Discussing Digital Literacy

Once again I've embarked on another course, this semester I'm exploring "Emerging Technology in Learning".  I am looking quite forward to the discussions that hope will develop throughout the course.  If nothing else at least I get fodder for my blog. 

The first discussion to start was based on digital literacy.  Three questions were posted to the class.  

1. What literacies do you see as fundamental to a positive online experience?
2. Which ones do you currently possess?
3. Which ones do you think you will need to learn?

My response to this stemmed from a presentation I did last year for the Elearning Guild's DevLearn 2011.


1. What literacies do you see as fundamental to a positive online experience?

I did a presentation last year specifically on digital literacies and found one particular person's work resonated with me the most.  That is of Doug Belshaw, http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2011/05/20/the-essential-elements-of-digital-literacies/.  For me, each of his elements of digital literacy I find to be truly needed in order to succeed and perhaps survive in today's digital world.  However, while working on this presentation and researching information about digital literacy, this was the list of skills that I focused on:

• Play (experimentation leading to problem solving)
• Performance (taking on new identities leading to discovery)
• Simulation (interpreting online environments into real world contextualization)
• Appropriations (sampling and remixing media into meaningful contexts)
• Multitasking (scanning and being able to focus on you digital environment)
• Distributed Cognition (using tools in meaningful ways to expand knowledge)
• Collective Intelligence (pooling and comparing knowledge)
• Judgement (being able to evaluate reliability and credibility)
• Transmedia Navigation (follow/track information across various sources/media)
• Networking (search, process, and share information)
• Negotiation (understand and respect other perspectives)
• Visualization (translate information into visual models/understand visual models)

These are collected from Vartabedian, Vanessa. "New Media Literacies." New Media Literacies. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. . 
This list of skills are the ones that I believe we need to possess in order to not only successfully navigate the digital world, but to be able to participate in it.  Participating is just as important if not more than just being able to find the information you seek.  Being able to re-purpose, share, and discuss with others is what truly expands ones own knowledge.

2. Which ones do you currently possess?

Having been exposed to computers for much of my life, and having integrating social networking/learning into many aspects of my personal and professional life, I think posses each of these skills to some degree.  Some certainly much stronger and more skilled than others and like anyone, I'm sure some of these skills I gravitate to explore and build upon more than others.  

3. Which ones do you think you will need to learn?

There are certainly skills I need to practice more to become more masterful at them.  Visualization is a key one for myself and something I have been working on over the last year.  Understanding visual models is not difficult, it is being able to convey my messages/thoughts/knowledge-to-share in a visual way with others that I would like to improve upon.

Negotiation and the ability to grasp, understand, and respect someone else's perspective on any given topic is one that I believe no one will ever truly master, but one that must be worked upon each and every day.  Only when we try to understand another perspective to do truly learn beyond our own mindful boundaries.

I'm curious if you agree with this list?  Is anything missing?  Which do you think you need to work on?

Expect the Expected

We're so often told to expect the unexpected, but how often are we warned to expect the expected.  Please excuse me while I rant for a moment.

I've been waiting, for an unacceptable amount of time, for an upgrade to be issued and installed for my LMS.  I won't even go into the details about why it was delayed over and over again.  Nor will I even mention how long I have been waiting.  What I will mention is why, oh why did I ever expect that the latest testing phase would be any different than past phases.

Source, Author : Werner Kunz License: BY-NC-SA

I really thought (and was promised) that this time would be smoother.  I had been told that one reason for the delay (okay guess I'll mention one) was that they didn't want me to have to go through so much testing again to ensure it was a solid launch.

But....here I am again.  Testing item after item, link after link, function after function and am finding error after error after error.  Not only to the errors surprise me, but many of the user accessibility interactions and general features are of poor design.  Imagine your learners trying to read a font size 8 on a screen.  Not something you typically want with an aging population workforce.

I suppose I am glad that I've been through this before.  Not once, but several times over.  Hence the reason why I should have expected nothing less from the vendor. A colleague simply laughed at me when I asked him "Why did I expect it would be better this time?"  In turned I laughed at him as his product test site has not yet been delivered to him.  Warning shot launched.

At the least, I have a plan to get through the bugs.  I have a template to catalog, prioritize, and track the bugs and a method to track vendor responses to such.

Several factors now weigh heavy on my mind.  How many bugs will I find and how many am I missing discovering? How much time will it take to fix these items, that I have been promised for so long, to function properly?  How much will delaying timing of an upgrade launch interfere with annual corporate curriculum?

For the most part, all I can do it find the issues, track them and let the rest play out as it unfolds.  I have little control over the rest of the process, but must still manage it all as best and timely as possible. I have a feeling that strong drinks and ranting may be the necessary cure.

Let Every Tip or Trick Create Inspiration

Recently there was a discussion posted in the E-Learning Heroes community asking the community to ensure that when they post tips, tricks, and tutorials that they don't forget that not everyone is using Storyline.  There are some that are still using Studio and then there are others that aren't using either tool.  I mention others as well because this post goes out to those users as well.

Every time I look at Twitter or Screenr or Blog or anywhere else for tips I always try to think, "How can I use this in my work with the tools I'm using?"  Just because the person demonstrating or talking about a technique is using Storyline, does not mean that I can think of away to re-purpose that information and figure out a way to use it with my own tool.

As an example Ron Price recent posted a Screenr showing how you could use Storyline to create a hidden pop-up menu at the bottom of the screen.



I took that same demo and showed how you could do the same treatment in Studio.  I'm sure someone else could find a way to recreate it in another authoring tool.



The point behind these tips and tricks isn't to show each other the ONLY way to do stuff it is to INSPIRE each other in what we can do.  What we can create.  This is one of the main reasons I just love the elearning community as a whole because every member seems naturally driven to share, explore, inspire and learn from one another.

My best advice is to take every tip, trick, and technique you discover and be INSPIRED by it.  Let your creativity grow with thought that has been shared with you.  Sometime just trying to recreate the idea will allow you to discover and apply your own unique twist to it.  Then you too can share what you did with the idea.  How you expanded upon it.  Soon enough someone will be learning from your inspiration and expanding their own creativity.

Together we just keep learning and exploring.