This workshop was delivered by Anna Gruszczynska and Richard Pountney as part of the HEA-funded workshop "Promoting Digital Literacy through OER: the release, use and reuse of open educational resources" which took place at Oxford University on 5 July 2012.

1. Workshop 1
DeFT: Digital Futures in
Teacher Education
Anna Gruszczynska and Richard Pountney,
Sheffield Hallam University

2. Introduction and background
Local teachers and pupils, teacher For more information:
educators and teacher education • Project website
students involved in: www.digitalfutures.org
•sharing and developing good • Project blog
practice in teaching www.deftoer3.wordpress.com
•understanding more about digital
• Twitter @deftoer3
literacy
• Slideshare
•developing guidance on Open
www.slideshare.net/deftoer3
Educational Resources in the
school context • Contact:
•Project outputs will be shared via a.gruszczynska@shu.ac.uk;
an open textbook (pulling together r.p.pountney@shu.ac.uk
case studies and supporting
resources) and the "Digital Bloom"
installation

3. Activity no 1.
1. List your three favourite
digital tools
2. Name a tool you're not
very familiar with but
would be interested in
trying out

4. Research questions and
framework
Key questions Research framework
• What is the relationship • Embedded within Bernstein's
between Open Educational theory of pedagogic discourse
Resources and digital • Drawing on the principles of
literacy within professional social sciences knowledge
development? production (teacher
• What understandings of education as its subset)
digital literacy and Open
• Exploring tacit aspects of
Educational Resources
pedagogical practice
emerge through a reflexive
approach to project • Exploring the "why" (socio-
methodology? cultural/institutional context)
rather than solely the "how"
(technical aspects) of OER/DL

5. Project methodology:
Data collection
Reflexive moments
• Five staged prompts sent out to team members;
responses via e-mail or personal blogs
• Each moment is followed by a digest of emerging themes
and issues, shared with project participants via project
website
Materials emerging from the case studies of digital
practice:
• notes from project meetings and school visits
• notes from rich media content - photographs and videos
• comments from teachers/team members on project blog
and Twitter
• focus groups with PGCE students

6. Project methodology:
Principles
• The case study method
1.The DeFT movie!
(Stake, 1985)
2. Alternative Forms of
• Schön's 'reflection-in-
action' (1983) - sharing Recording for
stories of "opening up" teaching and learning
pedagogical practice 3.Camp Cardboard
• Bernstein’s theory of 4. Reflections on Digital
pedagogic discourse Literacy
(Bernstein, 1990, 1996,
2000) - exploration of
(in)visible pedagogical
practices.

7. Activity no. 2
Tell us a bit more about your digital profile
1. What is your digital superpower?
2. What is your digital kryptonite?
Available from Dunechaser under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

8. Frameworks for digital literacy
• Engagement with existing frameworks (JISC, 2011)
• Digital literacy as a continuum between the purely
social and the purely technological
• Move from the singular ‘literacy’ to the plural
‘literacies’ to emphasise the sheer diversity of existing
accounts (Lankshear and Knobel, 2008).
• Digital literacies as "the constantly changing practices
through which people make traceable meanings
using digital technologies" (Gillen and Barton, 2010).
• Critique of the concept of digital natives (Bennet et al.
2008)

9. www.digitalbloom.org
Activity no.3
1.Find a partner
2. Pick a device - iPod, iPad, your smartphone or pen
and paper
3. In pairs, take turns to answer the following question:
• How do you define digital literacy in personal and
professional context?
Capture the answers using your chosen technology -
record the audio/video, Tweet it, write it down.
Ideally, email them to us r.p.pountney@shu.ac.uk
4. Reflect on the experience with the group

10. DL and the rules of regulative
discourse
‘When it comes to e-safety, we seem to live
in a culture of fear where we [might be]
teaching road safety but never letting the
child out’ (project meeting, teacher)
•Web2.0 filters
•Technological barriers
•Access to devices

11. DL and locus of control over
selection of instructional discourse
‘In terms of teaching and digital
literacy the ultimate question we
constantly need to deal with is -
is this going to help the students
when they get to an exam?
Because what I would like to see
happening is the fostering of a
community, personal growth etc.
but most of the time it is about
having to teach "for an exam“’
(focus group with PGCE students).

12. DL Tensions: sharing resources
‘polished performance’ vs. accounts of ‘real life’’
‘you have to be sharing with the
kids anyway all the time’
(focus group with PGCE students)
‘You don’t know what reaction you would
get… can you imagine if you put it on you
tube and you got loads of thumbs down?’

13. Locus of control over pacing:
Stories of a digital divide
‘My pupils were shocked to discover that I
didn’t have a mobile phone as a teenager
and when you arranged to meet with your
mates you just agreed on a meeting time
and point and then waited. You would
actually talk to each other, you know,
rather than keep texting.’
(focus group with PGCE students)

14. DL investigations: new avenues
• Methodological approaches: exploring the
ways in which understandings around DL
are expressed and shared through
reflection in action
• Re-examining DL in the context of the
debate around ICT in the curriculum and
the removal of the programmes of study
• Exploring the place of DL and OERs in
professional development of teachers

15. References.
Questions? Comments?
Bennett, S, Maton, K, & Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘‘digital natives’’ debate: A critical review of evidence.
British Journal of Educational Technology, 39, 775–786.
Bernstein, B. (1990). The structuring of the pedagogic discourse: Class, codes and control. London:
Routledge.
Bernstein, B. (1996). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. London:
Taylor & Francis.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity: Theory, Research, Critique. (Revised
edition). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield publishers.
Gillen, J. & Barton, D. (2010). Digital literacies. A research briefing by the technology enhanced
learning phase of the teaching and learning research programme. London: London Knowledge Lab,
Institute of Education, University of London.
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). (2011). Digital literacy anatomised: access, skills and
practices. Available from
http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/file/40474828/Digital%20literacies%20anatomy.pdf (Last
accessed 29 February 2012).
Lankshear, C. & Knobel, M. (2010) New Literacies: Everyday Practices and Social Learning (3rd
Edition). Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
Stake, R.E. (1995). The art of case study research. London: Sage.