Empowering Students through Digital Literacy NIU | Fall 2024 Teaching Effectiveness Institute | PART 1

The opening session is designed to start a conversation on the what and why around bringing digital literacy into the classroom and to help participants start to build creative confidence in using Adobe Express.

Agenda

  • Activity 1 - Think/Pair/Share | What is digital literacy?
  • Situating the conversation | Why does digital literacy matter?
  • Building Creative Confidence | Challenge 1: Creating an Image
  • Reflective Discussion | Insights & Considerations

What is Digital Literacy?

A Think-Pair-Share starter activity

STEP 1 | THINK (and write)

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

  • What does it mean to be digitally literate? (i.e., What is digital literacy?)
  • What does digital literacy or digital creativity look like in your discipline/field?

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 (and discuss)

Part A - Find a partner (or work in groups of 3), and take 2-3 minutes to discuss your responses.

Part B - Identify 1-2 key takeaways from the discussion and write each takeaway on a Post-It.

STEP 3 | SHARE (report out)

Be prepared to share (and explain) your take-aways or key conversational points with the full group

What is Digital Literacy?

Digital literacy comprises knowledge, skills, capacities, and even attitudes that enable and empower individuals to flourish in an increasingly digital world--and to do so in ways that are safe and appropriate to their cultures and contexts (geography, age, etc.). But there are a range of related concepts that start to push and pull at the depths and problems we are facing in digitally-saturated world:

  • digital competency
  • digital skills
  • data literacy
  • information literacy
  • AI literacy
  • digital fluency
  • digital agility
So, perhaps the question isn't "What is Digital Literacy" but rather WHY do these (or should these) collection of concepts & considerations matter to us?

College to Career Readiness

Students Facing a Transformative Job Market

"Increasingly, however, emerging technologies such as generative AI are reshaping workforce demands and employers are placing greater emphasis on 'soft' skills - World Economic Forum - The Future of Jobs Report 2023 (44)

Responsibility in 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-jeopardy 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 - In a recent survey, 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, 2022).

Empowering Student Success

  • 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 sort of built-in public-facing condition when making digital things that creates a sense of a real world audience: i.e., real people in the world reading, hearing, viewing, scrolling through, interacting with the work. Digital creators, students and faculty alike, see and feel the reality of that persistent digital audience condition, adding a dimension not present in most other traditional course assignments.

Other Avenues for Student Success

Tanya Patel - 10 and 2, Are You?

Interactive webtext created using Adobe Photoshop and wix.com

Mia Freeman - Digital Monument to the History of Medicine

Project deliverables were created using Minecraft EDU & Adobe Express & Adobe Rush

Mia's Express Page Overview of the Project

NOTE: Additional student projects/examples can be found below

So where do we begin?

We will start by helping you all build some creative confidence with Adobe Express. CHALLENGE 1: Creating and Image, will use a THINK-PAIR-MAKE-SHARE activity approach.

Challenge 1 - TPMS Activity Guide

Additional Student Projects

Multimedia Essays (Express Webpages)

Journal/Magazine Articles: Research-based Writing

Image Engagements: Infographics/Composites/Posters

Audio/Podcast Engagements

Video Engagements