Digital Poverty

ETL533 Assessment 4: Part D – Critical Reflection

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My understanding of digital literature has grown significantly over the last few months. From my early definitions to the creation of my own narrative, I’ve gained a solid understanding of what digital literature is, why it’s beneficial and how it can be implemented to support my school.

My preliminary definitions of digital literature focused on the distinction between the digital and the digitised (Lysaught, 2022, July 19; Lysaught, 2022, July 25). As my research progressed I consolidated these distinctions by combining Unsworth’s (2006, p.2-3) and Allan’s (2017, p.22-23) categories (Lysaught, 2022, August 7). Like my peers (Curtis, 2022, July 19), I believe digital literature should be quality and meet community needs, which led me to consider what makes quality digital literature (Lysaught, 2022, August 14) and to design my own evaluation criteria where I determined three key aspects: multimodality, interactivity, and connectivity (Lysaught, 2022, August 28). Self-evaluations and peer feedback reveals – despite the amateur multimodal features – mine’s an effective, quality text suitable for its intended purpose and audience:

Evaluation of The Shakespeare Chronicles

However, defining digital literature is arguably less important to teacher-librarians than understanding how to incorporate it effectively. Digital literature provides exciting opportunities to move students from passive consumers to active creators of content  (Morra, 2013, para.2; Kitson, 2017, p.66), and as new technologies and communication tools emerge, students require new literacies to ensure they’re critically consuming and ethically creating texts (Walker et al., 2010, p.214-216; Kearney, 2011, p.169; Leu, 2011, p.6-8; Mills & Levido, 2011, p.80-81, 89; Leu et al., 2015, p.139-140; Serafini et al., 2015, p.23; Combes, 2016, p.4). In 2009 students spent an average four hours a day online (Weigel, 2009, p.38); by 2015 US teens consumed between 6-9 hours of media a day (Common Sense Media, 2015, para.6), while Australian teens now spend an average of 14.4 hours a week online (eSafety Commissioner, 2021, p.4). Digital literature therefore harnesses our students’ preferences and familiarity with technological platforms (Figueiredo & Bidarra, 2015, p.323; Skaines, 2010, p.100-104; Stepanic, 2022, p.2; Weigel, 2009, P.38). Digital literature incorporating interactivity, multimodality, and connectivity can develop ‘nöogenic narratives’ wherein personal growth is achieved by viewing our lives as a story (Hall, 2012, p.97), a key element of the English syllabus (NSW Standards Authority, 2019, p.10). Research shows that educators can exploit digital narratives to create meaningful and authentic learning opportunities for students to create personal and academic growth (Bjørgen, 2010, p.171-172; Dockter et al., 2010, p.419; Hall, 2012, p.99; Reid, 2013, p.38-41; Smeda et al., 2014, p.19; Sukovic, 2014, p.222-226).

However, educators must carefully consider the purpose of integrating digital narratives into their programmes. While research reveals digital texts’ benefits supporting young, emerging, or struggling readers and developing transliteracy (Tackvic, 2012, p.428; Cahill & McGill-Franzen, 2013, p.32-33; Matthews, 2014, p.29; McGeehan et al., 2018, p.58), others raise issues regarding reading comprehension, retention, and attention (Cull, 2011, para.35-38; Goodwin, 2013, p.79; Jabr, 2013, p.5-30; McGuire, 2015, para.30-35). Technology should be used as a meaningful tool, not just as a gimmick. Monsen (2016) explored the idea that we are “quintessentially cyborgs” due to the symbiotic relationship between humanity and technology. My research into digital learning frameworks such as the SAMR model (Lysaught, 2022, August 6) revealed that effective implementation of technology should not replace, but co-exist with and supplement existing print literacies. Printed choose-your-own-adventure narratives arguably improve literacy (Chooseco & Hofmann, 2016, para. 8-9) and can be updated using digital features to form powerful digital texts (Farber, 2015, para.1-2). Thus, my own digital narrative was designed as an immersive, interactive, multimodal resource to develop students’ understanding of life in Shakespearean England while supplementing traditional print resources and online information sources.

Throughout ETL533 I have examined how I currently incorporate digital literature into our school and considered ways to increase this in future (Lysaught, 2022, July 31; Lysaught, 2022, August 7; Lysaught, 2022, August 13). As discussed with my peers (Macey, 2022, September 24; Barnett, 2022, September 27; Facey, 2022, September 29) difficulties arise surrounding cost-effectiveness, storage, access, and user preferences that often impede digital literature’s success in schools. Despite these challenges, after creating my own digital narrative I strongly believe that student-created digital texts can enhance their own learning and connections to content, and integrate well with Guided Inquiry units and literary learning (Lysaught, 2022, January 27; Lysaught, 2022, August 14; Lysaught, 2022, September 3; Lysaught, 2022, September 16). Peer feedback also supports this (Lysaught, 2022, September 3). Due to this unit I am more aware of my students’ discussions around digital literature (Lysaught, 2022, July 25; Lysaught, 2022, August 28), revealing these are powerful texts with which students are already engaging. Literature in digital environments allows teacher-librarians to show our value to our school community, as we can support time-poor staff as they include more captivating, rich resources and utilise digital narratives to support our students with various interests and literacy needs.

 

 

Word count: 806

Reference list: https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/allyoureadislove/2022/10/04/etl533-assessment-4-reference-list/

ETL533 2.1: Literature in the classroom

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Think about your own journey as an educator – what has changed in your teaching practice over the course of your career with regards to technology use and literature? Is that change embedded at a core level, or is it a matter of changing tools?

As I completed the readings for this topic, I was struck by how many of the websites, tools or apps discussed by the authors are now superseded or simply unavailable. Adobe Flash, for instance, was an interesting tool with potential that is no longer supported, causing many of my early teaching resources to be redundant. 

We’ve also moved from the 1:1 device arrangement made possible by the Digital Education Revolution funding to banks of devices which consist of outdated and slow technology to be shared among classes. At the start of my career in 2011 we were excited by the possibility of these 1:1 devices which, although not without their own challenges (such as student distraction and technical difficulties), allowed teachers to broaden their lessons beyond the traditional written page. We spent a lot of time reconfiguring our teaching and learning programs, only for the device roll-out to be discontinued. Due to the simultaneous release of the new Australian Curriculum (and several successive new syllabi) we never had the time to revisit our programs in the depth required to do these new circumstances and changing technological landscape justice. 

While we are constantly encouraged to utilise technology to engage our students, in my experience there is still little training, time, and support for staff to do so. I feel like we’re constantly playing catch-up, and as a result I feel that we often neglect fundamental aspects of digital literacy. One of our Deputies recently purchased two class sets of iPads that can be booked via the library and shared amongst students. He has also organised for one of our Year 7 classes to be a ‘Tech Elect’ class which focuses on the use of technology (especially student-owned 1:1 iPads) as a tool for learning across all subjects. This is definitely an exciting development which has the potential to be beneficial for our students and teaching staff. However, the incorporation of these devices has not been without significant logistical and pedagogical challenges, and excludes students without the financial ability and technological understanding required to participate. Our students often lack the fundamentals of traditional literacy needed as a foundation for exploring digital texts (Leu et. al., 2011; Combes, 2016), and despite their status as ‘digital natives’ often don’t have the ability or knowledge to navigate these rapidly evolving digital spaces effectively; sadly, as teachers, we often lack these skills too.

 

Combes, B. (2016). Digital literacy: A new flavour of literacy or something different?Synergy, 14(1). Retrieved from https://www.slav.vic.edu.au/index.php/Synergy/article/view/v14120163

Leu, D. J. et al (2011). The new literacies of online reading comprehension: Expanding the literacy and learning curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(1), 5-14. Doi: 10.1598/JAAL.55.1.1

ETL402 4.1 Digital Publishing Trends

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Identify one trend that you have experienced in an educational or library setting and reflect on how this could shape or inform future library services.

Just before she left and I took over, the previous teacher librarian at our school purchased an ebook subscription via Wheelers ePlatform for our library. It was slow to take off (possibly because of our school’s mobile phone/BYOD policy and DEAR procedures) but became more popular during online learning and in the school holidays, which suggests that many of our students enjoy the continued flexible access it provides. A lot of our staff have also taken advantage of the online library collection. During online learning I expanded the collection to include an Audiobook and Wellness package, though I’m not sure if these are providing value for money at the moment. Based on our current data over the past 12 months, it’s worked out at around $13 per resource that has been borrowed. I suppose it’ll take time, effort, and patience (as well as continued advertising and promotion!) to build a general culture of reading in our school, let alone one that relies on digital access! 

However, one issue associated with these online collections (apart from the inequities around technology and internet access) is that the Australian Government’s lending rights payments aren’t currently extended to digital formats despite their increasing popularity. It’ll be interesting to see how this issue proceeds over the next few years.

I’m personally really interested in how transmedia storytelling and gamification can help build engagement with literature. As a classroom teacher I’ve often relied on role-plays and simulations to engage my students and deepen their understanding of historical periods and concepts as well as literary themes. The year I advertised Year 11 Ancient History by stating we’d be investigating Assassin’s Creed: Origins we had enough students to create an extra class!  While a lot of the articles in the readings for this module focused on technology-based gaming as a resource, I think there’s a lot of potential in analogue, ‘old-school’ games too. For instance, a few years ago I was able to teach a unit on ballads and narrative poetry by getting my Year 8s to play Dungeons and Dragons. In my experience I’ve found that Mary Poppins was right, and regardless of the way the game is delivered, if it’s fun, they’ll learn.

One particular example I can think of where transmedia storytelling could be used in the library to support curriculum outcomes and pleasure reading is our Year 9 English unit on Survival. Students could play/watch the prologue of a digital game such as The Last of Us as a fun hook activity; honestly, this introduction is one of the best, most emotional examples of digital storytelling I’ve ever played. This could be supplemented throughout by a role-play/simulation that drew on elements of tabletop gaming to test their own survival skills. The library could provide the space/resources for these activities, and the TL could co-teach the role-play lessons to encourage engagement with library resources and staff.

ETL401 2.5 The Teacher Librarian in the Information Landscape

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Why it is important to have an understanding of the broader information landscape?

How you think the information landscape will affect your role as a TL in a school?

This week I fell down the rabbit hole. What started as a seemingly simple search for “most active social media platforms 2021” quickly spiralled into a flurry of pages on algorithms, business models, data use and abuse. Many of these things I’d heard about in passing but had never really had the time to delve into on a more meaningful level.

Technology has obviously had an immense impact on the information landscape. Some of this has been positive – for instance in bringing together marginalised individuals, or making information more accessible to people with disabilities. Yet there are a number of downsides to the digital information landscape that we cannot ignore. Therefore it is crucial that teacher librarians have not just an understanding of the broader information landscape, but that we have a deep knowledge and maintain currency about these evolving issues. If we do not, we cannot effectively fulfil our roles as information specialists. It also struck me with the reading from the modules and my own research this week that people will not be able to enjoy their rights of access to information if they lack the skills to navigate and evaluate these information platforms.

I found it interesting to consider our rights and responsibilities regarding information access. I think that a lot of people focus on their rights (for example, their right to an opinion) but often forget that there are associated responsibilities around our interaction with the information landscape. We have the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to seek, receive and impart information. We have the right to privacy, as well as the right to access the infrastructure which will allow us access to information (though as I discussed in my previous post, this is not always guaranteed!). In this context libraries of all kinds play a crucial role in ensuring that peoples’ rights to access information are being upheld. However, it was interesting for me to consider that these rights could be restricted by law when necessary, if they were deemed to contravene the rights of others, or if they negatively impacted national security or order, or public health or morals. We live in a world which blurs the lines between facts and opinions, and the idea of who gets to determine if something is ‘necessary’ or harming ‘public morals’ was also interesting for me to consider. It is important to remember these responsibilities, especially in times of global pandemic such as ours. Yet the subjective element here leaves it open to potential abuse and censorship, and the fact that our national commitment to these rights and responsibilities is more of an implicit understanding than something enshrined in law is problematic. For instance, what if a family complains that Harry Potter is on the shelves, or content that they see as promoting Black Lives Matter or LGBTQI+ agendas? Or conversely, that there isn’t enough diverse content? The paradox of tolerance is something to consider here, and the response a teacher librarian would get in one school context might differ in another. 

Our right of access to information is further complicated by issues of technological redundancy and convergence. In particular I couldn’t help but think about my own school context and the fact that all too often outdated or damaged technology was not updated, repaired or replaced due to budget constraints. Are funding arrangements, budget allocations and BYOD policies creating what Floridi called “digital favelas” in some schools? I also couldn’t help but consider my own failings with certain technological tools. I normally consider myself pretty tech-savvy, but for the life of me I cannot figure out the 3D printer I inherited when I became the teacher librarian. We’ve recently had a new deputy push for Macs to be integrated into our programs. Heaven help me!

Finally, my research and the module readings this week prompted me to consider the ways that our students are accessing information as digital natives. Modern students are primarily engaging with information (whether for their own entertainment or not) in virtual spaces. In Purcell is correct in her assertion that promotion of our services and resources is vital to our role as teacher librarians, then should we adapt to the online world and utilise social media marketing strategies that will reach and engage them with our content more effectively? Our school community engages heavily with Facebook and we’ve recently created an Instagram page to encourage greater student engagement. However, what are our ethical responsibilities when it comes to using and encouraging the use of these platforms? Are we leaving people in our school community vulnerable to data miners who could potentially sell their information and content to advertisers, politicians or government agencies? Are we pushing them to use platforms which could expose them to algorithms and content which could potentially cause harm? Are we encouraging them to become “unpaid machine trainers” whose data could be used to teach the very machines that might replace them in the workforce? On the surface it appears that having a library Instagram account is a fun way to get students interested, but in reality it is a potential ethical minefield. As teacher librarians we must be mindful of our interactions with these platforms and their function in the information landscape, and as information specialists encourage our school community likewise to maintain awareness of their behaviours.

ETL401 2.3 The Information Landscape

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Are your ideas developing about the information society?

What do you think this term means?

Why is it important for the TL to have an understanding of the information landscape?

For me it was interesting to consider the concept of the Information Society as one which contrasts to earlier agrarian or industrial societies. These earlier ‘revolutions’ had a drastic impact on the lives of people at the time, and I absolutely agree that for many of us changing and emerging IT is impacting our lives too. The fact that I can engage in this degree completely in the “virtual world” while at the same time teaching online would have been incomprehensible even as recently as my years in High School during the early 2000s. Add to the mix the fact that I am getting notifications on my smart watch about my online banking and I’m able to ask Google Home questions about my calendar, the weather, or what an “information society” is. That reminds me, I’ve got to add milk to my online Woolies order … We are well and truly on our way to becoming Floridi’s “inforgs”, if we’re not there already.

I would love to see what someone like Karl Marx would make of our relationship to the current means of production though. Perhaps it’s time for us to write another manifesto dealing with what Floridi called “the tragedy of the digital commons”? “A spectre is haunting the world – the spectre of information technologies!”

The concept of digital poverty absolutely stood out to me as a result of this module and its associated readings. The idea that some people have access to technology and its associated infrastructures and some don’t has really hit home for me during online learning. I teach at a school in the South West of Sydney and we have a very diverse student population, including some students who come from families who are quite affluent and others who are in social housing. We therefore have a number of families that we have had to provide laptops, wi-fi dongles etc. to in order to support their learning online. However, technological infrastructure also plays a part in the concept of the “information-rich” and the “information-poor.” Some of our more wealthy families live in areas that are black-holes for internet reception, which has severely impeded several of our students (especially in Year 12!) from accessing the same information and learning opportunities as their peers. Digital poverty in an information society therefore doesn’t necessarily always follow the same lines traditionally reserved for economic considerations of the term (don’t even get me started on “alliterate” individuals, or individuals who for whatever reasons choose not to engage with authenticated, reliable sources of information. That is a separate rant).

I think that it is absolutely crucial for teacher librarians to not just have an understanding of the information landscape, but to maintain currency in ways of ethically and effectively navigating this complex and ever-changing world. Purcell argued that our role as “information specialist” was one of five key elements to the teacher librarian’s function within a school community. Even though she separated it into its own category (and placed it third in her list) I would argue that our role as information specialists is inherent to our other roles as leaders, instructional partners, teachers and program administrators. If we don’t maintain a deep understanding of the changing infosphere, how can we lead others in designing and implementing curriculum that is relevant to the needs of our students? How can we effectively ensure that our students leave our care as engaged, critical thinkers who will be not only effective workers in this changing world, but also digital citizens that can help mitigate some of the issues caused by unethical tech company policies (Amazon, Facebook: I’m looking at you) and lagging Government action? Our role is also to provide equitable access to quality information to overcome the potential effects of digital poverty.