The Digital Gardener Initiative, through UITS Learning Technologies, is a faculty-driven digital literacy initiative designed to build community, share best practices, develop successful programs, and build infrastructure to improve digital literacy at Indiana University.

Our showcase element, the Digital Gardener Faculty Fellows program, is a semester-long professional development program created by faculty for faculty. It focuses on cultivating a culture committed to integrating digital ways of knowing, doing, and making into the curriculum. Its goal is to build community and it does this by putting people first, being pedagogically focused, and purpose driven.

The Digital Gardener Faculty Fellows program focuses on cultivating a culture committed to integrating digital ways of knowing, doing, and making into the curriculum

In this program, faculty from across all IU campuses, from a divergent range of disciplines and ranks, participate in a series of required and optional programming committed to helping them develop their own individual digital literacy skills, learn strategies for integrating into their work with students, produce professional development documentation, and participate in groups committed to cultivating digital culture. The programming begins with a focus on building creative confidence and progressively moves through more complex skills, practices, and technologies that enable digital literacy, digital creativity, and digital learning.

Building Creative Confidence | T-P-M-S

Think-Pair-Share is a popular Active Learning strategy used in classrooms across Indiana University. This version, Think-Pair-Make-Share, is a modification that includes digital making as a key component and then using what participants make as a way to guide the engagement.

30-second Overview:

• Participants will be asked to spend a minute or two thinking of responses to a few key prompts.
• Participants will then pair up and spend a few minutes discussing the prompts / responses.
• Participants will generate key take-aways from that discussion (typically written in sentence form).
• Participants will then make an image creation (combining image and text) that represents/conveys one "take-away".
• Participants share their creations with the larger group.

Step 1 | Think

In 1-2 minutes, jot down some ideas / responses to either (or both) of the following questions:

• What does it mean to be digitally literate (i.e., what is digital literacy?)
• Why is digital literacy or digital creativity important for students today?

Be sure to write down or type out your responses. While sentences are preferred, these can be in note form at this juncture.

Step 2 | Pair

Step 2.1 - Partner up & Discuss

Locate a faculty fellow to partner up with (pairs are ideal; trios can work) and take 2-3 minutes to discuss your responses.

Step 2.2 - Write down a take-away

Take 1 minute to write down a key takeaway (or two) from your conversation

Step 3 | Make

Using the Adobe Creative Cloud Express tool, create an image (social media style, meme creation) that represents/conveys that takeaway.

3.1 Sign-in to Adobe Express

3.2 Create New Project

Click the "+" button (green arrow) to create a new project

Choose "Custom size graphic" (green arrow)

Select "Social Post" (green arrow), "LinkedIn blog post" (blue arrow), and click "Next" button (purple arrow).

This launches the basic interface, with a quick guide for menu options

• Left menu (yellow rectangle) is used for adding elements to your canvas
• Right menu (orange rectangle) is used for editing those elements and/or overall design
• Click "Ok, got it" button to continue

3.3 Add Image

In left menu, select “Photos” (green arrow), type in image search term in search bar (blue arrow), select preferred image (purple arrow). This will add selected image onto the project canvas.

Adjust image: Click newly added image and then, in the Edit menu, toggle the “Add to background” button (green arrow) to fill canvas with image. Alternately, manually resize by clicking on image and then clicking and dragging the circular transform controls (blue arrow) at the edges of the image.

3.4 Add Text

In the left menu, select “Text” (green arrow), click “+ Add your text” button (blue arrow), and type in your text in the Edit Text menu text box (purple arrow).

• Use the editing menu options to Edit/adjust the design, size, font, and effects as you desire.
• The “Find a new style” button (orange box) will apply a range of present font, size, color, and effects choices.

3.5 Download Image

Once you are done editing the image and text, download the image by clicking the “Download” button (green arrow) at the top of the window. In the submenu, choose your file format (e.g., PNG) and click “Start download” button (blue arrow)

In addition to downloading the image as a PNG, JPG, or PDF, users can also share the image creation via a designated URL. While this is not part of this T/P/M/S activity, to generate a URL for the image creation, click the "Share" button next to the "Download" button.

Step 4 | Share

4.1 Add Image to GoogleDoc

Click button below to Add Image to Google Doc (either as image or link).

Step 4.2 Prepare to Share/Talk about Creations

Be prepared to share insights on your content/design, creation experience, and/or ways you might use this in the classroom.

Digital Gardener Initiative @ Indiana University

Co-Directors, Justin Hodgson & Adam Maksl

Additional Resources

Interested in making a webpage?

This guide was created using Adobe Express Webpage. To learn how to create an Adobe Express Webpage, see easy to follow 5-minute video introduction (below) by Adobe Creative Cloud Evangelist Terry White.

Interested in making a video?

Adobe Express also includes an easy-to-use video creation tool. It's fairly simple in its functionality, but can be a great way to help students to start to learn about digital communication in "media-over-time" formats. To learn how to use Adobe Express Video, see this short 75 second video introduction by Adobe for Education.

3 Approaches for Integrating Digital Literacy across the Curriculum