A Review of the "Digital Turn" in the New Literacy Studies

Digital communication has transformed literacy practices and assumed great importance in the functioning of workplace, recreational, and community contexts. This article reviews a decade of empirical work of the New Literacy Studies, identifying the shift toward research of digital literacy applications. The article engages with the central theoretical, methodological, and pragmatic challenges in the tradition of New Literacy Studies, while highlighting the distinctive trends in the digital strand. It identifies common patterns across new literacy practices through cross-comparisons of ethnographic research in digital media environments. It examines ways in which this research is taking into account power and pedagogy in normative contexts of literacy learning using the new media. Recommendations are given to strengthen the links between New Literacy Studies research and literacy curriculum, assessment, and accountability in the 21st century

Design Fiction Diegetic Prototyping: A Research Framework for Visualizing Service Innovations

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Purpose: This paper presents a design fiction diegetic prototyping methodology and research framework for investigating service innovations that reflect future uses of new and emerging technologies. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on speculative fiction, we propose a methodology that positions service innovations within a six-stage research development framework. We begin by reviewing and critiquing designerly approaches that have traditionally been associated with service innovations and futures literature. In presenting our framework, we provide an example of its application to the Internet of Things (IoT), illustrating the central tenets proposed and key issues identified. Findings: The research framework advances a methodology for visualizing future experiential service innovations, considering how realism may be integrated into a designerly approach. Research limitations/implications: Design fiction diegetic prototyping enables researchers to express a range of ‘what if’ or ‘what can it be’ research questions within service innovation contexts. However, the process encompasses degrees of subjectivity and relies on knowledge, judgment and projection. Practical implications: The paper presents an approach to devising future service scenarios incorporating new and emergent technologies in service contexts. The proposed framework may be used as part of a range of research designs, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed method investigations. Originality: Operationalizing an approach that generates and visualizes service futures from an experiential perspective contributes to the advancement of techniques that enables the exploration of new possibilities for service innovation research

A Pedagogy for Original Synners

Part of the Volume on Digital Young, Innovation, and the UnexpectedThis essay begins by speculating about the learning environment of the class of 2020. It takes place entirely in a virtual world, populated by simulated avatars, managed through the pedagogy of gaming. Based on this projected version of a future-now-in-formation, the authors consider the implications of the current paradigm shift that is happening at the edges of institutions of higher education. From the development of programs in multimedia literacy to the focus on the creation of hybrid learning spaces (that combine the use of virtual worlds, social networking applications, and classroom activities), the scene of learning as well as the subjects of education are changing. The figure of the Original Synner is a projection of the student-of-the-future whose foundational literacy is grounded in their ability to synthesize information from multiple information streams

Digital literacy

While digital literacy may be understood and defined differently within disciplines, the concept is primarily about literacies rather than digital technologies or digital competence. Digital literacy involves finding, using and disseminating information in a digital world. Digital Literacy underpins teaching and research, regardless of discipline, and is an essential graduate skill for effective participation in employment and all aspects of life. Building on all Deakin Graduate Attributes, digital literacy already has a good foundation in many unit curricula, with many academic staff modelling aspects of this literacy both in their teaching and their research practice

Using the multiliteracies approach to promote English literacy in higher education / Sarjit Kaur and Gurnam Kaur Sidhu

Higher education teachers who teach English proficiency courses to undergraduates often make the assumption that if learners work hard on content taught to them, they would have acquired literacy in all aspects relating to the language. Do learners’ abilities to read well or write well in English depend on their context? To discern the appropriate path for their learners, higher education teachers must be knowledgeable about “language and literacy, be adept at seeking and critically evaluating information and be able to relate these understandings to their daily working knowledge of their learners” (Heydon, Hibbert & Iannaci, 2005: 312). Many definitions of the term ‘literacy’ seem to focus too much on skill to the exclusion of will (Padak & Bardine, 2004). The concepts of promoting ‘engaged learners’ and ‘literacy empowerment’ in higher education contexts should incorporate some of the following aspects: motivation, strategies, knowledge and social interaction. This paper discusses the design and framework of the Multiliteracies Approach advocated by The New London Group and argues that it is a viable teaching strategy that embraces literacy abilities, literacy choices and attitudes. Additionally, it recognizes that meaningful learning can take place if there is bridging between theory and practice

The wicked problem of climate change and the challenge of engagement: Exploring educational approaches and possibilities for information literacy

Climate change is a prime example of a “wicked problem”: it is characterized by complexity and unboundedness and has no complete or simple solutions, though communities can develop constructive interventions that address particular aspects of the problem (for example, in cities increasing green spaces that have a cooling effect). Because the problem of climate change is so expansive and the answers to it remain limited in scope and impact, engaging with the topic inevitably evokes difficult emotions like uncertainty, overwhelm, despair, and grief. So it is understandable that a common response to the realities of climate change has been denial and disengagement. But an increasing number of people are looking honestly at the difficult realities of climate change and (re)imagining ways to build futures centered on community and care, including in the realm of education. Of particular relevance to librarians, wicked problems like climate change make evident the incredible complexity of information behaviors and the need to explore new approaches to information literacy in the face of messy challenges. As librarian Alex Hewitt convincingly argues, climate change and the related experience of ecological grief reflect the importance of attending more fully to the affective dimensions of information behaviors and information literacy (see their 2022 article “What role can affect and emotion play in academic and research information literacy practices?”). Beyond librarianship, many teachers and scholars engaged with climate change education also stress the importance of recognizing and normalizing the affective dimensions of learning about it and developing responses to it. Many of these individuals explore constructive ways within learning environments to build community and to allow space for complex and sometimes conflicting emotions like grief and hope. Much of this pedagogical work draws on areas of inquiry such as: 1) transformative learning, according to which learners who face “disorienting dilemmas” undergo a process of perspective transformation; 2) “radical futurity,” which explores how different imaginings of the future can affect the present (see Barrineau et al., 2022. Emergentist education and the opportunities of radical futurity ); and 3) an ethics of care that centers community and interrelatedness. This presentation will introduce scholarship on the intersections of wicked problems, climate change education, and affect, and will explore potential implications of such work for information literacy education. The presenter will give particular attention to different forms and experiences of grief and hope and their relationship to (dis)engagement with information about wicked problems like climate change

The Mundane Computer: Non-Technical Design Challenges Facing Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence

Interdisciplinary collaboration, to include those who are not natural scientists, engineers and computer scientists, is inherent in the idea of ubiquitous computing, as formulated by Mark Weiser in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, ubiquitous computing has remained largely a computer science and engineering concept, and its non-technical side remains relatively underdeveloped. The aim of the article is, first, to clarify the kind of interdisciplinary collaboration envisaged by Weiser. Second, the difficulties of understanding the everyday and weaving ubiquitous technologies into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it, as conceived by Weiser, are explored. The contributions of Anne Galloway, Paul Dourish and Philip Agre to creating an understanding of everyday life relevant to the development of ubiquitous computing are discussed, focusing on the notions of performative practice, embodied interaction and contextualisation. Third, it is argued that with the shift to the notion of ambient intelligence, the larger scale socio-economic and socio-political dimensions of context become more explicit, in contrast to the focus on the smaller scale anthropological study of social (mainly workplace) practices inherent in the concept of ubiquitous computing. This can be seen in the adoption of the concept of ambient intelligence within the European Union and in the focus on rebalancing (personal) privacy protection and (state) security in the wake of 11 September 2001. Fourth, the importance of adopting a futures-oriented approach to discussing the issues arising from the notions of ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence is stressed, while the difficulty of trying to achieve societal foresight is acknowledged