Transformative Job Market
- New Career Types/Tracks: 85% of all jobs available by 2030 will be positions/careers non-existent prior to 2020 (Institute for the Future 2017; World Economic Forum 2018)
- Landing the Position: "Soft Skills" remain top priority in hiring practices, but these are increasingly digitally inflected: digital communication, digital collaboration, digital creativity, digital problem-solving (see Petrone 2019; Marr 2022)
Responsibility in Higher Education
- Inclusivity: The digital divide is most pronounced across issues of Race, Gender, and Class. When we fail to integrate digital literacy into higher education, we create double-jeapordy digital inequity (McLay & Reyes, 2019): a process by which we unintentionally widen that gap.
- Engagement: Bringing digital literacy/digital creativity practices in the classroom has a positive impact on student engagement, performance, and retention. This is even more pronounced (nearly 2 times more) for BIPOC and first generation students (Civitas, Adobe, and UT San Antonio, 2020).
- Accountability: Over 80% of Students, Faculty, and Administrators agree/strongly agree that teaching digital literacy skills should be part of the curriculum (Chronicle of Higher Ed)
A keynote in 3 parts
Flashpoints: From Scholar to Advocate
2003 | Media as Modeling Practice
- Basic & Developmental Writing Courses @ SWIC
- Video Transitions to Writing Transitions
2011 | The Importance of Multimedia of Undergraduate Students
2 "acts" from "The Importance of Undergraduate Multimedia: An Argument in Seven Acts," a collaborative production between Justin Hodgson, Scott Nelson, Andrew Rechnitz, & Cleve Wiese. Published in 2011 in Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, & Pedagogy (16.1).
The clips above feature audio content from interviews with (in order) Drs. Justin Tremel & Will Burdette.
2023 | The Practical Values of Digital Literacy Today
- When we give students the opportunity to learn digital literacy skills and new media authoring practices, we quite literally expand their capacities for expression. This helps students not only to tell better stories but, more importantly, take on greater (or different) degrees of agency.
- When we invite students to create with digital technologies, we give them access to course content, ideas, and practices in new ways. This is not only a matter of what they might make (i.e., a podcast), but fundamentally how they might engage a given course’s content.
- When working in and across digital modalities, students can have meaningful success outside traditional modes of academic discourse. This is especially important for DEI efforts, including 1st gen, non-traditional, and international students, for many of whom traditional academic discourse can be a major hurdle if not insurmountable barrier.
- When creating digital "things," students actively want to share their work. There is a built-in public-facing condition when making digital things, and many of us, students and faculty alike, see and feel the reality of a persistent digital audience, that underlying ‘meant to be seen’ condition as when we are engaged in digital making.
Accessing Ideas in New Ways
Mia Freeman's "History of Vaccines" Digital Monument
Project created using Minecraft EDU & Adobe CC Express
Video walkthrough created using Adobe Premiere Rush
Expanding Capacities of Expression
Andrew William's "Picture Perfect" - A Remix Video
This video was a remix of Kat Napiorkowska's "Living with Depression"
William's remix was published in the Journal for Undergraduate Multimedia Projects jumpplus.net
Remix project (re)created using Adobe Premiere Pro
Integrating Digital Literacy
- ACTIVITIES | In-class engagements that get students involved with course content/ideas/issues in critical and creative ways, and doing so through the use of particular digital technologies and practices.
- ASSETS | Instructor-produced deliverables that guide students through content or practices, illuminate concepts or methods, set-up (or extend) in-class engagements, etc.
- ASSESSMENTS | Opportunities for students to create particular kinds of output and for instructors to assess student learning and development based on those outputs.
Activities
Think-Pair-Make-Share
Think-Pair-Share is a popular Active Learning strategy used in classrooms. The modified version, Think-Pair-Make-Share, brings Digital Literacy and Active Learning together, adding "making" (and reflection/explanation) as a key component. This allows instructors to use what students make as a means to facilitate engagement.
OVERVIEW
- 1 minute: Students write down a response to a prompt.
- 2 minutes: Students Pair up (or group up) and discuss their responses. They select one key takeaway.
- 5-7 minutes: As a pair/group, students create an image (using Adobe Express) that conveys that takeaway.
- They then share image creation with instructor/class; (1) Students should be prepared to explain both the creation and to expound on the takeaway; (2) Instructor uses the creations to facilitate discussion.
Social Media as Model
This activity invites students to "social media making" as a way of knowing/developing understanding. For example, instructors might have students create a TikTok video or an Instagram post that conveys a practice, concept, or structure related to class: see "Pumpkin Patch" TikTok Challenge below.
"Pumpkin Patch" TikTok Challenge | ENG-W171
Welcome to the pumpkin patch / Minecraft EDU / TikTok challenge! Today we are practicing drafting, building, documenting, and discussing our work.
- Draft: On a piece of paper, plan how you're going to build the pumpkins in Minecraft EDU at different scales (e.g., one that fits in 6x6x6 area; another in a 15x15x15 area). Think about how to represent rounded shapes in a cube form!
- Build: Using the fill command, fill a cube of your desired dimensions with your chosen material. Then "carve" your pumpkin by removing blocks. Do this for both pumpkins.
- Decorate: Decorate your pumpkins and pumpkin patch. Bonus: create Jack O' Lanterns!
- Document: Create a TikTok video introducing your build and build process to an audience of freshmen students at IUB.
- Submit: You should submit an mp4 file or a link to a TikTok. You are not required to publish this video if you do not feel comfortable.mit
- TIPs & TRYs: Use voice-over, sync to music, incorporate transitions, participate in popular trends, etc. Get creative! This will service as your soft launch into the next unit on video/podcasting.
Assets
Assets can be understood in two primary categories: instructional assets and professional assets. The former are things we use to help facilitate the learning experiences in our courses; the latter are things we use to enhance our own career.
Instructional Assets
Assignment Handouts
- Reflections on Fieldwork in Gina Yoder's (IUPUI) Mathematical Methods course
- Awareness Campaign Assignment for Monica Solinas-Saunders' (IUN) Public Awareness in America course
- SSS Vlogs Assignment for Justin Hodgson's (IUB) Expository Writing Course
Instructional Resources
- Guide to Wikipedia Afrofuturism Editathon | Gimmicka Piper (IUPUI)
- Talking Fake News Fighting Blues | KT Lowe (IUE) & Jef Reynolds
- Creating Videos and Podcasts with Adobe Rush (video guide) | Justin Hodgson (IUB) & Shauna Chung (CUNY City Tech)
- Visual Syllabus | Justin Hodgson's Graduate Course on Embodied Rhetorics
Professional Assets
- A Look Inside L204 | Miranda Rodak - Promotion Materials
- Incorporating Digital Literacy into "Intro to Fiction | Miranda Rodack - Promotion Materials
Assessments
Assignments are opportunities for us to assess student learning and development with course content, practices, and approaches.
- This is the most common way faculty integrate digital literacy into work with students and typically starts by providing students a "digital option" in addition to the more traditional assignment.
Below are student examples (working from simple to complex) that work across a range of modalities. Collectively they start to gesture toward what digital literacy, digital creativity, and digital learning can look like in the classroom.
Multimedia Essays
- Mental Health on College Campuses by Carolyn Ciolfi (IUB)
- The Crossroads of Indiana University by Ryan Canfield (IUB)
Journal/Magazine Articles: Research-based Writing
- A Hoosier's Home by Noah Benson (IUB)
- Names. Because One Just Isn't Enough by Caitlin Alexander (IUB)
Image Engagements: Infographics/Composites/Posters
- "Fabulous Scroll" (Slot-Machine Reality of Social Media) | Chloe Lambert (IUB)
- Plastination: Unlock a World of Post-Mortem Possibility | Hannah Moreno (UT Austin)
Audio/Podcast Engagements
- Podcast on Collins LLC | Kaia Wells (IUB)
- Sweet Interruption | David Bistline (UT Austin)
Video Engagements
- Fear is Contagious, is AIDS? by Rachel Yokum (IUB) | JUMP+ Issue 10.1
- After the Glow: Radium Girls by Kasey Julian (Oakland University) | JUMP+ Issue 8.2
Pedagogical Transformation(s)
As instructors create space for more digital literacy and/or active learning in the classroom, some of the core policies and practices of the class may have to evolve as well to accommodate this new orientation.
New Course Model | Digital Literacy + Active Learning (e.g., ENG-W171@IU)
This new course in the IU curriculum was co-created by Justin Hodgson and Miranda Rodak (IU Bloomington). W171 fulfills the First Year Writing Gen Ed requirement at IU, brings together active learning and digital literacy, and features a mentor / apprentice co-instructional model.
New Course Feature | Tokens
What are Tokens?
Tokens are a course design feature that can help lower student anxiety about course work and foster a climate committed to taking intellectual risks. They function as a form of currency (given and earned) that can be exchanged for a number of uses.
What can Tokens be used for?
- 72-hour Extension: This is a "no questions asked" guaranteed extension (excludes Final Course Projects)
- Revise & Resubmit: Allows students to revise and resubmit for an improved letter grade any assignment from class
- Excused Absence: Students can use a token to offset an absence that might otherwise be penalized
- 1% Grade Bump: At the end of the semester, students can use a token to earn a 1% bonus on their final grade
- Collaborator's Pass: Students can use a token to transform any assignment into a collaborative assignment. (Note: all collaborators must use a token.)
How many tokens do students start with? How many can they earn?
I give students 2 tokens at the start of class and they have the opportunity to earn more throughout the semester. The baseline or the number of potential tokens is usually 2 + the number of major assignments in course.
- e.g., if I have 3 major assignments in a course, there would be the 2 at the start plus 3-4 Token Challenges during the semester in which students can earn additional tokens.
Assessing Digital Projects
Click the button for a fuller breakdown of the four approaches listed below
- SEC Approach (Self-Evaluative Criteria) - Students generate the criteria by which they want to be evaluated and then submit a self-evaluation using those criteria.
- Genre Approach - Students (in conjunction with faculty) do a genre analysis and identify key features. Then they turn those features into assessment criteria.
- Kuhn+2 Model - Provides a a wholistic set of criteria (6 interrelated categories) for responding to digital projects, anchoring the assessment conceptually and rhetorically.
- Learning Record Method - Tracks learning across teh course of a semester and asks students to curate evidence of their learning and to use that evidence to make the case for their course grade.
A Place to Start
The Teacher's Challenge| T-P-M-S
- Step 1 (1 min): write down ways you can see adding digital literacy elements to your course(s) - think assets, activities, and assessments.
- Step 2 (2-3 min): Partner up and share your ideas. As a group, identify one practice, approach, or place to focus on implementation and describe it in a sentence.
- Step 3 (5 min): Go to express.adobe.com and create an image that represents /conveys / communicates what you identified in the previous step. {Be sure to play around with templates, adding content, manipulating multiple elements (images/text), etc.}
- Step 4 (1 min): Share the work with the class/group - i.e., Publish the image as a URL and paste the URL in our shared GoogleDoc.
- Step 5 (5-10 min): Discussion - Share with the class/group your idea, its implementations, and key considerations.
Credits:
Created with images by vegefox.com - "connection" • EFStock - "Young coworkers digital entrepreneurs working together during meal break. African and latin students using laptop for project" • Tierney - "University with man holding a tablet computer" • Tierney - "Future technology concept with person using a laptop computer" • mrmohock - "Businesswoman hand working digital marketing media in virtual screen with mobile phone and modern compute with VR icon diagram at office in morning light " • SVETLANA - "Minecraft cubes made of plastic. Two brown minecraft cubes with glowing Windows" • DC Studio - "African video editor working with footage and sound, editing new project cutting film montage sitting in modern agency office. Woman using computer processing movie in post production software" • Dilok - "Hand holding virtual world with connection and technology icon for globalisation by metaverse and digital transformation concept." • Nitiphonphat - "The elderly's hand is holding a Bitcoin gold coin. The cryptocurrency money Financial confidence of the elderly after retirement concept." • S... - "the measuring tape is stretched over the piggy bank. illustration. man presses the screen" • mantinov - "Black casual shoes standing at just start line" • MarutStudio - "Hand of a young woman showing global business internet connection application technology. and digital marketing Internet connection around the world. Business."