Calling all Digital Citizens: I invite all members of the OU community and the Interlink Alliance to consider the literacies that our students and citizens will need, now, and in their future careers. I invite all to follow
the link to the list, and leave comments and suggestions.
The Ohio University Faculty Technology Advisory Group will be discussing digital literacy for students and faculty members during Fall Semester of 2012. Although this is just one of many topics on the FTAG agenda, digital literacy and digital citizenship are increasingly salient issues in contemporary higher education, and are areas where OU has yet to show coordinated leadership. Our first conversation is Oct 5th, and in preparation I have listed a range of potential topics for brief instruction web videos. I, and hopefully others, will begin producing these videos for the benefit of faculty and students everywhere.
Inspiration: Howard Rheingold recently published "
Net Smart" as a manual and manifesto for the cultivation of digital literacies.
He speaks convincingly of the individual and collective need for all citizens to become digital citizens and to learn to swim in the deep end of the internet. The skills that digital citizens require involve managing one's own attention, cultivating skills for finding and critically evaluating information, and learning how and where to share, cooperate and collaborate. The skills that our students will need to succeed are also skills that will help the faculty develop and continue to learn. However, faculty and students will only adopt tools that help them solve their problems. Therefore this blog is an effort to inspire and motivate learning by demonstrating how digital tools can make our work easier and more effective.
Join a learning community: There are many learning communities for educators. I invite you to
join me in a Google+ circle for sharing and discussion of ideas and resources for digital literacy and digital citizenship.
