Digital Capabilities and the state of the nation

My University has just initiated a Digital Capabilities Project which I am jointly managing. Our work is being influenced and to some extent shaped by the work JISC is undertaking (see https://www.jisc.ac.uk/rd/projects/building-digital-capability) and also activities by complimentary organisations such as UCISA (see their Digital Capabilities Survey). In an e-nutshell, digital capabilities focuses on the specific digital knowledge and skills individuals should have to capably interact with their social, work and learning environments. This is needs driven and bespoke, unlike digital literacies which focuses more on general IT skills. For example somebody may have a general knowledge of MS Word but they may need to know more about how to efficiently produce long documents. So instead of taking an advanced Word course they may just undertake some self development, such as watching an online tutorial on YouTube to acquire this specific skill.

JISC's project started 2 years ago although they have been involved in research in this area for many years. However, I was undertaking a little bit of surf researching on gender and capabilities and was interested to find that the BBC were early promoters of the term "digital literacies". This is evident in one of their archived web sites About BBC Learning,  where there is a link was to an IPSOS MORI report commissioned in 2012 Understanding Media Literacy: Digital Capabilities (unfortunately it does not link to whole report). Much of the research on digital capabilities has focused on staff and student skills in the education sector but this report looks at the state of the nation.

The study found that although there was a desire by individuals to learn about new technologies increasing the confidence of those with low literacy was a considerable challenge. The research also identified barriers such as fears about security, cost, speed and even screen size. Mostly those that used the internet were content with what they knew seeing little need to know more but paradoxically the study found that users also felt they needed upskilling, because they were concerned with being left behind.   For women and older people an obstacle was worrying about losing their work on their own devices, this may have changed over the last couple of years with increased ownership of tablets (see my previous blog My hair is silver and I surf but don't call me a silver surfer). For those with low level digital literacy skills learning from others was really important, for those with higher literacy skills a range of methods was used to develop their knowledge, such as YouTube and Google.

Despite this report being a couple of years old and even taking into account the developing mobile market I think some the observations are still relevant and could inform some of the approaches we are using to develop digital capabilities. Not only should we think about the context and the digital need, we should also focus on learning styles. The reports identifies 7 internet population segments, from "hi-techtrend setter" to  "concerned resistor", a framework that could still be relevant in the in particular when identifying approaches to developing skills.

RAM

Ram, no not the Paul McCartney album but Random Access Memory.  We have recently purchased a new PC tower, the one we had was 10 years old, its operating system was Vista, remember Vista the sandwich filling between XP and 7. We decided not to upload XP at the time (as recommended by my colleagues) partly because of the hassle and partly because we were a bit fearful. It was not long after this that my boss at my appraisal took me by surprise by saying you seem to be a bit fearful of technology.   It was the early days of my elearning development career, I recall feeling a little bit embarrassed by her remark like I had been found out.  Ironically, in my pre-elearning librarianship days colleagues had thought I was a bit of techie, it's interesting how that perception can change by just side-stepping into another professional group/silo, what had changed?.

Going back to my old PC it had served us well, despite occasional hiccups, where we had to rollback, come up with techniques to stop it hanging and replace the fan.  The PC got slower and slower as we continued to fill its 1 GB RAM and 300 GB memory with the useful and not so useful stuff, so hence the necessity to go for a newer model with more RAM, this time 8 GB RAM  and memory, 1 TB. Over the 10 years I would say my technical knowledge has upgraded I know that RAM is really important for resource hungry applications and that a faster processor and a larger hard drive can also help, but I think I knew that 10 years ago.  I do think the memory of my boss commenting about my fear of technology has distorted my memory of what I did actually know about technology at the time. I do remember that we when we purchased the PC in 2005 we did not do it buy it blindly. We did our research and we did not buy the cheapest model on the block, even back then RAM and the processor were major considerations.

Looking at this from a feminist perspective when I moved into eLearning development I did feel a little undermined by the technical knowledge of my male counterparts, you definitely notice the skewed gender representation of elearning compared with librarianship is you attend any of their conferences. My boss's comment may have been illustrative of  how I was feeling within this context, although I never explored it with her, she may have also had an ulterior motive to make me face up to my fear and have confidence in my own abilities, after all she was a female boss.   According to Hirsch and Smith (2002) memories are bound up with issues of power and hegemony and gender. So why does the memory stay with me? Feminist and memory studies argue Hirsch and Smith presuppose that the present is defined by a past that is constructed and contested, that we study the past to meet the needs of the present.  I possibly hold onto this memory partly because I can use it as a narrative that I can recall to reassure others who also feel like imposters that they are not alone with their fear. It also acts a reflexive anchor to see where I am now in comparison to where I was then with respect to my relationship with technology.

Memory is not as a store, but a plurality of interrelated functions, a complex network of activities and the past is constantly selected, filtered and restructured in terms set by the questions and necessities of the present, at both the individual and the social levels (Jedlowski 2001, p.30) . So maybe a computer's RAM is not so different to our own random access memory.

References
Hirsch, Marianne, et al. "GENDER AND CULTURAL MEMORY SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS." Signs 28.1 (2002).
Article DOI: 10.1086/340890 Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/340890

Jedlowski, Paolo. "Memory and Sociology Themes and Issues." Time & Society 10, no. 1 (2001): 29-44.https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2006/SOC406/um/Memory_and_sociology.pdf

Seeing the wood for the trees - eLearning Design can we learn from MOOCS?

So far I have completed 3 MOOCS, 2 via Coursera, "E-learning and Digital Cultures" (University of Edinburgh) and "Surviving Disruptive Technologies" (University of Maryland) and 1 via Futurelearn, "Climate Change" (University of Exeter).  I have also dipped into quite a few other courses on both platforms and have had more than a passing glance at Udacity and the Saylor Academy.

Putting the content to one side and focusing on the design I have been impressed by the clear simplicity of both Futurelearn and Coursera. Futurelearn's Why it Works section very clearly explains its teaching strategy, it says that every course has been designed using the principles of effective learning design "through storytelling, discussion, visible learning, and using community support to celebrate progress."  Given that the partners include universities with considerable experience of online learning one being the UK's Open University you would certainly expect collaboratively they could produce a sound product. Coursera also has a very similar About section which gives an overview of Bloom's mastery learning, courses are also delivered by some very experienced institutions, However, history has shown that experienced elearning partner collaborations do not always guarantee success, look at the failure of the UK e.University in the early 00s - for more about this I recommend The Real Story Behind the Failure of the UK e.University.

Donald Clarke in his blog  Futurelearn 4 pluses and 4 minuses , argues that Futurelearn's strengths are its constructivist learning and peer review.  However the minuses for him are, the lack of openness about finances, the unnecessary and expensive resource of the BBC and the infrequency of the courses. This post was written in 2014, his final criticism was the the dullness of Futurelearn's design, but I think that this may have improved over the last year, although there is always room for improvement.

Possibly focusing less on the learning platform and more on the elearning design has resulted in Futurelearn and Coursera, succeeding where the UKeU failed (although neither learning platform is a budget option see another blog by Clark MOOCs Platforms: a primer). Both platforms deliver very similar approaches to course design, videos, supporting material, integrated discussions, small scale assessment. In both cases I would argue their simplicity is their strength  however, if a linear approach to learning is not your thing a MOOC may not be for you . Personally I think VLEs are somewhat expensive overly engineered tools that contain too many features but they do provide a safe learning and teaching assessment environment for students. Chris Havergal's THES article Lacklustre Virtual Learning Environments Need a 21st Century Boost on a recent technology themed Westminster Higher Education forum reported on the criticisms by some attendees of poor institutional use of the VLE, Nevertheless I would argue that best practice elearning is not always evidenced by those teachers who use every tool in the box, as this can be extremely confusing to students, it always was and always is evidenced by good clear coherent design.  To learn how to deliver a sound learning experience teaching staff may find dipping into a MOOC a useful experience as most elements of a MOOC course can be replicated in a VLE and the content does not always need to be created from scratch as there is excellent content available that can be curated, as Edinburgh's E-learning and Digital Culture's MOOC has evidenced.

UKSG Webinar UKSG Webinar Getting the rights right – or when policies collide

For my blog on the recent UKSG Webinar "Getting the rights right – or when policies collide" visit Staffordshire University's ASK Blog https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/askteam/2015/05/27/uksg-webinar-getting-the-rights-right-or-when-policies-collide/. The webinar took placeon 19th May and the presenter was by Bill Hubbard and focused on Open Access polices. The slides can be found at http://www.uksg.org/webinars/oapolicies

My hair is silver and I surf but don't call me a silver surfer

I thought I would write a post on technology and older people. The driver for this was a small row between my mum and dad after Christmas this year. For Christmas me an my siblings bought a tablet for my mum and dad, they were already a one laptop couple but it was mainly used by my dad as it was his retirement present.  We wanted to encourage my mum to use the internet more, in particular Facebook, as she has family and friends far and wide in this country and beyond, and Facebook has become the communication tool of choice. However, things did not quite turn out as we planned. Both of my parents are big readers but unfortunately or fortunately the kindle app was loaded onto the tablet and my dad found out how to use it first, creating a bespoke library dad appropriated the tablet much to the annoyance of my mother. The outcome of their run-in was that my dad was forced to by his own tablet and my mum took possession of the Christmas present go mum! - At this point I should add that they will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary next year, as a two tablet couple.

This is where it really turns into mum's story and mum's relationship with Facebook. My mum likes to see what is going on and in particular the pictures people post but she does not like the dross that interlaces these. Attempting to explain how to post as well as like, how to block the unnecessary dreg posts still remains quite complicated for everyone not just my mum.  Making it more straightforward for us all lies in the hands of Facebook developers and they never quite get there. My mum is a little bit timid about internet technology in general but I am convinced she will become more confident with use, already she is posting compelling responses and I think having her own device will make a difference.

As for my dad, well he was already digitally more advanced,  he is a voracious writer and has had a computer since the late 90s. He carried all his favourite music on his laptop when he first visited my sister in the states. He loves the fact he can order rare theology books from obscure bookshops in New York. And has started to get interested in MOOCs, a yeh there for my dad!

So could my dad or even my mum be described as a silver surfer. I did a bit of a search for literature on digital literacy, technology and older/elderly people - those actual keywords and in the end got some of the most relevant results by using the phrase "silver surfer". One of the articles I found was Choudrie and Vyas's interesting study  "Silver surfers adopting and using Facebook? A quantitative study of Hertfordshire  applied to organizational and social change". This research found that older people adopt technologies when when there is a fast and reliable internet connection and when support is available, from experience I would also add having your own device makes a difference. Additionally they observed that older users had concerns about privacy, and this is certainly the case with my parents who have often queried who can see the information posted on Facebook.  The study also discovered that men were more motivated to use Online Social Networking, however this does not seem to reflect what I have seen with my family and friends where the women are more active on Facebook than the men, although I am well aware these are only observations and this is a small insignificant sample.

Choudrie and Vyas do not go into a great deal of depth with respect to defining silver surfers. They refer to NetLingo (2012) (that provides a definition that is also upheld by Wikipedia), as net users who are 50 years plus which according to Choudrie and Vyas relates to geriatric research where 50 is the cut off point where the decline in performance begins (Albert and Heaton 1988).  Although the etymology of silver surfer is positive, the increased use of the internet by older people, I take issue with the creation and use of the phrase to define the digital capabilities of a particular age group and like the phrase digital natives it is not helpful. I think the term silver surfer is a far too convenient and easy way to categorise. For example, in two years time I will be a silver surfer but I don't predict that my internet usage will miraculously change when I turn 50, it is already an integral part of my work and life. I would argue that its not about age its about emersion, access to technology has major impact on your digital capability regardless of age, case in point my mum and dad. As over population of overs 50s increases, and technology becomes more pervasive in people's lives, I think research should focus on social and cultural aspects as well as gerontology.

Choudrie, Jyoti, and Amit Vyas. "Silver surfers adopting and using Facebook? A quantitative study of Hertfordshire, UK applied to organizational and social change." Technological Forecasting and Social Change 89 (2014): 293-305.

Meeting the Reading List Challenge

My blog about Meeting the Reading List Challenge event at Loughborough University can be found at https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/askteam/2015/04/29/meeting-the-reading-list-challenge/ Better late than never!

Teachmeet Resource Discovery: Enhancing the User Experience Staffordshire University

On the 19th March Staffordshire University's Academic Skills Know-how Team hosted a CILIP sponsored Teachmeet Event. The focus of the event was on resource discovery and the user experience and the presentations and the activities addressed this theme.. My blog on the event can be found at https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/askteam/2015/04/01/teachmeet-resource-discovery-enhancing-the-user-experience/