Category: digital literacy

those that don’t (not those that do)

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital literacy

 Further additions to the naming debate are provided by Etienne Wenger with Nancy White and John D Smith in Digital Habitats: Stewarding Technology for Communities (2009). Wenger, of Communities of Practice fame, suggests Deep Divers, Attentive Practitioners and Just Do-It-ers.  Reviewer  Stephanie Panks describes these three categories

  • Deep Divers are interested in exploring the connections between technology and community from an interdisciplinary angle. Their focus lies in applying conceptual models and learning theories to the domain of technology adoption by communities of practice.
  • Attentive Practitioners are interested in developing their practice, whether technology plays a major or minor part in it. They seek practical advice as well as theoretical concepts to communicate their role as technology stewards effectively.
  • Just Do-It-ers are action oriented with a strong focus on getting the job done. Their main interest is in practical tips and tricks while the more conceptual aspects are in the background.

Notable by its absence is a category for Laggards, Outsiders, Abstainers, Excluded or any other group who find themselves the wrong side of the digital divide. Instead of categorising those who are engaged, at whatever level, that it could be worth categorising those who aren’t as therein may lie some interesting answers.

one stop digital shop

Sue Watling / / CERD, digital literacy

I haven’t yet worked out how Julian gets his blog entries to appear on Facebook but it works. Several times I’ve picked up on something there that I’d have otherwise missed. The idea that you have a single thread like FriendFeed capturing and sharing all your activity online makes sense. So how long before you have a single place in which to conduct all your online activity? In a digital world, where a multiplicity of separate activities can be bought together under a single URL, then maintaining a multitude of Web 2.0 type applications in the first place is starting to feel a bit old fashioned.

This was going to be a post about the residents (digital natives) and visitors (digital immigrants) debate that I picked up from Julian but as this stands well on its own I’ll blog about that next time.

flawed digital britain

Sue Watling / / digital divide, digital literacy

Martha Lane Fox is hoping the Olympic Games in 2012 will do for broadband what the queen’s coronation did for television sales in 1953. The new Digital Champion says not having access to internet exaggerates and exacerbates the problems of the most socially and economically disadvantaged people in the UK.  It’s not clear how this success will be measured. The number of new signers-on at a community centre?  Increased applications for broadband?  Are there plans for new computers to include a broadband connection in the way television sets are licensed?  Neither is it clear how competency will be achieved. Training through family and community responsibility is another vague governmental idealism.  “Get kids training grannies, get all of us kind of plugging into our local communities to try and pull the whole country along. If we all took it on ourselves to train 10, 20 people, the job is done,”

Digital Britain is fundamentally flawed. The rhetoric fails to recognise that the technology is only ever the tool.  Acquisition is not the same as use nor does ownership equate with competence. This is utopian thinking; create the desired environment and the population will respond accordingly.  Issues of diversity, literacy, cognitive and physical abilities, are all typically absent. The RNIB suggest that 1 in 12 of those aged 60 have a sight loss, rising to 1 in 6 by the age of 70; everyday 100 people in the UK begin to lose their sight. The number of people with a degree of visual impairment is expected to more than double in the next 25 years, an increase linked to an ageing population and poor health.  Dyslexia Action suggests 10% of the population have difficulty with reading and writing. Low levels of literacy and numeracy are linked to truancy, disengagement with education is linked to a cycle of unemployment, low income and poor housing – all factors contributing towards the social and economic disadvantage identified by Martha Lane Fox.

 But – rather being negative – it could be that the government is finally serious about targeting those for whom digital data poses the greatest barriers? That Digital Britain is the long awaited acknowledgement of the need for affordable assistive technology, recognition that ALL Internet content should be available in multiple, alternative formats and that ALL computers should have decent magnification and screen reading software installed as standard. If Britain is to become digital then priority has to be given to diversity on a national scale. You can bring the technology to the people but you can’t make them engage. Not without addressing the very same factors that have created the target audience of the report in the first place.

partially converted to google

Sue Watling / / digital literacy

When it comes to preventing barriers to access then Google is not a winner; for example Chrome has been around for some time and its use is still problematic for a non-mouse user. But for once I can sing Google’s praises regarding one access issue. The Google toolbar is exactly what’s needed with the limited space you get when using screen magnification software to access the Internet. The customisation features enable all frequently used tools to be positioned in one area – that’s just what’s required and I’m now recommending its use in instances such as these.

This conversion process is an interesting one. Again it shows how we don’t engage with the technology unless there is a need; it isn’t enough to have all the tools at our disposal – they have to make a difference to something we are already doing – and be an improvement to it. As elearning champions that’s a challenge well worth bearing in mind.

Response to http://bit.ly/e3CEs by Joss Winn

Sue Watling / / CERD, digital divide, digital literacy

I accept that higher education is on the cusp of change; and that there are multiple drivers. I have no argument with the role of education technology in the future of higher education, or with the potential of the Internet to widen participation, and I fully support encouraging students in becoming self motivated, self directed learners.

I would argue with the use of the word ubiquitous with regard to Internet connection and have several blog posts that do so.  http://tiny.cc/dZRvJ / http://tiny.cc/dP5oY / http://tiny.cc/nK2I9 / http://tiny.cc/5QydY Any further trawling through the current documentation on digital learning may not be the best way to respond to the issues raised. Instead, I would suggest looking backwards as well as forwards.

Titles such as the Future of HE, Harnessing the Technology and Widening Participation in HE have been around for some time. The targets of the past are also similar to those of the present; transforming teaching and learning, engaging hard-to-reach groups; building open accessible systems, offering flexible ways to study, sharing material within and between institutions, encouraging HEIs to work together, make the development of e-learning more affordable etc etc. We have been here before.

The push for embedding VLEs into HE in the 1990s came on the back of promises of improved staff and student experiences but failed to adequately manage the transition process. The sector now hosts a digital divide between staff who demonstrate confidence and competence with the technology and those who have yet to engage. If we take anything forward from this current drive for extending the boundaries of educational technology, and burdening it with ever more ambitious expectations, then it must be attention to the needs of those still at the analogue end of the digital continuum.

Even the nature of this digital debate is divisive as those with the most to offer in terms of understanding the nature of their resistance will not be here. I fully support the setting up of an Open Learning Innovation Fund but suspect it will attract the converted who are all too often unaware of the development needs of those yet to engage. Unless there is focus on the building of bridges, rather than yet more innovation, then the existing digital divide will continue to widen.

The value of blogging is in brevity but at the risk of extending this post into an unrealistic length and testing staying power, I want to show how Rogers http://tiny.cc/Ru4Lk  identifies 5 requirements for successful adoption of innovation which can be usefully applied here.

1. Offers a substantial improvement on the existing situation. For many people online delivery offers very little improvement on f2f delivery. The majority of staff and students like and prefer f2f contact.
2. Compatibility with existing life. There are multiple reasons for resisting the pressure to engage in virtual learning or adding an online dimension to a life; we should be investigating these to better understand barriers to engagement.
3. Ease of adapting. Technology can be complex and if it can go wrong it will; a single failure which experienced users may laugh off can be terminal to tentative steps at engagement.
4. Trialiability. Practice requires access to reliable hardware, appropriate software and effective internet access; not everyone has these – again for multiple reasons. There also needs to be time in which to experiment. With ever increasing workloads, and lifestyle pressures, the opportunity to have supported learning experiences may not be possible.
5. Visibility. Again, if the technology can fail it will and, with new users in particular, it often does. When this failure is visible to other people it can be the greatest deterrent of all. The move from VLEs to blogs, wikis and podcasts is indicative of the increasing complexity of the technology. The more visible that development is then the more the process of engagement is seen as an increasing challenge.

Rogers also identifies five categories of adopters which can be applied.

1. Innovator. Young risk-taker, specialist in the area and in association with other innovators creating a clique of shared practice and ideas. Vocal promoters often have little understanding of the fears and concerns of others who have yet to engage.
2. Early Adopter. Also young risk-taker with specialist knowledge, resilient, copes with failures. May have more insight into the needs of others but it’s well recognized that these leaders work in a vacuum and when they move on their work comes to a standstill and rarely survives.
3. Early Majority. Easily put off, may be reluctant users, but are gradually increasing their engagement at a low level. Success will lead to greater confidence and in time they may become champions in their own departments.
4. Late Majority. Need to see it working first, remain sceptical and take a great deal of convincing. Those who have tried and failed may gradually come to agree in principle to the benefits of online content as a supplement to f2f but will upload material retaining existing formatting. Appropriate interactive, inclusive resources designed to stimulate interest, motivate and engage only happens in small pockets of good practice
5. Laggards. The digital immigrants who find themselves in an alien land of blogs and wikis have multiple reasons for not engaging, all of them valid. Identifying and addressing these will provide valuable information and is a necessary step if the sector is serious about creating digital literacies and moving towards online HE ‘for millions’.