote about how libraries are adapting to the digital age. The traditional library is viewed by many as a place for stacks of books to gather dust, and where stern librarians in tweed jackets tell you to keep quiet. Libraries are shaking off this image, and embracing new technologies and approaches to support learning in the 21st Century.

In Library 2.0 I outlined some of the changes that are taking place in libraries as they align their services toward technological developments such as the digitisation of content, social media and the widespread use of mobile devices. To extend this discussion, I recently sat down for a conversation with some of my colleagues in Plymouth University's library and resources centre to ascertain their views on how libraries are changing in the digital age.

I firstly wanted to find out what the contemporary library had to offer today's 'tech savvy students'. The answer was four-fold - libraries provide content, services, spaces and skills. My library colleagues then proceeded to elaborate on these four key areas of provision.

Content

Content has been the mainstay of libraries throughout the ages, whether in paper form or in the form of other media. However, the nature of this content is changing radically. One of the first questions I asked our library staff related to some news that had broken the previous day, when Encyclopedia Britanica announced that after 224 years in print it was finally going exclusively digital. This came on the back of reports late in 2011 that the online store Amazon was now selling more Kindle and e-book versions than paper based. Was this a trend that was a threat to the library? The library staff told me they actually welcomed these developments, pointing out that digital content could more easily be updated when errors were discovered. It is better, I was told, to have up to date digital Britanica, than out of date text books on the shelves. Britannica has admitted that it has more content in its database than would comfortably fit into a print set, so digitisation is a prudent step forward. The conversation around online encyclopedias inevitably led us to discuss Wikipedia and its relevance in academic study. Wikipedia is good as a starting point, but students need to be aware that there is more in-depth knowledge available elsewhere in journals and books.

Services

Many libraries are now exploiting the power of social media to expand their reach, beyond the traditional walls of the institution. Although still in its infancy, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools can be strategically employed to issue alerts and news updates, whilst SMS text can be sent to individual users to remind them that their loans are about to become overdue, or that a new service has been introduced. Students want personalised SMS alerts, direct to their mobile devices - 'push' for personalised content, 'pull' for everything else as and when they require it. However, this can be expensive for the average campus library to implement. Libraries now need to make services available at any time and any place, because students and academics are increasingly mobile.

Many libraries are also offering services which reach out to the local community, providing them with opportunities they would not be able to access anywhere else.

Spaces

Users of libraries need to be aware that the model of management of the physical space is changing. Learning is now much more social, and students tend to gravitate to areas that are conducive to study in groups. The on campus library is in a strategic place to offer such social spaces and specialist services.

As a study space, the Plymouth University library is a busier physical space than it has ever been, despite the reduction of physical content on shelves. The library encourages flexible learning spaces where furniture and other items can be moved around to suit the needs of students. Many of the traditional constraints are being relaxed, and the library space is becoming more agile. It is clear that Plymouth University students are looking for spaces where there are few (or no) distractions, and the library is able to offer these environments. Whether it is quiet study space or group space for collaborative project work, today's academic libraries have to respond in a flexible manner. As is the case with most university libraries in the UK, every part of the Plymouth University library is wireless enabled and students can bring their own devices to support their learning. The library space is a haven in the midst of a bustling campus that supports over 30,000 students. It is a dedicated space for independent study, and students will not be ejected to make way for a lecture, but can stay as long as they wish.

Skills

One of the key development areas of learning in the 21st Century is the ability to use technology to support study in a variety of modes. Often referred to as digital literacies, the ability to harness the power of new technology to enhance, extend and enrich learning is becoming a key graduate attribute. Libraries are in a unique position to offer students training in digital literacy, whether it be searching for academic content, systematic retrieval of library resources, or simple making the very best use of what is available.

The web is 'the wild west' of learning, I was told, and students need to have savvy to survive it. Students need to know the provenance of content - who wrote it and in what context. What students need to discover is how to drill deeper and triangulate content in a wider knowledge context. Sourcing content for reference purposes is more involved than Google searching.

Consumption of content on the web is not the only area for skills development. Students need to be aware that they leave a digital footprint wherever they go in online space. This digital trail What they say, do and search, may do them out of an interview in later life. Another skill is media literacy - the ability to creatively use a wide variety of formats of content, including gaming, video, text and images - is a new literacy students and researchers need to learn. Learners have to be confident in how they collaborate with others and how they collate and apply content in academic contexts.

The future

What will the future hold for the library? Libraries will become increasingly disaggregated from the publishing world, and will become highly specialised in serving their academic community. They will continue to extend services beyond their walls to serve students everywhere, ragardless of geographical location. It is also clear that libraries will continue to develop their digital collections, and increase their connections to share this content. The future of the academic library will be to act as the intermediary and enabler that connects learners and knowledge.

Image by Steve Wheeler


Libraries without walls by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.

Library 2.0

What does the future hold for our university libraries? Are they obsolete or are they essential? The library has long been seen by many as a very traditional, conservative institution, and is often portrayed as a place where rows upon rows of antiquated book shelves slowly gather dust. Yet a visit to the university library today will reveal a substantial investment in technology to streamline research and provide users with a more seamless and rewarding experience.

Just how are libraries adapting to the digital age and all it brings? In the past they have been a pivotal part of university life. They are not simply a repository of books and learning resources, although many may see them as just that. If all libraries did was store and loan out books, their doors would have closed years ago. The digital age would have put paid to them. In an era where digital media holds sway, and where online stores such as Amazon announce they are now selling more Kindle and e-versions of books than paper versions, what will be the future for the university library? What changes are they making that bring them into the digital age, and enable them to compete with current advances in technology?

Firstly, libraries offer specialised search services which go beyond the simple searches you can perform on Google or other search engines. Publications such as Kelly et al's Library 2.0 indicate the trends away from traditional repository approaches to a more distributed range of digital services for staff and students, with particular emphasis on the tools students are already familiar with - Web 2.0 social media.

Secondly, as Ian Clarke (2010) suggests in his Guardian article, we still need libraries because they inform users about best practice in the use of search tools and the promotion of better digital literacies. Clarke also shows how libraries can bridge the digital divide, arguing: "Libraries are a bridge between the information-rich and the information-poor. They need reinforcing, not dismantling. We need to continue to provide a highly skilled service that is able to meet the needs of the general public." He warns though, that libraries must continue to innovate and keep pace with the changes fomented by digital media, because without the services they offer, we would run the risk of living in an ill-informed society. It's not difficult to see that this perspective is influenced by the rise in informal learning, but those who are engaged in formal education also rely on centralised library services.

The College Online website provides an excellent list of reasons why librarians are not obselete that includes arguments about the changing roles of librarians, but in essence focuses on practicalities. One reason offered is that not everything is on the Internet.  Whilst this is still a reasonable argument to make at present, we can speculate that this may not always be the case. How long will it take to digitise everything so that it becomes available online? The advent of Google Books, Amazon's Look Inside feature and other similar services offer potential readers a preview of the insides of books and other artefacts. Although the entire book may only be readable on purchase, it may not be long before the open access movement gains enough ground to facilitate the digitisation of everything - for free. Some authors and publishers will resist the open movement, but if they do, they are likely to find themselves marginalised from the literary world and on the periphery of the global reading experience. The digitisation of difficult to find materials is sensible and sustainable. Readers can now access a great many historical maps, genealogical records or rare volumes without leaving their armchairs. But there is still a great deal to achieve in the grand plan to digitise everything, and there are those who are opposed to the very idea.

More convincing is the argument that library attendance isn't falling, it's just migrating to virtual attendance. By this, the writer is arguing that more users are deciding to access library services online, and with more university libraries digitising their content and services, this seems to be a rising trend. If so, what becomes of the physical library space in the future? This is a question each library must answer in its own way, because each library is different. Will some for example, begin to repurpose their spaces to provide different services? Will some create culturally and socially rich environments which will attract users back into the physical space? Or will they instead downscale their physical footprint to enable the funding of other digital services that require less groundspace?

In a future blogpost, I will report back on the librarians' perspective on these and other related questions. I will also present a keynote speech at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals of Scotland (CILIPS) conference in Dundee on June 11 - where I will elaborate on this discussion.

References

Clarke, I. (2010) Why we still need libraries in the digital age. The Guardian, 13 July. Available online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/13/internet-age-still-need-libraries (Accessed 2 March, 2012)

Kelly, B., Bevan, P., Akerman, R., Alcock, J. and Fraser, J., (2009) Library 2.0: balancing the risks and benefits to maximise the dividends. Program Electronic Library and Information Systems, 43 (3), 311-327. Available online at: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/15260/ (Accessed 2 March, 2012)

Picture by Steve Wheeler (Victoria State Library, Melbourne, Australia)


Library 2.0 by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital literacy 9: Broadcasting yourself

In the last in the series on digital literacies, we explore how through the web, each of us can become our own broadcasters and publishers.

The social web has shifted the balance of power away from commercial production companies in favour of the individual. The shift is from push to pull. This is a characteristic of the Web 2.0 and Edupunk movements - the do it yourself culture in which costly proprietary systems and tools are spurned in favour of haphazard, unbranded, informal mashups and loose aggregations of tools. There is a huge array of social web tools to choose from and many of them are free at the point of delivery. But more than that, it's participatory. Web 2.0 tools have made it possible for a massive, unprecedented surge in self-publication and broadcasting. The video sharing service YouTube's usage statistics should convince even the strongest sceptic that people really want to share their content. YouTube now boasts over 2 billion views over each 24 hour period and receives 24 hours of uploaded video each minute. The photosharing service Flickr claims that between 3-5 million images are uploaded every day, and hosts well in excess of 2 billion photographs and other media such as short video clips. The blogging sentinel service Technorati lists 1.2 Billion blogs at the time of writing. These are staggering statistics. People everywhere are using the web to broadcast, publish and share their ideas, opinions and creative works to the rest of the world. It may not all be great content, but here and there, you will find gems if you search for them.

The music industry has had to learn the hard way that it no longer has the monopoly on music production and distribution. It now coexists alongside independent companies and individuals, all of whom are just as intent on selling or in some cases, giving away their music to the public. Many teachers and students are doing the same thing, with educational content. Traditional publishers are having to sit up and take notice - particularly to the open access movement. Public awareness has been raised about the openness and availability of educational content. When students encounter a paywall, they will simply go elsewhere for similar content.

Podcasting, and its visual equivalent, vidcasting, are very quick means of getting your ideas out there for others to listen to or watch. Blogging your ideas over a period of time attracts readers, and if you are lucky, and produce consistent quality and quantity of posts, you will garner a loyal following of readers who will return again and again, and also comment on your posts. For many bloggers, this is all the spur they need to persist. But beware, for the social web can also be the not-so-social-web. Peer review is very informal, and can be anonymous. Either way, it can also be harsh and even abusive, so bloggers, broadcasters and publishers need to be thick skinned. This kind of digital literacy enables learners and teachers to fully engage in the social web culture, and all its rewards. Every time they post or upload new content, authors and producers makes a mark on the web and the influence of their digital footprint increases.

If you are already creating podcasts or videos, writing blogs or uploading images to the web, you will be keenly aware of the benefits and challenges. But I think you will probably agree that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Image source


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

Digital literacy 8: Repurposing content

The ability to repurpose, remix or otherwise reuse existing content is one of the key features of the social web. Continuing my series on digital literacies, today's post is about how we can reuse existing content.

Why reinvent the wheel? If content is already out there on the web, the logical choice would be to see if it can be reused, or even adapted or altered to suit your own needs. Currently there is a trend for scholars, teachers and academics to make their content available for download and many are allowing others to repurpose or alter this content. Most of my recent slide presentations are freely available on this Slideshare site, and I publish them under a Creative Commons license that allows others to download and use them either as complete slideshows, or to select individual slides that can be inserted into their own slideshows. I also allow derivatives - that is, you can take the images or texts, or even the design themes of my slides, and repurpose them for your own use - for free. Some have used my slides for their own presentations or workshops (with full acknowledgement to me of course). Probably one of the most pleasing results for me has been when people have translated my slides into other languages. The only stipulation I make in my CC licence is that others don't make any profit from my content at my expense.

Look at the licence at the foot of this post. It indicates that if you wish to use the content you should a) attribute it to me b) not make any financial gain from it (non commercial) and c) it is share alike - that is, you can only re-use my content under the same kind of licence. All six currently available CC licence types are described here. The ethos of the social web is that we share and share alike - why hoard knowledge or ideas if they can be of benefit to others? Knowledge is like love - you can give it away, but you still get to keep it. The only barrier to sharing and repurposing of content is copyright. The web is changing rapidly, but for many, copyright laws remain archaic and arcane.

Although these outmoded, unwanted and ultimately despised copyright laws apply to internet content just like they do to books or music CDs, there are also some welcome signs of change in the digital domain. Copyleft and Creative Commons are just two of the initiatives that have emerged in recent years. Go to the Creative Commons site and check out all of the possible options that will enable you to share your own content whilst protecting your own intellectual rights, and also how you can use, repurpose and remix other people's content too. The 'mashup' - using sounds, videos, images, text or any combination of these - to make entirely new creative content, appeals to many. It can be time consuming, but also very rewarding. So, the next time you find some really useful content on the web, look out for a licence agreement somewhere on the page to see if you are allowed to re-use it.

Image source


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

Digital literacy 7: Organising and sharing content

In yesterday's blogpost, I talked about why students should create their own content. The very act of creating content, whether it is a video, blogpost or podcast, is often with the intention that it will be shared in some way, usually on the web. Now we have the social web, there are more ways than ever to make your content available to a vast audience. But how do you share in such a way that makes it visible to the web? Answer - you organise it by 'tagging' it. You think of words that best describe your content, and then insert them into the appropriate box within the tool you are using.

Tagging content is a bit of an art. Choosing the correct descriptive words to tag your content with, can sometimes be a little hit and miss. But tag you must, if you want your content to be searchable. So this blogpost for example is tagged with a few key worlds such as 'digital literacy' and 'content creation' as well as more generic terms such as 'social web', 'blog', 'podcast' and 'video', because these terms have appeared in the text (see labels below). Because I have tagged this blogpost with those words, anyone who is interested in any of these areas, and who types those words into a search engine will, if they drill down far enough, be able to find this blog post. Tagging will also make finding content within a large list of bookmarks a lot easier. You can search for content in 'bundles' - this is useful if you only want to see the links in your list related to 'podcast' or 'audio', for example. Some tagging tools also offer tag clouds - clouds of labels that have larger or smaller font size depending on the amount of times they appear in your bookmark list.

But we can go further using tagging, so that content becomes a community artefact around which groups can discuss, interact and collaborate. Using a web service such as Delicious for example, will allow you not only to make your content more visible to those who are searching using key words, but it will also reveal to you (and to the other users) exactly who else may be interested in the same, or similar content. This is more than just bookmarking. It's social bookmarking - organising your content, and the content of others, into sets that are more useful and more socially coherent. The blue box at the end of each hyperlink displayed in my own Delicious account indicates the number of other people who have bookmarked the same link. If you click on that box, it will display them. Click on any user and you will see what other links that user has bookmarked. Some of these may have slipped past you, but you can now see them and also visit those sites and then bookmark them if you think they might be useful to you. You can also hold conversations with those others around you about the sites you find interesting- and perhaps learn even more about your mutual interests. This is the power of social bookmarking - just one of the many ways you can organise and share your content on the social web.

Image source

Organising and sharing content by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Digital literacy 6: Content creation

One of the most important digital literacies students require today is the ability to create appropriate, subject specific content. Content creation is an important feature in many personal learning environment (PLE) models, and together with organising and sharing, makes up the cardinal triumvirate of skills that provides learners with a clear advantage. If you subscribe to constructivist theories of learning, you will understand why the creation of content is important in any context. We learn by doing, and we more actively engage with learning when we create artefacts that can be shared within social contexts such as communities of practice. Artefacts are a material outworking of knowledge creation, and according to Vygotsky, they can be aids to solving problems that could not be solved as effectively in their absence. In turn, such artefacts can also influence the individuals who use them to draw attention to previously unknown activities and ways of conceptualising the world around us. When I write a blog post for example, I am creating new content as I write, and then in turn, that content may reveal to me something I may have missed if I had not written the post. The blog content allows me perhaps to view a problem from a different perspective. In essence, writing a blog enables me to know what I am thinking, in a concrete, persistent and searchable form.

There are many other ways to create content besides the blog of course. The use of wikis in group learning to promote collaboration and make a record of what has been learnt is becoming more popular in all sectors of education. Podcasts, normally in the form of the audio recording of an event, are also a means of projecting and sharing content to others so that they can listen at a time and in a place (usually on the move) of their choosing. Sharing of other forms of content such as images and videos can be easily achieved with the use of photo and video sharing services such as Flickr and Youtube. I often share my slideshows through this channel, and receive feedback and other data on their subsequent uses. However, for any of the above formats of user generated content to be fully usable, it first needs to be located. Without organisation and tagging (the use of key descriptive words) such content is not searchable. In my next blog post in this series on digital literacies, I will explore this facet of the social web in more detail. Tomorrow: Organising and sharing content.

Image source


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

Digital literacy 5: Making an impression

If all the world is a stage, I demand better lighting! I also want someone to prompt me when I forget my lines. Some better costumes would be nice. Oh, and more exotic scenery? And while we're at it, how about a better script - one that more accurately reflects my true feelings....

When William Shakespeare wrote those immortal lines ... (the ones about all of life being a stage and the people being the actors on it ... not all the other stuff above. That was just me sounding off) he was implying that not only is life transitory, but that each of us performs several roles throughout our lives. It also implies an audience of some kind. I infer from this that each of us also plays some roles reluctantly, possibly because we are constrained to act in ways that sometimes do not accurately represent the real 'me'. But what is the real 'me'? Sometimes that changes with context doesn't it? Or how I'm feeling today? Or perhaps it changes depending on my relationships with the people who are in close proximity to me while I am acting out that particular role?

The social anthropologist Erving Goffman tried to address these questions when he proposed his 'dramaturgy' model of sociology - his interpretation of the presentation of self in every day life. For Goffman, human behaviour is very much dependent on time, space and audience. By audience, he meant those who are observing the actor, or with whom s/he interacts with. In essence, Goffman argued that the way each of us present ourselves to others is carefully managed around the cultural values, norms, and expectations that are commonly held by actor and audience. Watch how a comedian, stage actor or pop singer manipulates their audience and you will see how much they desire to be liked, accepted and paid attention to. According to Goffman, the way each of us respresents ourselves to others involves some kind of role playing (self representation) and can also involve scripts (speech patterns) props and costumes, just like an actor does for a stage performance. Such management of impression is common to all humans and is used to form connections and gain influence with others.

The rapid emergence of digital media and the phenomenal growth in popularity of self broadcasting and publishing through social media, asks some new questions about how people represent themselves in virtual spaces. Sherry Turkle was one of the first people to conduct detailed studies into 'Life on Screen' by observing behaviour in multiple user domains (MUDs). Published in 1995, at the early edge of the Web, Turkle showed how many people employ multiple identities in virtual worlds, and that in some case these become as real to them as their identity in 'real life'. Her studies led Sherry Turkle to propose that new forms of personal identity are emerging as a result of prolonged interaction with others through technology - that our identities are increasingly multiple and decentred.

I won't go into details here, but there is further evidence to suggest that people portray themselves differently depending on the social media platform they use - and through text and other media. This may mean the same person using different avatars (images or animated characters used to represent real objects), usernames and forms of interaction, to suit the different norms and social expectations of the communities that frequent those various environments. In the context of my initial metaphor, some social media have better 'lighting' and 'scenery' than others. The audiences change, some more friendly than others. But how much does the actor actually change, and to what extent do they manage their impressions to suit the expectations of their audiences? And how much should each of us pay attention to the way we manage our online impression - our digital identity? Cue the opening music - positions, please.... Next week: Content creation.

Image source


Making an impression 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.

Image source


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

Digital literacy 2: Reach out and connect

One of the digital literacies I identified in yesterday's blogpost was effective social networking. So what's the big deal about this? We all do it these days don't we? Most of us have a Facebook account, and maybe a LinkedIn account too. Lots of us use Twitter, and some of those out on the periphery may still be using Myspace or Bebo. What else do we need to learn about social networking that can help us or our students to learn better? In this series I'm going to examine digital literacies. I use the term not to describe skills, but more as an alignment to the argument that as we engage with our own specific culture we acquire and develop more than skills. If I am illiterate (in the sense of reading and writing), I cannot read the signs or engage with text - I am not able to fully participate within my culture. And if I miss the meaning of something because of that illiteracy, I won't know what I don't know. Literacy allows us to develop a self awareness of not only the symbolic nature of our world but also the processes of personal learning - or meta-cognition - and in so doing we build what Bourdieu has termed 'cultural capital'. Wendy Earle's 2005 discussion on the nature of literacies is a useful starting point.

So what are the essential components of social networking as a digital literacy? Firstly, I believe we need to network more smartly, particularly in a manner that helps us to learn more effectively in both formal and informal contexts. Jonathan Rose has some interesting things to say about how social networking helps his off-line (for this read 'real life') world. In his blogpost What's so social about social media? he outlines three functions: supplementing, sifting and sustaining, all of which have a social dimension. Sifting for example, in Jonathan's view, helps to combat the media atomisation that has occurred due to the availability of hundreds of TV channels. Once we could all sit down for coffee and talk about what we had watched on TV last night. It's rare we are able to do this now, with so many choices. Watching TV is no longer a distributed communal activity. What we can do though, with the aid of social media, is to find out what our commonalities and communities are through the filtering tools (such as hashtags) on Twitter and other timeline tools.

Social networking also helps us to find content we need, when we need it. In some of my previous slide presentations and blog posts I have quoted Karen Stephenson, who believes we now 'store our knowledge in our friends'. By this she means a distributed intelligence is emerging which allows that it doesn't matter how much we can store and retrieve from our own personal memories. Today, it's not what we know, but who we know that is most important. We now live in an increasingly connected world where we have 24/7 access to our friends and colleagues. Selecting the right tools that will enable each of us to connect into and plunder the collective intelligence of the most relevant communities of practice is one of the new digital literacies professionals and students will need to draw upon.

Finally, social networking skills will require each user to also be adept at connecting with new friends and fellow community members. But how will we know who to connect with and who to ignore? It's not as if we are in a large room at a party, deciding who looks or sounds like the most interesting person to make a bee-line for. No, it's actually more complex and information rich than that. We now have the ability to tap into all sorts of information about the bewildering number of people we encounter on social media every day. We can see by their avatar and username (sometimes) what kind of person they might be, and whether it would be interesting to connect with them or not. Profiles and follow/follower information are also useful sources of detail about a person's interests and background. What they tweet or post gives us advance information about whether we would find connecting with someone useful or not.

So social networking, and the ability to use it effectively is a key skill for the scholar to acquire right now. If used properly, social media can provide rich social and intellectual rewards. Those who fail to network effectively may struggle to succeed in a pressurised education world.

Image source

Reach out and connect 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

Image source

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