Education 2.0 & 3.0

I''m currently writing several short online courses for educators, and I've just published the second module in my online series about digital learning. It focuses on digital competencies and literacies and takes under an hour to complete.

I've written about digital literacies in previous publications, because I consider them vital for the success of any technology supported learning ventures. I believe that unless we develop appropriate digital literacies, we will be less able to exploit the power and unlock the potential of new and emerging technologies in education.

Here are a few links to previous posts:

What digital literacies?
Crossing the divide: Transliteracy
Digital literacies in the age of remix
Digital readiness

The Essential Fluencies are a solid foundation for effective modern learning. They cover all the bases of the skills students need for success beyond school. Developing these Fluencies in our students is a critical thinking journey in itself. That’s why you’ll find good questions at the heart of Essential Fluencies development.

Every stage of every Fluency asks us to think deeply and critically, and their embedded skills and abilities are about stretching thought and imagination. By asking good exploratory questions, students learn the essence of each Fluency and its phases. That’s what the following lists are meant to give you and your students.

Talk to: Information Futures, Post Graduate Students at Manchester Metropolitan University, 26 March 2014

The following is based on my doctoral thesis, my experience as Web Literacy Lead at the Mozilla Foundation, and the work that I’ve done as an independent consultant, identifying, developing, and credentialing digital skills and literacies.

Key Takeaways
New digital tools and platforms create opportunities in pedagogy, but they also result in deployment of under-tested digital tools in classroom instruction, which raises questions and challenges for educators.
A collaborative project between a media studies professor and a digital humanities librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sought to address these challenges by developing digital pedagogy practices.
As the two case studies described here show, these practices can foster an environment of interdisciplinary, collaborative student engagement with new tools; openly acknowledge the digital tools' experimental states; and encourage playful student tinkering with the tools, even when they appear simple or familiar.

Slides to accompany a keynote presentation from the London College of Fashion's 2015 annual conference. #attainlcf