Beyond Technology Skills: Designing for Critical Digital Literacies

1. Beyond Technology Skills: Designing for Critical Digital Literacies Dr. Sarah Lohnes Watulak Mount Teacher Institute June 26, 2012

2. Session Overview • Introduction to critical digital literacy • Designing for critical digital literacy • Sample CDL activities • Discussion

3. Some context

4. Participatory culture “relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, … members believe their contributions matter” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 3).

5. Participatory culture values certain technological and cultural competencies needed to create and communicate through media (Jenkins, 2006)

6. “digital citizenshipas critical for students to learn effectively for a lifetime and live productively in our emerging global society”(ISTE, 2007, para. 2)

7. Mishra & Kereliuk (2011)

8. Is this 21st century learning? Is this participatory?

9. What do we mean by critical digital literacy?

10. Don’t forget: You can copy-paste this slide into other presentations, and move or resize the poll.

11. Critical Digital Literacy (CDL) • De-emphasize technology skills • Emphasize critical understanding of the broader contexts of our technology use • Reflection and transformative action “…the ability to be aware of oneself as a digitally literate person, and to reflect on one’s own digital literacy development”(Martin, 2008 pp. 166-167)

12. CDL: 4 Components • Understanding cultural, social, and historical contexts of technology use, including ethical and appropriate practices • Critical thinking and analysis • Reflective practice • Functional skills with digital technologies (Lohnes Watulak & Kinzer, in press)

13. “Critical” • critical of digital literacy? • critical in the sense of critical thinking and analysis

14. develop “critical attention…the ability to look at their experience with affectionate curiosity” (Reason, 1999, p. 212)

15. “Digital literacy” “…the current form of the traditional idea of literacyper se- the ability to read, write, and otherwise deal with information using the technologies and formats of the time…”(Bawden, 2008, p. 18)

16. “Digital Literacy(ies)” “…a shorthand for the myriad social practices and conceptions of engaging in meaning making by texts…via digital codification”(Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 5)

17. WHY Critical Digital Literacy?

18. Increasing Student Engagement • Participatory learning (Project NML, 2011) • Relevance, creativity, co-learning • “connections between home, school, community and world are enabled” • Situated cognition: “authenticity has important motivational potential” (Choi & Hannafin, 1995, p. 56) • Context & authentic activity • Cognitive apprenticeship (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989)

19. CDL & Student Engagement • Understanding contexts of tech use • Relevance, home-school connection, authenticity • Reflective practice • Relevance, home-school connection • Critical thinking • Creativity • Functional skills • Relevance

20. Critical thinking + technology…

21. Teachers should “understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices” (ISTE NETS, 2008, para. 4) • Students should “understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior” (ISTE, 2007, para. 5)

22. CDL in depth

23. CDL: 4 Components • Understanding cultural, social, and historical contexts of technology use, including ethical and appropriate practices • Critical thinking and analysis • Reflective practice • Functional skills with digital technologies (Lohnes Watulak & Kinzer, in press)

25. 1. Understanding cultural, social, andhistorical contexts of technology use

26. One framework for understanding today’s cultural and social context is participatory culture within a digital society • Why? • Authenticity in the learning environment (connecting to real life practices) • Helping students to understand what is valued within their current context

27. 2. Critical thinking and analysis • Thinking that is “purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed” (Halpern, 1997, p. 4) • Question taken-for-granted experiences around technology • Develop disciplined thinking about technology use

28. Do you see any issues or challenges with using social media to coordinate social action?

29. Don’t forget: You can copy-paste this slide into other presentations, and move or resize the poll.

30. Reflective Practice “…the ability to be aware of oneself as a digitally literate person, and to reflect on one’s own digital literacy development” (Martin, 2008, pp. 166-167)

31. Don’t forget: You can copy-paste this slide into other presentations, and move or resize the poll.

32. Functional Skills • The ability to manipulate technological tools for a specific purpose • i.e., your ability to use text messaging to complete your technobiography • Tools and skills change rapidly • Learning in context

33. Designing instruction with and for cdl

34. Design Approaches • CDL as a set of competencies • Way of extending or deepening your approach to tech-supported instruction • Not using the tools for the tools’ sake, but using them in a critical, reflective way • Build CDL into existing lessons, or design lessons around these ideas

35. Sample Activity 1 • Instructional Goal: Understanding and writing other forms of text – graphic novels. • Final product: Create a digital graphic novel around a student-selected topic [of relevance to the content area].

37. Sample Activity 2 • Instructional Goal: Understanding participatory culture and cultures of relevant technology tool use (i.e., mashups, YouTube, wikis, GoogleDocs). • Final product: Short video presenting findings of the research. Video is uploaded to the web and reviewed by peers prior to final version.

39. Your Turn! • What are some ways that you might address the following CDL elements in a lesson? • Understanding social, cultural, & historical context • Critical thinking & analysis • Reflective practice • Technology skills

40. Don’t forget: You can copy-paste this slide into other presentations, and move or resize the poll.

42. Thanks to Dr. Chuck Kinzer and Lisa Twiss for contributing their ideas!