Abstract
AbstractThe authors introduce readers to three design features of the University of Rhode Island's Summer Institute in Digital Literacy, a 42‐hour, weeklong professional learning experience in digital literacy for educators, librarians, college faculty, and other adult learners. The program is explicitly designed to promote reflection on one's motivations for advancing digital literacy, deepen appreciation for collaborative inquiry, and focus on how educators and learners (not machines) personalize learning. Evidence of how these themes are developed through practice illustrates the design philosophy that is embedded in the program. Digital media platforms, texts, and technologies enable pedagogical practices that put learners and teachers at the center of an increasingly networked social world, but these approaches also require respect for diverse perspectives, deliberative dialogue, and collaborative inquiry to bring them into the mainstream educational practice of schools, libraries, universities, and communities.
Highlights
For readers of JAAL who are involved in advancing digital literacy education through creating, implementing and assessing professional development programs for in-service or pre-service teachers or other adult learners, we invite you to consider how these three features of the Summer Institute in Digital Literacy may be valuable to you
Motivations Matter The first design feature of the Summer Institute in Digital Literacy is focused on reflection about one’s motivations by essentially asking, “Why are you here?” When we first started using the term digital literacy to refer to our collaborative work in professional development, we began by asking participants to define the term for themselves, asking, “What does digital literacy mean to you?” From this, we discovered that digital literacy was an umbrella concept: people define and articulate digital literacy in different ways, depending on their disciplinary background, identity and life experiences
Through our work at the Summer Institute in Digital Literacy, we have discovered that adults come to an interest in digital literacy with a complex and nuanced set of pre-existing attitudes and beliefs about technology, media, education and learning
Summary
Through designing, implementing, and assessing a professional development program, we have conceptualized digital literacy in relation to the needs of experienced adult learners whose motives for wanting to incorporate digital texts, tools and technologies into the curriculum vary widely. Three important program design features of the Summer Institute in Digital Literacy include a focus on (a) promoting reflection on one’s motivations for advancing digital literacy; (b) deepening appreciation for collaborative inquiry; and (c) focusing on how educators and learners (not machines) personalize learning.
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