1. Digital Literacy in the Disciplines
Working with students to develop
digital literacies by creating
interactive content
Terry McAndrew
Higher Education Academy
JISC TechDis

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

3. TED talks – Changing Education from the Ground Up
(Sir Ken Robinson)
Survey of company needs
• Creativity
• Adaptability
Providing new alternatives relevant to digital world
“Education for *process conformance+ is not
sufficient”
Organisational needs

5. 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)

6. 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

8. Division of project work against HEA themes
Assessment 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

9. Online
resource use
looks like…

10. Making teaching inclusive (e.g. Audio Feedback)

11. 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

12. Extending JISC programme

13. Generic Approaches

14. ‘Questions that remain
What 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

15. Google?
Meta-search?
Socially (email, twitter, colleagues?)
What can you do with it?
How do find ‘stuff’ for your teaching?

16. IPR – it’s a digital doddle!

18. Learning registry
networks

19. Enabling new partnership model for discipline-
wide use
Discipline focus towards community
Regular updates
Flexibility within reason
Meeting curriculum needs
Project requirements

20. Free and open source project – no user licence
issues
Offers new production opportunities to students
Teachable – no coding required, just pedagogy
Mobile ‘friendly’ (HTML5)
Feeds of resources for discipline use (RSS)
Accessibility support
Creative Commons
Support network and examples available
Beyond ‘beta’ – but still growing…
Xerte ‘baseline’

23. Xerte Templates
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/toolkits/play_560

25. Staff unable to learn Xerte enough to teach it
Confidence low; students disengage
Xerte is “always in beta” – but so is the
environment
Students fear to share problems online
Infrastructure support issues – new barriers e.g.
authentication.
Territory – “WE DO THE E-LEARNING”
Risks

26. 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

27. • 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

28. 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

29. #HEAdigilit tag
Xerte Sandbox
(TechDis)
Website and blogs
to follow shortly
Follow us
HEA Annual
Conference, 2-3
July 2014, Aston
University