Why universities should acquire – and teach – digital literacy

Students are digital natives. Photograph: Alamy

Sebastian Faulks observed recently that ease of access to the internet is leading to a "net loss of knowledge" in this generation of adults, leaving the modern intellectual world in a "kind of catastrophe". But is there another side to this gloomy story? Once time and brainpower are freed up from memorising, will other skills come into play, bringing hitherto unimagined benefits?

One such skill is broadly labelled digital literacy. The phrase is used to cover everything from grasping the basic functionality of a computer/tablet/smartphone, to mastering the sophisticated techniques and attitudes needed for online collaboration and communication through social media. Widely understood to be essential to success in the workplace and modern life, it is a subject that is beginning to emerge as key in the world of higher education.

Higher education usually happens at an intermediary stage between childhood and adulthood when students acquire some of the life skills that will be needed after graduation. Part of what a university can do is provide new graduates with the skills and knowledge to take them into the workplace.

Current undergraduates have never known a life without the internet – it is the glue that holds their personal and social lives together. It makes sense that universities should be nurturing students' familiarity with technology, encouraging its use in teaching and learning, and paying attention to developing broader digital literacy skills.

However sensible this might seem, the reality is somewhat different. Lecturers (who are powerful role models for students) can be very resistant to adopting new digital teaching practices, and will vary in their ability to engage with the online world. Few universities seem to have adopted a digital literacy agenda in a widespread or meaningful way.

While the use of online courses and e-books is growing in UK education, they are still a minority interest. Lectures are often delivered using traditional methods, with a great reliance on dead tree materials, and physical core textbooks continue to hold ground over digital versions.

Raised tuition fees may be the factor that forces change in the UK higher education sector. Universities, now competing more intensely with one another for the best students, are increasingly seeing their own technical preparedness as a differentiating factor, and some are offering technical enticements to prospective students – free devices or free e-books.

At the HE Academy annual conference in 2012, the vice-chancellor of the Open University, Martin Bean, reflected these sentiments in his keynote speech. He noted: "In an era of raised fees, when students need to see the value of their loans, we need to find ways to bring to life the magic of high quality teaching."

Once an institution buys into a digital or e-book platform for the delivery of core course materials, they begin to discover just how much it can help with teaching and learning. Interactive resources, audio and video can all be embedded into the e-textbook, bringing the materials to life and giving instant feedback.

Textbooks can be built in the university virtual learning environment, linking to online course materials already prepared for the student. In some cases, university administrators are able to use analytics to monitor overall usage and engagement with e-textbooks supplied to students.

Digital literacy starts with the mechanics of using digital resources and digital devices. It's through e-textbooks, library resources, online databases, or even the web that an expertise in searching, finding, critiquing, absorbing and referencing multiple sources is learned.

Students also find out how to handle information overload, shutting off distracting online sites long enough to focus on one piece of work that they need to get done on time.

Additional layers of digital know-how can to be added as the student moves to a deeper lever of expertise. With all the facts at their fingertips, students can learn to collaborate to add context and meaning to the facts, drawing analogies, preparing theories, and building conclusions. They can learn how to communicate and present their ideas expertly through social networks to colleagues and peers inside and outside their usual network. They can practise working with feedback, and conversing in an iterative loop.

Universities can do more to teach the basic digital literacy skills that students are seeking to prepare them for the workplace. They can recognise that digital literacy skills in their broadest definition will bring great benefits to students, to their eventual place of employment, and to their lifelong working and personal life.

Students, already expert users of technology, need direction to turn their technical skills into skills for learning and employability. They will recognise the value of an advanced digital literacy agenda provided by a university.

• Fionnuala Duggan is managing director for CourseSmart International, where she oversees its e-textbook platform and digital course material for international markets.

View the original article here

Why universities should acquire – and teach – digital literacy

 Students are digital natives. Photograph: Alamy

Sebastian Faulks observed recently that ease of access to the internet is leading to a "net loss of knowledge" in this generation of adults, leaving the modern intellectual world in a "kind of catastrophe". But is there another side to this gloomy story? Once time and brainpower are freed up from memorising, will other skills come into play, bringing hitherto unimagined benefits?

One such skill is broadly labelled digital literacy. The phrase is used to cover everything from grasping the basic functionality of a computer/tablet/smartphone, to mastering the sophisticated techniques and attitudes needed for online collaboration and communication through social media. Widely understood to be essential to success in the workplace and modern life, it is a subject that is beginning to emerge as key in the world of higher education.

Higher education usually happens at an intermediary stage between childhood and adulthood when students acquire some of the life skills that will be needed after graduation. Part of what a university can do is provide new graduates with the skills and knowledge to take them into the workplace.

Current undergraduates have never known a life without the internet – it is the glue that holds their personal and social lives together. It makes sense that universities should be nurturing students' familiarity with technology, encouraging its use in teaching and learning, and paying attention to developing broader digital literacy skills.

However sensible this might seem, the reality is somewhat different. Lecturers (who are powerful role models for students) can be very resistant to adopting new digital teaching practices, and will vary in their ability to engage with the online world. Few universities seem to have adopted a digital literacy agenda in a widespread or meaningful way.

While the use of online courses and e-books is growing in UK education, they are still a minority interest. Lectures are often delivered using traditional methods, with a great reliance on dead tree materials, and physical core textbooks continue to hold ground over digital versions.

Raised tuition fees may be the factor that forces change in the UK higher education sector. Universities, now competing more intensely with one another for the best students, are increasingly seeing their own technical preparedness as a differentiating factor, and some are offering technical enticements to prospective students – free devices or free e-books.

At the HE Academy annual conference in 2012, the vice-chancellor of the Open University, Martin Bean, reflected these sentiments in his keynote speech. He noted: "In an era of raised fees, when students need to see the value of their loans, we need to find ways to bring to life the magic of high quality teaching."

Once an institution buys into a digital or e-book platform for the delivery of core course materials, they begin to discover just how much it can help with teaching and learning. Interactive resources, audio and video can all be embedded into the e-textbook, bringing the materials to life and giving instant feedback.

Textbooks can be built in the university virtual learning environment, linking to online course materials already prepared for the student. In some cases, university administrators are able to use analytics to monitor overall usage and engagement with e-textbooks supplied to students.

Digital literacy starts with the mechanics of using digital resources and digital devices. It's through e-textbooks, library resources, online databases, or even the web that an expertise in searching, finding, critiquing, absorbing and referencing multiple sources is learned.

Students also find out how to handle information overload, shutting off distracting online sites long enough to focus on one piece of work that they need to get done on time.

Additional layers of digital know-how can to be added as the student moves to a deeper lever of expertise. With all the facts at their fingertips, students can learn to collaborate to add context and meaning to the facts, drawing analogies, preparing theories, and building conclusions. They can learn how to communicate and present their ideas expertly through social networks to colleagues and peers inside and outside their usual network. They can practise working with feedback, and conversing in an iterative loop.

Universities can do more to teach the basic digital literacy skills that students are seeking to prepare them for the workplace. They can recognise that digital literacy skills in their broadest definition will bring great benefits to students, to their eventual place of employment, and to their lifelong working and personal life.

Students, already expert users of technology, need direction to turn their technical skills into skills for learning and employability. They will recognise the value of an advanced digital literacy agenda provided by a university.

• Fionnuala Duggan is managing director for CourseSmart International, where she oversees its e-textbook platform and digital course material for international markets.

View the original article here

Health Literacy Needs a Place in Physicians' Practices

I was invited to sit in on a presentation by Mark Dumoff, an expert on patient communication and health literacy, to the chief medical officers of a large private insurer a few weeks ago.

It struck all of us, as we struggle to adapt to legislation that attempts to set our healthcare system on the right track with new taxes, mandates, and regulation, that fundamentals are falling to the wayside. Failing to master basics like doctor-patient communications is hugely expensive in terms of quality of life, time and money.

The statistics Dumoff outlined are a wakeup call:
• 90 million adults have low health literacy levels
• Cost to the U.S. economy : $106 billion to $238 billion/year
• $1.6 trillion to $3.6 trillion burden to future generations in today’s dollars
• White, native-born Americans are the majority group

This happens because one out of three patients can’t understand instructions for self-care, after-care, and transitions in care from one setting to another. Another one out of three struggles with them. As a result, patient transitions and coordinated care are adversely affected, which researchers say caused $25 billion to $45 billion in wasteful spending in 2011, mostly due to avoidable complications and hospital readmissions.

The cycle is as familiar as the solution seems to be elusive:
1. Patient seeks medical help
2. Patient is asked to complete complex, confusing forms
3. Doctor explains patient’s condition and treatment plan using medical jargon
4. Doctor writes multiple prescriptions and referrals for tests
5. Doctor does not confirm patient’s understanding
6. Patient goes home with complicated, generic instructions
7. No one follows up with patient
8. Patient takes medications incorrectly and does not follow up
9. The cycle begins again - patient seeks medical help

Those with chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma are at the highest risk of disease progression and co-morbidity while patients in transition from acute to sub-acute care for conditions such as CHF, COPD, pneumonia, and AMI are at the highest risk of unnecessary hospital readmission.

As of Monday, Medicare will start fining hospitals for having too many patients readmitted within 30 days of discharge due to complications. About two-thirds of the hospitals serving Medicare patients, or about 2,200 facilities, will be hit with penalties averaging $125,000 each this coming year according to government estimates. The likely response will be to focus on discharge instructions and to initiate quality and patient experience measurements for their admitting physicians as a barometer of risk.

In an emerging era of shared risk and performance-based remuneration, getting fundamentals such as effective patient communication right is especially important to survival and success in medical practice.

It takes some work to change embedded habits and practice culture, but, once done, the rewards keep paying dividends far into the future.

These simple changes to the treatment cycle can make meaningful improvements in outcome:
1. Patient seeks medical help
2. Scheduler sends simple forms and offers help in filling them out
3. Staff collects forms and asks patient if they need help in completing them
4. Doctor explains patient’s condition and treatment plan using simple terms
5. Doctor writes multiple prescriptions and referrals for tests and doctor or staff explain what they are for, what to do, and what to expect
6. Doctor or staff or both confirm patient’s understanding
7. Patient goes home with clear, simple instructions
8. Staff follows up with patient to ensure compliance, answer questions, and ensure patient returns for follow-up visits
9. Patient’s condition is being well managed
In the end, everyone gains:

Practice/Physician Impact:
• Enhances patient engagement in self-care
• Promotes positive behavioral change
• Improves adherence and outcomes
• Upgrades quality, compliance, measurement, and reporting
• Increases patient, physician, and staff satisfaction
• Reduces risk and may lower malpractice rates
• Maximizes payment incentives
• Enhances quality of care/reduces length of stay, readmissions, and medical expenses
• Proactively manages risk
• Increases new patient referrals

Patient Impact:
• Better healthcare decisions/more effective self-care
• Healthier outcomes
• Fewer visits
• Less out-of-pocket expense
• More meaningful doctor-patient relationship

Mastering fundamentals may not be as sexy or stimulating as mastering a new technique or technology, but they win the day. Ask any athletic trainer or coach. Their success is built on executing fundamentals flawlessly.

Find out more about James Doulgeris and our other Practice Notes bloggers.

View the original article here

Health Literacy Needs a Place in Physicians' Practices

I was invited to sit in on a presentation by Mark Dumoff, an expert on patient communication and health literacy, to the chief medical officers of a large private insurer a few weeks ago.

It struck all of us, as we struggle to adapt to legislation that attempts to set our healthcare system on the right track with new taxes, mandates, and regulation, that fundamentals are falling to the wayside. Failing to master basics like doctor-patient communications is hugely expensive in terms of quality of life, time and money.

The statistics Dumoff outlined are a wakeup call:
• 90 million adults have low health literacy levels
• Cost to the U.S. economy : $106 billion to $238 billion/year
• $1.6 trillion to $3.6 trillion burden to future generations in today’s dollars
• White, native-born Americans are the majority group

This happens because one out of three patients can’t understand instructions for self-care, after-care, and transitions in care from one setting to another. Another one out of three struggles with them. As a result, patient transitions and coordinated care are adversely affected, which researchers say caused $25 billion to $45 billion in wasteful spending in 2011, mostly due to avoidable complications and hospital readmissions.

The cycle is as familiar as the solution seems to be elusive:
1. Patient seeks medical help
2. Patient is asked to complete complex, confusing forms
3. Doctor explains patient’s condition and treatment plan using medical jargon
4. Doctor writes multiple prescriptions and referrals for tests
5. Doctor does not confirm patient’s understanding
6. Patient goes home with complicated, generic instructions
7. No one follows up with patient
8. Patient takes medications incorrectly and does not follow up
9. The cycle begins again - patient seeks medical help

Those with chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma are at the highest risk of disease progression and co-morbidity while patients in transition from acute to sub-acute care for conditions such as CHF, COPD, pneumonia, and AMI are at the highest risk of unnecessary hospital readmission.

As of Monday, Medicare will start fining hospitals for having too many patients readmitted within 30 days of discharge due to complications. About two-thirds of the hospitals serving Medicare patients, or about 2,200 facilities, will be hit with penalties averaging $125,000 each this coming year according to government estimates. The likely response will be to focus on discharge instructions and to initiate quality and patient experience measurements for their admitting physicians as a barometer of risk.

In an emerging era of shared risk and performance-based remuneration, getting fundamentals such as effective patient communication right is especially important to survival and success in medical practice.

It takes some work to change embedded habits and practice culture, but, once done, the rewards keep paying dividends far into the future.

These simple changes to the treatment cycle can make meaningful improvements in outcome:
1. Patient seeks medical help
2. Scheduler sends simple forms and offers help in filling them out
3. Staff collects forms and asks patient if they need help in completing them
4. Doctor explains patient’s condition and treatment plan using simple terms
5. Doctor writes multiple prescriptions and referrals for tests and doctor or staff explain what they are for, what to do, and what to expect
6. Doctor or staff or both confirm patient’s understanding
7. Patient goes home with clear, simple instructions
8. Staff follows up with patient to ensure compliance, answer questions, and ensure patient returns for follow-up visits
9. Patient’s condition is being well managed
In the end, everyone gains:

Practice/Physician Impact:
• Enhances patient engagement in self-care
• Promotes positive behavioral change
• Improves adherence and outcomes
• Upgrades quality, compliance, measurement, and reporting
• Increases patient, physician, and staff satisfaction
• Reduces risk and may lower malpractice rates
• Maximizes payment incentives
• Enhances quality of care/reduces length of stay, readmissions, and medical expenses
• Proactively manages risk
• Increases new patient referrals

Patient Impact:
• Better healthcare decisions/more effective self-care
• Healthier outcomes
• Fewer visits
• Less out-of-pocket expense
• More meaningful doctor-patient relationship

Mastering fundamentals may not be as sexy or stimulating as mastering a new technique or technology, but they win the day. Ask any athletic trainer or coach. Their success is built on executing fundamentals flawlessly.

Find out more about James Doulgeris and our other Practice Notes bloggers.

View the original article here

20 ways of thinking about digital literacy in higher education

20 ways of thinking about digital literacy in higher education Photograph: Corbis Bridge / Alamy/Alamy

First define what you mean by digital literacy: The definition I most frequently use is this one: digital literacy = digital tool knowledge + critical thinking + social engagement. Then it's worth knowing its main characteristics:

• It supports and helps develop traditional literacies
• It's a life-long practice
• It's about skills, competencies and critical reflection on how these skills and competencies are applied
• It's about social engagement

Top tips for developing the digital literacy of non-traditional students: Begin by exploring the ways in which the group are already using mobile and web based technologies. Many of them will already be engaging with tech for personal use, for example Skyping relatives, keeping in touch on Facebook or using mobile phones. If you have a group who aren't using technology in any of these ways, personal use might be where you start the conversation.

Literacy is not static: I like Bélisle's three models of literacy: functional, socio-cultural and transformational. The functional and practical skills required to function within a community; Socio-cultural refers to literacy only being meaningful within a social context, and facilitating access to cultural, economic and political structures. Transformational recognises that new ways of seeing and thinking about the world become possible as new cognitive and processing tools come into play.

All education sectors are facing many of the same challenges with digital literacy, so we can learn from one another: Some of the obvious issues are: how do we get staff to engage? How do we resource digital literacy support in an on-going and sustainable way? How do we make sure that organisations embed digital literacy as a cultural approach and expectation rather than as a discrete thing that one or two staff members are responsible for 'delivering'? What does a successful approach to digital literacy look like?

We have set up a partnership group, the Digital Leicester Advisory Group, with both Leicester universities and with community activists to support the promotion and expansion of digital literacy, inclusion and citizenship. I'm keen to support a move away from a perception of education as something that happens at specific times and in designated places, and towards planning and provision which takes the affordances of digital environments seriously and sees the city itself as the learning environment.

Recognise that students arrive with their own digital practices: We have some very well established practices in universities that traditionally we have tried to 'pass on' to students. But students are arriving with some well established digital practices of their own. It isn't always a question of 'both/and'. For example, referencing and plagiarism are areas where students' own digital practices and cultures clash with those of the university. We should identify the the values and history behind those academic practices, rather than slavishly learning Harvard style punctuation. We can't just see students as empty vessels to be filled up with what we do over here in academia.

Developing digital literacies in practice requires:
• Providing authentic contexts for practice, including digitally-mediated contexts
• Individual scaffolding and support
• Making practices of meaning-making explicit
• Anticipating and helping learners manage conflict between different practice contexts
• Recognising and helping learners integrate their prior conceptions and practices

This is a person-centred, culturally-situated approach to student development and it's important that developing digital literacies programme involves groups of staff that have always taken approach seriously, such as careers and employability staff, learning skills staff, as well as student-facing staff in libraries.

Establish guiding ethical principles: If you look at the graduate attributes that universities now ask their students to aspire to, many of them are really values. Developing digital literacy should also have an ethical dimension. What does it mean to behave well as digital professionals, researchers or citizens? How do we act ethically in environments where public and private are blurred?

Mid-career is the worst time for academics and professional staff to be up to date with technology: I've just been reviewing some audits that show that older and more secure academic staff may actually have more time to experiment and are more confident to admit they need to learn. It's all about having time, having opportunities for 'peer supported experimentation' - which turns out to be the best way to learn new technical tricks, and of course, having some incentive.

'Digital natives' need a basic understanding of computers as technical platforms, or of coding: As a teacher I am constantly aware of my own ignorance of coding skills and electronics, but still make a case for the value of not keeping technology in a black box and getting students to have a little more mastery by writing programs in an object-oriented language. I worry that our computers are becoming like our cars: we are increasingly dependent on them but when we open the hood and don't know what to do. I teach poets to program, so I feel it is valuable to everyone.

Acknowledge that there is also anxiety about technologies in the classroom and take the lead: Too many people in universities have been shirking their responsibilities to educate students about this important subject either because they feel anxiety about their own technical literacy or they feel the barbarians are at the gate, with many faculty members feeling that traditional literacies are under attack. If professors are going to be considered as experts rather than merely fodder for funny remixes like this one or this one they need to take the lead.

On managing your online identities: For years search engines treated Liz Losh and Elizabeth Losh as separate people, so my identity as a blogger and digital activist was very separate from my identity as a scholar and academic. No more. Google now knows that both names are me and that I can't have a divided personality. My only piece of advice is don't friend your students until after they graduate.

We need to understand learners personal digital literacies before ploughing into 'supporting' them: Many of the learners we have interviewed for our Visitors and Residents project still make quite a hard distinction between the 'real' i.e. books, lectures and so on and the digital. They have many highly effective digital literacies but often feel that they are not 'real' or legitimate approaches.

HEIs need to help legitimise digital practices without trying to own them: In my experience academics don't engage with digital tech because they don't need to. Their way of working is successful within the system. Has anyone been rewarded by their institutions for tweeting? Digital tech can improve the quality of what we do but often comes with an associated additional time/effort side effect, which is rarely officially acknowledged.

A key digital literacy is how you manage distraction: How to not get walked all over by Facebook et al. Many of the learners we have spoken to recognise that they are poor at managing this.

Engage students in this debate and ensure that they too have ownership of this agenda: Our terms may not mean anything to students. In the JISC Developing Digital Literacies programme projects have been involving students as partners in their research and giving them a voice to express their views and ideas on what the term means to them, what skills they feel they need to live, learn and work effectively in a digital environment. See the PRIDE (University of Bath), CASCADE (University of Exeter) and DL in Transition (University of Greenwich) projects as excellent examples of how institutions are engaging students in this debate.

Reticence to adapt is less about the fear of the technology itself but about the fear of doing this differently from the way they've have always been done: Those of us who work in this space must show the benefits: for example how technology can save time or help HE staff do things easier. This is where we can also utilise the expertise of students to work with staff and assist them with gaining confidence in using new technologies. There is a lovely example from the University of Wolverhampton on students as partners in blended learning.

Digital literacy as an important part of transliteracy: Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. It is the literacy of convergence, unifying literacies past and present across different platforms, media and cultures. This means it encompasses all kinds of communications from scratching pictures in the sand to editing photos in Instagram, or from inscribing tablets to text-messaging. When promoting digital literacy on its own, we can alienate people who are already very literate in other areas, and that's why I prefer to take an holistic approach and be as inclusive as possible.

The idea that you build some kind of identifiable career capital online is likely to have a big influence on your ability to get a job: There is an assumption that the issue of digital literacy will go away because students are good with computers and have Facebook accounts. I think that in the context of learning organisations the question is how they can apply the skills that they have to new areas such as employability skills. Have a look at the site Dear Lisa Rogers, one social media fanatic's attempt to get the job of social media director at the University of Michigan, as an example of this.

Digital engagement shouldn't be lead by a platform or task-specific agenda: What is required is a change in consciousness in how we relate to technology. The underlying principle is that all technology should facilitate critical reflection - awareness of the self and the ability to articulate ideas. We need people to make judgements on the information they consume and the contexts they create whilst sharing information. Technology is becoming increasingly seamless but our relationship with it isn't intuitive.

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View the original article here

20 ways of thinking about digital literacy in higher education

20 ways of thinking about digital literacy in higher education Photograph: Corbis Bridge / Alamy/Alamy

First define what you mean by digital literacy: The definition I most frequently use is this one: digital literacy = digital tool knowledge + critical thinking + social engagement. Then it's worth knowing its main characteristics:

• It supports and helps develop traditional literacies
• It's a life-long practice
• It's about skills, competencies and critical reflection on how these skills and competencies are applied
• It's about social engagement

Top tips for developing the digital literacy of non-traditional students: Begin by exploring the ways in which the group are already using mobile and web based technologies. Many of them will already be engaging with tech for personal use, for example Skyping relatives, keeping in touch on Facebook or using mobile phones. If you have a group who aren't using technology in any of these ways, personal use might be where you start the conversation.

Literacy is not static: I like Bélisle's three models of literacy: functional, socio-cultural and transformational. The functional and practical skills required to function within a community; Socio-cultural refers to literacy only being meaningful within a social context, and facilitating access to cultural, economic and political structures. Transformational recognises that new ways of seeing and thinking about the world become possible as new cognitive and processing tools come into play.

All education sectors are facing many of the same challenges with digital literacy, so we can learn from one another: Some of the obvious issues are: how do we get staff to engage? How do we resource digital literacy support in an on-going and sustainable way? How do we make sure that organisations embed digital literacy as a cultural approach and expectation rather than as a discrete thing that one or two staff members are responsible for 'delivering'? What does a successful approach to digital literacy look like?

We have set up a partnership group, the Digital Leicester Advisory Group, with both Leicester universities and with community activists to support the promotion and expansion of digital literacy, inclusion and citizenship. I'm keen to support a move away from a perception of education as something that happens at specific times and in designated places, and towards planning and provision which takes the affordances of digital environments seriously and sees the city itself as the learning environment.

Recognise that students arrive with their own digital practices: We have some very well established practices in universities that traditionally we have tried to 'pass on' to students. But students are arriving with some well established digital practices of their own. It isn't always a question of 'both/and'. For example, referencing and plagiarism are areas where students' own digital practices and cultures clash with those of the university. We should identify the the values and history behind those academic practices, rather than slavishly learning Harvard style punctuation. We can't just see students as empty vessels to be filled up with what we do over here in academia.

Developing digital literacies in practice requires:
• Providing authentic contexts for practice, including digitally-mediated contexts
• Individual scaffolding and support
• Making practices of meaning-making explicit
• Anticipating and helping learners manage conflict between different practice contexts
• Recognising and helping learners integrate their prior conceptions and practices

This is a person-centred, culturally-situated approach to student development and it's important that developing digital literacies programme involves groups of staff that have always taken approach seriously, such as careers and employability staff, learning skills staff, as well as student-facing staff in libraries.

Establish guiding ethical principles: If you look at the graduate attributes that universities now ask their students to aspire to, many of them are really values. Developing digital literacy should also have an ethical dimension. What does it mean to behave well as digital professionals, researchers or citizens? How do we act ethically in environments where public and private are blurred?

Mid-career is the worst time for academics and professional staff to be up to date with technology: I've just been reviewing some audits that show that older and more secure academic staff may actually have more time to experiment and are more confident to admit they need to learn. It's all about having time, having opportunities for 'peer supported experimentation' - which turns out to be the best way to learn new technical tricks, and of course, having some incentive.

'Digital natives' need a basic understanding of computers as technical platforms, or of coding: As a teacher I am constantly aware of my own ignorance of coding skills and electronics, but still make a case for the value of not keeping technology in a black box and getting students to have a little more mastery by writing programs in an object-oriented language. I worry that our computers are becoming like our cars: we are increasingly dependent on them but when we open the hood and don't know what to do. I teach poets to program, so I feel it is valuable to everyone.

Acknowledge that there is also anxiety about technologies in the classroom and take the lead: Too many people in universities have been shirking their responsibilities to educate students about this important subject either because they feel anxiety about their own technical literacy or they feel the barbarians are at the gate, with many faculty members feeling that traditional literacies are under attack. If professors are going to be considered as experts rather than merely fodder for funny remixes like this one or this one they need to take the lead.

On managing your online identities: For years search engines treated Liz Losh and Elizabeth Losh as separate people, so my identity as a blogger and digital activist was very separate from my identity as a scholar and academic. No more. Google now knows that both names are me and that I can't have a divided personality. My only piece of advice is don't friend your students until after they graduate.

We need to understand learners personal digital literacies before ploughing into 'supporting' them: Many of the learners we have interviewed for our Visitors and Residents project still make quite a hard distinction between the 'real' i.e. books, lectures and so on and the digital. They have many highly effective digital literacies but often feel that they are not 'real' or legitimate approaches.

HEIs need to help legitimise digital practices without trying to own them: In my experience academics don't engage with digital tech because they don't need to. Their way of working is successful within the system. Has anyone been rewarded by their institutions for tweeting? Digital tech can improve the quality of what we do but often comes with an associated additional time/effort side effect, which is rarely officially acknowledged.

A key digital literacy is how you manage distraction: How to not get walked all over by Facebook et al. Many of the learners we have spoken to recognise that they are poor at managing this.

Engage students in this debate and ensure that they too have ownership of this agenda: Our terms may not mean anything to students. In the JISC Developing Digital Literacies programme projects have been involving students as partners in their research and giving them a voice to express their views and ideas on what the term means to them, what skills they feel they need to live, learn and work effectively in a digital environment. See the PRIDE (University of Bath), CASCADE (University of Exeter) and DL in Transition (University of Greenwich) projects as excellent examples of how institutions are engaging students in this debate.

Reticence to adapt is less about the fear of the technology itself but about the fear of doing this differently from the way they've have always been done: Those of us who work in this space must show the benefits: for example how technology can save time or help HE staff do things easier. This is where we can also utilise the expertise of students to work with staff and assist them with gaining confidence in using new technologies. There is a lovely example from the University of Wolverhampton on students as partners in blended learning.

Digital literacy as an important part of transliteracy: Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. It is the literacy of convergence, unifying literacies past and present across different platforms, media and cultures. This means it encompasses all kinds of communications from scratching pictures in the sand to editing photos in Instagram, or from inscribing tablets to text-messaging. When promoting digital literacy on its own, we can alienate people who are already very literate in other areas, and that's why I prefer to take an holistic approach and be as inclusive as possible.

The idea that you build some kind of identifiable career capital online is likely to have a big influence on your ability to get a job: There is an assumption that the issue of digital literacy will go away because students are good with computers and have Facebook accounts. I think that in the context of learning organisations the question is how they can apply the skills that they have to new areas such as employability skills. Have a look at the site Dear Lisa Rogers, one social media fanatic's attempt to get the job of social media director at the University of Michigan, as an example of this.

Digital engagement shouldn't be lead by a platform or task-specific agenda: What is required is a change in consciousness in how we relate to technology. The underlying principle is that all technology should facilitate critical reflection - awareness of the self and the ability to articulate ideas. We need people to make judgements on the information they consume and the contexts they create whilst sharing information. Technology is becoming increasingly seamless but our relationship with it isn't intuitive.

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