Routledge, 4 Apr 2014

This book acts as a review of research by leading digital literacy scholars from around the world, and is as up to date as possible with new technology (as of 2014). The authors intend this book to be used as a reference guide, directing readers to the central issues in a cross disciplinary context, with explanations of theoretical themes throughout; it is indexed as so, to best facilitate this handbook goal. The book is primarily aimed at scholars from the following fields: ICT, library and media studies, cognitive science, educational studies (in all its forms), and linguistics. However, the authors do state their hope that graduate students in all disciplines will also find this text a help during their studies, and to this end the final section of the book contains commentary by top scholars on a selection of relevant studies. These aptly show the merit of multiple interpretations of research and the various uses that outcomes could be put to; ergo this could also be of use to administrators, course directors and institution policy makers. The book is split into six sections as follows: (1) “Methodologies” – looking at current research on new literacies in an extensive variety of areas. (2) “Knowledge and Inquiry” - where several varying perspectives are examined on how it could be best to fulfil the potential of new media in regards to knowledge acquisition. (3) “Communication” - where the latest (as of 2014) research on new communication media is examined e.g. social networking tools. The roles of language and gender are also examined in this section. (4) “Popular Culture, Community and Citizenship: Everyday Literacies” - looks at research in online worlds such as gaming and fanfiction, as well as the issues surrounding the role of digital citizenship. This section also looks at collaborative work and projects. (5) “Instructional Practices and Assessment” – looks at classroom teaching and assessment in a new literacy context from early years education through to HE. (6) This is the section that sees the reprints of articles with critical evaluation and commentary. As a large and detailed handbook, this publication is highly effective. It would be a great reference text for anyone interested in the integration of digital literacy into many aspects of research, teaching, or even day to day life.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Web of Science, 2008

The purpose of this book is to explain to teachers how they can incorporate digital literacy into their classes to aid their students’ learning and engagement with issues such as content analysis and perspective, as well as looking at the usefulness and validity of information on the internet. The book is useful for finding examples of class case studies, plans for teachers to follow on the incorporation of digital skills (such as online source evaluation), and examples of digital citizenship teaching opportunities. There are also examples for the deployment of the exploitation of digital tools for collaborative work. The introduction of the book looks at the definitions of ‘literacy’ and ‘digital’ and examines the overlap area of the Venn diagrammatic terms. The differences between competency and fluencies are also discusses here, along with the implications this has for the teaching of DL. The author states that the book is intended as a philosophical guide, rather than a ‘how to’ manual. Overall it aims to “look at ways to use networked technology and online learning environments for critical literacy skills”. A short overview of the chapters is as follows: (1) “Media Literacy: Broadening the definition of Computer Literacy” which proposes changing current definitions by teaching though a classic rhetoric, ethos, logos and pathos filter. (2) “Civil Literacy: The Cyber Pilot’s Licence” looks at the need to teach students the history and evolution of the internet, along with digital citizenship, responsibility and netiquette. (3) “Discourse Literacy: Beyond The Chat Room” which looks at online discourse in greater detail, including how to manage student’s unhealthy cyberspace habits. (4) “Personal Literacy: Discovering Oneself Online”, is a chapter that examines online identity and the role that DL plays in this. (5) “Community Literacy: Composing Ourselves in a Virtual Community” which further develops notions of online identity by examining digital storytelling and also looking at collaborative classwork. (6) “Visual Literacy: Websites, Rhetorically Speaking” looks at the authenticity of online sources including visual sources and how to teach critical evaluation of material to students. This chapter also includes guidelines for the analysis of web documents. Global literacy is also covered here. (7) “Evaluative Literacy: Peer Reviews, Electronic Portfolios and Online Learning Records” introduces the concept of a “hypertext writing workshop” and looks at how a writing journey and the composition process of DL can be pulled together. This chapter also looks at Online Learning Records and other alternative assessment methods. (8) “Pedagogical Literacy: Plugging Into Electronic Pedagogy” looks at the need for constant evaluation and re-evaluation of pedagogical strategies for teaching DL; answering the question “how do teachers use computer technology to teach literacy skills?” Overall, this book is best examined in a linear fashion, as each chapter builds on the previous, rather than as a reference book. It is engaging and entertaining as well as insightful and practical.

Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 11., 2014

This article looks at the impact of the lag in digital literacy learning and teaching at many universities. Murray argues that “digital literacy is widely acknowledged as essential and germane in today’s highly competitive and global markets”; to the extent that she states it is a crucial life skill comparable to reading, writing and arithmetic. Murray calls for digital literacy to be “assessed, remediated and amplified” at a university level, rather than these important skills being just taken for granted or assumed to be adequate. The first section of the article examines definitions of digital literacy, before moving on to look at the evolution of models of digital literacy (including a useful diagram). Murray then looks at how the need for digital literacy has “become increasingly critical to success in any education discipline or occupation”. The adoption of structured digital literacy initiatives varies globally, but as these skills become increasing prerequisites for so many jobs, Murray states that Universities in the global West need to focus on conquering digital literacy teaching. The current state of affairs (2015) in Canada, the US, Europe and the UK is discussed before Murray sets out the methodology and results of her digital literacy assessment. This assessment was administered to fourth year undergraduates at a regional US university, and demonstrated the lack of structure in the teaching of digital literacy as well as vastly varying skill levels among students. The details of this study would be of great use for anyone seeking to conduct similar research. Murray concludes the article by reiterating the importance of digital literacy, not only to student satisfaction in terms of their employability, but also on a wider country level in terms of economic growth and competitiveness. She also emphasises the need to constantly re-evaluate what digital literacy skills are taught, as the field evolves so rapidly.

CEA Critic 76.2(2014), pp.137-9.

This essay serves as a short introduction to the CEA Critic special edition focusing on the Digital Humanities. Hawkins praises the contributing authors to this edition and states that all involved in DH teaching to use the experience of these professors to further engage with UG students on this topic. It is through engaging students with texts in new ways, via DH tools, that they will become excited about exploring what once seemed dulled by overfamiliarity. This introduction ends with a encouraging cry to all teachers to utilise the DH tools available so that their students can reap the benefits.

The Lapland Chronicles. January 7, 2012.

This s a transcript of a talk given a the 2012 MLA as part of a session entitled ‘Composing New Partnerships in the Digital Humanities’. The topic of the talk is regarding a desire to increase the level of “communication and collaboration between digital humanities and writing studies scholars”. The talk beings with a short history of both disciplines marginalisation within the tradition subjects of academia. With writing studies being viewed as just a “service wing” of English, and DH being viewed as the technology enthusiast who “inhabited a corner” in various Arts and Humanities departments. Gold then moves on to discuss tech-rhet-listser, where conversations have shown that members of the comp/rhet community tend to misunderstand the DH as merely a digitisation project. This conception misses the following key components of DH: (1) The emphasis on collaboration (2) Work on network platforms and networked open source pedagogy (3) Openness in DH in terms of open source tool building and open access scholarship (4) The ‘eternal September’ of new student keen on taking part (5) The huge interest in DH on networked pedagogy (6) Interdisciplinary and multifaceted nature of DH. Gold believes that some writing scholars are missing an opportunity to share resources with the DH. The talk concludes with a plea for more openness and collaboration to enable clearer communication for the benefit of all.

INF 2331H, Fall 2010. Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON.

This is a PG course at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information taught intermittently from 2009 onwards. It considers “the histories and possible futures of books in a digital world”. This course is designed to take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of every conceivable aspect of the book, and places a high emphasis on the use of digital tools to expedite and enhance analysis. All course texts were available in digital formal, and one of the core ‘readings’ included the playing of a video game. Assessment for the course was broken down into the following: 10% for participation (class discussions and debates), 20% XML encoding challenge (an introduction to digitally modelling print and manuscript materials), 30% report on the encoding challenge, and 40% on the final essay (a 14 to 18 page essay exploring a module appropriate topic). Academic integrity, in special regard to digital tools, is also covered in this class. The schedule for the class and assigned readings are all detailed on the module web page. Learning objectives for this course include a practical knowledge of XML mark-up and visualisation tools. Readings survey such topics as “the ontology of born-digital artefacts, critical assessment of digitization projects, collaborative knowledge work, reading devices (old and new), e-book interface design, text/image/multimedia relationships, theories and practices of mark-up, the gendering of technologies, the politics of digital archiving, the materiality of texts, and the epistemology of digital tools”.

 Liberal Education Nation. February 1, 2012.

The promotion of ‘teamwork’ is a key objective of most employers. Davis looks at the difficulties of teaching this skill to students in a way that is fair and assessable. She stresses that this skill will become increasingly crucial as we move towards a more digital world, and that it is the collaboration aspect of digital humanities that separates it from the more traditional humanities studies. The notion that those who work in the humanities are usually individual workers/researchers, and thus do not know about teamwork or good collaboration, is shot down as a stereotype. More value should be placed on the experience of collaboration, even if this results in failure; though teachers should be aware that some collaborative group work activities may be less valuable if they are more like an absolutist monarchy in terms of group dynamics, rather than a democracy. Davis concludes with a discussion on the grading of teamwork in an educational environment and links to the following rubric: http://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/teamwork  “This rubric is designed to measure the quality of a process, rather than the quality of an end product.”

CEA Critic, 76. (2014). pp.147-57

An overview of the main discussion points for those involved in the teaching of, or with, DH. These include pedagogical concerns such as teaching strategies, curriculum development and learning outcomes. The author experiences the difficulties around teaching DH to UG through the construction of classes for English students. Bonds found, through research, that the benefits for teaching UGs the DH fell into two general categories: (1) using DH on an institutional level to resuscitate funding and “save the humanities” (2) strengthen the employability potential of humanities graduates by empowering them with skills that could see them successfully enter a wider range of industries. These reasons alone, Bonds argues, is why DH instruction should become widely integrated into as many arts and humanities courses as possible. Though it may appear that Millennials are “digital natives”, they still require specialist DH instruction in order to use their skills in a constructive and productive manner. Bonds then discusses the link between DH and project based learning; and the interpersonal and technical skillsets that must be taught to UGs to make this teaching method a realistic option for successful learning. Using various scenario setups for teaching UG DH are then explored, such as museum based assignments. The article concludes that the DHs have now entered a phase of “organising learning outcomes” and actively applying these to classrooms. Bonds calls for the conversation on the teaching of DH to continue and for all those engaged in it to share their experiences so that everyone can benefit from progressions in the field.

Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles and Politics. Brett D. Hirsch, ed. Cambridge: UK, OpenBook Publishers, 2012.

This chapter looks at what is termed ‘first year writing courses’ (akin to English language), at US universities, which are compulsory at most institutions unless students gain exemption through high SAT scores. These courses teach students how to write for university level assessment, but have little time to teach more than composition; content is sacrificed, and even more than that, analysis of content is left out entirely. In the modern digital age, the author asks, should digital communication not be the centre of such a course? This chapter then details a brief history of the movement from the 1990s onwards, to teach students to become involved with the production of digital literature, not merely a consumer. He details that there is now no space for separation of the Digital from the Humanities, if such first year writing courses to be taught effectively and efficiently. Universities need to overcome the limiting factors of the technical knowledge (or lack thereof) of 1^st year UG students and instructors, the limiting time frame of these writing courses, and the availability (or again, lack thereof) of digital writing hardware and software. The author subsequently details theories and then examples of how computers can be exploited to update first year writing courses, and make them more relevant to the students’ wider tertiary educational experience. This includes the combination of qualitative and quantitative writing display and analysis: skills that students could transfer easily to other modules. Examples of projects and assignments are then detailed, mostly with an English Literature flavour. Getting students to engage with texts as data, not just words, provided deeper understanding opportunities, then looking at composition alone. The chapter concludes that using DH techniques and tools to teach such courses is a far superior way to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Though (as of 2012), funding for full uptake of using DH methods has not been as widespread as the author desires.

Digital Humanities Quarterly. 6.1 (2012).

DH is by its nature an interdisciplinary field, with researchers arriving from many diverse disciplines. The author defines DH as “the application and development of computational methods and associated tools to address research problems within the humanities”. Bellamy uses this article to convey his thoughts on how the skills of digital tools should be taught as ‘hard-interdisciplinarity’. Though the task may not be easy, the results of forging new research partnerships and uncovering new lines of investigation to problems within the humanities, makes the formulation of formal teaching methods infinity worthwhile. Bellamy argues that digital tools should not just be provided or made available to researcher in the humanities; but that those in the humanities should be involved in the developmental process. This could especially benefit students in the humanities, who may come to appreciate how knowledge, tools and teaching came to be; rather than just being passive observer-consumers in the classroom. Bellamy then discusses how the DH scholarly community should be collaboratively working to create interpretive frameworks to make sense of newly formed databases and digital libraries. Examples of projects where this occurred successfully are listed and detailed within the article. The article concludes that interdiscipliarity, much like computer technology and digital tools, need not anymore be learned “the hard way” – through necessity of piecemeal trial and error. Rather the students in an HE environment can now be taught DH as a discipline in its own rights and the area is now suitably advanced that the underlying decision making processes can be critiqued, not just teaching of the basic knowledge of how to work the tools adequately.