Friday, November 4
Watch all the recordings in the Digital Literacy in Post Secondary Education Playlist or select the session titles below to view individual recordings.
| Time | Session |
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| 8:00 – 9:00 | DS106 Radio – Soft open – grab a coffee |
| 9:00 – 9:10 | Kick off and Land acknowledgement |
| 9:10 – 9:30 | Ben Ferrel & Tess Syrowik | AEST Digital Learning Strategy Overview |
The Digital Learning Advisory Committee (initiated by BC’s post-secondary system and the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training) has produced a draft of their Digital Learning Strategy. We will take the opportunity to introduce the Digital Literacy Framework Appendix within this document to the ETUG community and invite discussion.
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| 15 minute break | |
| 9:40 – 10:25 | Luke McKnight, Briana Fraser | Langara’s Assistive Technologist Project: An Un-siloed Approach to Improving Digital Literacy Across the Institution |
| Langara’s Assistive Technologist project was developed to support students using assistive technology and to develop resources for creating accessible content. Awareness of digital accessibility has greatly increased since the shift to online learning during COVID-19. Continued hybrid, hyflex, and online learning–and the new Accessible BC Act–mean that creating accessible digital content and ensuring equal access are key concerns for post-secondary institutions. This presents an opportunity to engage students and staff in learning about accessibility, while also increasing basic digital literacy. As the project evolved, the siloed nature of available technical support revealed an obvious barrier to teaching accessibility best practices and increasing digital literacy. This presentation will focus on two products of the Assistive Technologist project: a Pressbook and a Brightspace course. These resources were built with no assumptions about users’ existing digital skills and intended for any audience. We believe this approach is key to creating a base level of digital literacy and understanding of digital accessibility and assistive technology.
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| 20 minute break | |
| 10:45 – 11:30 | Alissa Bigelow, Siri Gauthier | “Extend” your Digital Fluency Toolkit with Ontario Extend |
| Ontario Extend is a professional learning micro-credential grounded in the belief that the impact of learning should be the primary motivator for creating technology-enabled and online learning experiences. It aims to empower educators to explore a range of emerging technologies and pedagogical practices for effective online and technology-enabled teaching and learning. The Ontario Extend program is designed to explore key skills and knowledge to extend and transform our teaching and learning, contribute to the digital fluency of educators and support digital tool selection using evidence-based research. This fall we are offering all six Extend modules as facilitated courses with optional synchronous drop-in sessions delivered in the Brightspace Learning Management System and you are invited to join the community of over 1200 postsecondary educators in Ontario! This session will provide participants with an overview of the Ontario Extend program, offer a peek inside the learning environment, engage in a module activity or two to get started and discuss how to become an Ontario Extender this semester!
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| 15 minute break | |
| 11:45 – 12:05 | Jamie Drozda | Why Incorporate Accessible Practice into your Classroom? |
Since March 2020 most instructors have adapted their classroom to accommodate remote learning and now you are likely finding a new routine transitioning back to the classroom. While change is taking place, why not incorporate accessible and inclusive practice into your classroom? I recognize that incorporating accessible and inclusive practice techniques in your classroom can seem like a daunting task. When there are no accessibility requests it may seem onerous to design your course in an accommodating and inclusive way, but I assure you there are more needs in your classroom than you know. Many students choose not to disclose their disability because they do not want to be “outed” as having a disability or be seen as given an unfair advantage over the rest of the class. Although you do not know what specific accommodations need to be made, there are many practices you can use to create a more accessible and inclusive classroom. In this short talk I will discuss my story, I will also share some simple tips and techniques to help make your face-to-face, online or hybrid classroom more inviting for all.
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| 12:05 – 1:00 | Lunch |
| 1:00 – 1:50 | Tracy Roberts, Clint Lalonde, Helena Prins, Gwen Nguyen, Leva Lee, Britt Dzioba, Selena McGinnis | Development of a Digital Literacy Open Education Resource at BCcampus |
BCcampus will present on our journey towards the development of a Digital Literacy Open Education Resource Repository, aimed at educators in the BC PSI system, and based on the eight competencies outlined in the AEST Digital Learning Strategy (Consultation Draft, pp. 20-31). We will address what this project is, how it came about, and what we expect to achieve. We will also demonstrate how BCcampus takes the lead to support instructors in the process of integrating digital literacy knowledge, skills, and abilities into their courses. Finally, we would like to invite participants to ask their questions, and to share what Digital Literacy materials are housed at their institutions, which may be a strong fit for the repository.
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| 10 minute break | |
| 2:00 – 2:20 | Marta Samokishyn | Algorithmic literacy: the role of academic libraries in creating metaliterate learners |
| With the recently defining role of information literacy as metaliteracy, relatively new literacies, such as media literacy, digital and cyber literacy, and visual literacy have become an integral part of information literacy education in academic libraries. As a result, the focus in higher education information literacy programs has gradually shifted to creating a “metaliterate learner” (Gersch et al., 2016). However, as algorithms are becoming an integral part of our socio-digital eco-system, there is an urgent need to address the issue of algorithmic literacy and its role in information literacy education (Head et al., 2020). This presentation, thus, will attempt to respond to this challenge, especially in the light of the recognition that information literacy, and by extension other forms of literacies, including digital and algorithmic literacies education, is social responsibility and a human right (Sauders, 2017). According to Ridley and Pawlick-Potts (2021), information literacy education can be “instrumental in raising awareness” about algorithms and educating and fostering informed citizens and human agency (p. 7). The sense of agency, critical thinking, and recognition of bias are critical to the issues of algorithmic literacy, as they can empower the user to exercise control over the information search processes and understand the essential elements of how algorithms work (Shin et al., 2021). The presenter will address the issue of algorithmic literacy in post-secondary institutions in Canada and will reflect on the role of libraries in fostering qualitative change in learners concerning critical views of algorithms. This project is supported by the BCcampus Research Fellows Program, which provides BC postsecondary educators and students with funding to conduct small-scale research on teaching and learning, as well as explore evidence-based teaching practices that focus on student success and learning.
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| 10 minute break | |
| 2:30 – 2:50 | Jamie Drozda | Let’s Play – Twine! |
What is Twine? Twine is an online tool that allows you to make text-based games, these games end up being a lot like the Choose your own adventure books of yore. Why would you be interested in Twine? Twine is free and extremely accessible. If you know a bit of html and/or css you can amp up the experience but if you do not know any coding you’ll be just fine! It takes about 15 – 30 minutes to get a good grasp of Twine’s basic functionality. Another reason you may want to use Twine is you want to flex your storytelling muscles or you want your students to flex their storytelling muscles! Storytelling can capture everyday examples of practice and turn them into an opportunity to learn.
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| 20 minute break | |
| 3:10 – 3:55 | Alexandra Kuskowski, Lucas Wright, Rie Namba, Eden Solarik | Shaping Online Identities: Creative ways to build students’ self-efficacy |
| While students live in a world where sharing many aspects of their lives is a way to find fulfillment and connection, they are also facing increased scrutiny and surveillance from employers and peers. A post, a tweet, or a BeReal might derail not only their personal life but their professional one as well. As university educators and staff, how are we helping students to navigate this space? And how can we build students’ digital identity while keeping them engaged and motivated? This interactive session will look at the importance of these questions and go further into building student confidence around digital identity decision-making using the AEST Digital Learning Strategy competencies and self-efficacy as a framework. Attendees in this session will learn about how to apply classroom tested activities and resources that create space for a variety of complex digital identity discussions using a collaborative, human-centered approach. It will also touch on how and why incorporating supportive learning spaces for mental health and wellbeing is central to students’ conception of digital identity. Finally, together, attendees and presenters will collaboratively build practices to help students navigate social media, digital presence, digital privacy. This session is facilitated by the Digital Tattoo Project team (digitaltattoo.ubc.ca), a cross-institutional students-as partners collaborative venture between UBC Library, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, UBC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology, and the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology (ICCIT), and the University of Toronto. We seek to engage students and community members in the evolving and on-going conversations about online identity through flexible sustainable open education materials.
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| 15 minute break | |
| 4:10 – 4:20 | Final thoughts, close and thanks |