Developing students' digital literacy

The issue Even today’s students need support with some areas of digital practice, particularly in an academic context, so it’s important to make sure that these needs are met. While employability is an obvious driver, developing students who can learn and thrive in a digital society is a key role for universities and colleges. We define digital literacies as the capabilities which fit someone for living, learning and working in a digital society. What you can do Below, we've summarised some of the steps you can take to improve your students' digital literacy. Review your support for digital literacies An audit is a good way of finding out who’s already working in this area and starting productive conversations with staff. To learn more about the behaviour and motivations of learners as they use the web, try our detailed guide to evaluating digital services. Link to other key priorities Create a buzz In any large organisation there will be all sorts of interesting digital practice.

Mathematics Fun, Fact, Fiction, Function, Fantasy Here is a collection of mathematical activities and curiosities...enjoy them! BRAND NEW 2008 Line of Fractal Imagery -- 594 Images -- Oh Wow! ---> Show me the fractals! Guess Your Birthday! Here's a fun trick to show a friend, a group, or an entire class of people. Step 1) Have them take the month number from their birthday: January = 1, Feb = 2 etc. Have them give you the total. How It Works: Let M be the month number and D will be the day number. Thus, if you subtract off the 165, what will remain will be the month in hundreds plus the day! By the way, if you wish to know how many minutes and seconds you have been alive and lots more about when you were born, you might like to try this website ==> Birthday Calculator Divisibility Rules! To find if some number X is divisible by a certain number, test the number by using the information in the table below. *A big thank you to Torsten Sillke for these rules! Do You Love "Alphametics?" Good Mathematical Card Trick Say the total was 23. Primes!

DL staff development materials ssional development materials emerging from the JISC Developing Digital Literacies (DDL) programme. All are freely available for use and reuse under a Creative Commons license and many can also be edited and adapted for your own needs. Jisc Resources A core set of staff development resources for curriculum development Institutional resources mainly for curriculum teams (developing programmes of study to incorporate digital literacies) Mapping spaces, tasks and tools - from the Institute of Education and the University of the Arts London projects - is a suite of resources to support discussion of appropriate learning tasks and tools for different settings Cardiff (Digidol) version of the Literacies Framework with five sets of cards to prompt discussion The Bath Pride project worked with staff to develop faculty-specific digital literacy statements which are now being used to support curriculum design. Curriculum development materials from the DIAL project include:

Developing digital literacies Digital literacies are those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society. Digital literacy looks beyond functional IT skills to describe a richer set of digital behaviours, practices and identities. What it means to be digitally literate changes over time and across contexts, so digital literacies are essentially a set of academic and professional situated practices supported by diverse and changing technologies. This definition quoted above can be used as a starting point to explore what key digital literacies are in a particular context eg university, college, service, department, subject area or professional environment. Digital literacies encompasses a range of other capabilities represented here in a seven elements model: Digital literacy as a developmental process Defining digital literacy in your context Background About this resource This detailed guide draws on this to provide a set of practical guidance, tools and approaches.

Full guide Make institutional systems easy to access Easy and secure access to institutional networks and wireless local area networks (Wi-Fi) are generally available at most institutions although these do not always work as seamlessly as students would like. Institutions should endeavour to provide these free of charge and with sufficient bandwidth and coverage to extend to all areas of the campus and halls of residence. Wi-Fi as a basic digital entitlement The common use of online platforms as a means of making information and resources more widely available means that free Wi-Fi is considered a basic entitlement by many students. Institutions are legally obliged to ensure their IT infrastructures are accessible and support the use of assistive technologies. Single sign-on (SSO) and federated access Students find it frustrating to have to log-on separately to different systems like virtual learning environments (VLEs), library systems, online resource and data sets etc. Implementing mobile learning