Critical Digital Literacy in RWS Writing Courses

1. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities • Project OverviewData from surveys, student reflections, writing assignments, and interviews were collected in order to • Map SDSU students’ digital literacy practices, attitudes and skills • Guide the integration of critical digital literacy into writing classes • Inform the creation of materials for teaching critical digital literacy in GE writing classes • Support and train TAs teaching writing and critical digital literacy • Contribute to the Digital Humanities Initiative and the creation of modules for teaching core digital literacy skills

2. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in GE Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities • Project Overview • Data (surveys, reflections, interviews) was collected from students in first year writing classes, and from students in an upper division RWS course who possess “advanced” digital literacy skills. • Pilot study in fall 2015. Conducted larger study in fall 2016 (includes materials on “fake news”) and will review data in summer 2017.

3. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities Survey Research Questions What are students’ most common forms of engagement with social media resources? Which digital resources are students using most often to read, write, socialize and interact? What purposes, attitudes and assumptions accompany students’ use of social media resources? To what extent are our students’ digital literacy practices similar to those documented in recent research studies? When we compare first year students’ use of social media with those of more experienced, “sophisticated,” upper division undergraduate students, what is seen? Definitions of digital literacy often include the ability to search, store, tag, annotate, network, curate and analyze texts. To what extent do our students show facility with these skills? Do our students’ uses of new media present “bridging” opportunities, ways of leveraging existing practices in order to support key academic writing/reading/research/thinking skills?

4. The Context The “Conversation” Who cares?What is at stake?

5. The 2000s: Digital Utopianism

6. "We are in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization." (Lunsford, 2007) • “Today’s classroom is the web itself, and it’s a classroom of seamless transfer of information, of collaborative, individualized learning, and of active participation by all members of class.” (Richardson, 2007.) • “21st Century Writing marks the beginning of a new era in literacy, a period we might call the age of composition.” (Yancey, 2009) • “In the case of the web, writers compose authentic texts in informal digitally networked contexts, but there isn’t a hierarchy of expert-apprentice, but rather a peer co-apprenticeship in which communicative knowledge is freely exchanged.” (Yancey, 2009)

7. “Digital media offer us an opportunity for equality, for letting everyone be producers as well as consumers. With digital media people can often bypass official institutions and oversight to produce their own media, knowledge, products, services and texts.” (Gee and Hayes, 2011) • “Facebook provides a commons for people, not unlike the commons that used to be in small towns and large.” Yancey, “Writing in the 21st Century.”

8. Rhetoric of the Digital Native • Marc Prensky’s “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” adopted by many writers, journalists, policy makers, and some scholars. • “Today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.” (Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” 2001.)

9. “‘Digital natives’ rhetoric is worse than inaccurate: it is dangerous… it allows us to eschew responsibility for helping youth and adults navigate a networked world. If we view skills and knowledge as inherently generational, then organized efforts to achieve needed forms of literacy are unnecessary…all we as a society need to do is be patient and wait for a generation of these digital wunderkinds to grow up. A laissez faire attitude is unlikely to eradicate the inequalities that continue to emerge. Likewise, these attitudes will not empower average youth to be sophisticated, critical internet participants.” Dana Boyd, 2014, The Social Lives of Networked Teens, p.197

10. Hargittaiand Hinnant, "Digital Inequality: Differences in Young Adults' Use of the Internet” • Mapping the Writing Lives of First-Year College Students, Jeff Grabill and Stacey Pigg. • “The ERIAL Project: Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries” • Atkins and Reilly, “The Impact of Resource-poor Techno-ecologies on Student Technology Use”

11. “The prevalence of Google in student research is well-documented, but Illinois researchers found…students were not very good at using Google. They were basically clueless about the logic underlying how the search engine organizes & displays its results.” (Kolowich“What Students Don't Know”) • “Duke and Asher were surprised by the extent to which students appeared to lack even some of the most basic information literacy skills that we assumed they would have mastered in high school.” *“What Students Don't Know,” Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Education, August 22, 2011

12. A New (Digital) Literacy Crisis? “In the 1950s critics pondered, ‘Why Johnny Can’t Read.’ Now they should ponder ‘Why Johnny Can’t Search.’ Whose fault is that? Not the students. If they’re unable to navigate online information it’s because, rather amazingly, they’re almost never taught search literacy in schools.” (Thompson, Smarter Than You Think, p. 205.)

13. In Google we trust? • Pan et al. secretly altered the search results students received, putting low ranked results at the top. Most students appeared to use these results, anyway, trusting the ranking given. “In Google We Trust: Users’ Decisions on Rank, Position, and Relevance.”Bing Pan et al.

14. Sample Survey Results from Fall 2015

15. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities Research Questions What are students’ most common forms of engagement with social media resources? Which digital resources are students using most often to read, write, socialize and interact? What purposes, attitudes and assumptions accompany students’ use of social media resources? To what extent are our students’ digital literacy practices similar to those documented in recent research studies? When we compare first year students’ use of social media with those of more experienced, “sophisticated,” upper division undergraduate students, what is seen? Definitions of digital literacy often include the ability to search, store, tag, annotate, network, curate and analyze texts. To what extent do our students show facility with these skills? Do our students’ uses of new media present “bridging” opportunities, ways of leveraging existing practices in order to support key academic writing/reading/research/thinking skills?

16. Q3: Specify Ethnicity • Answered: 86 Skipped: 0

18. Q5: At university, when taking notes in class, do you mostly take a) handwritten lecture notes or b) use a computer? • Answered: 84 Skipped: 2

19. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in GE Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities

20. Q11: When you read news stories online, what is the most common way you access them (e.g. via a Facebook link, Instagram, Yahoo, email, visiting a news site like CNN, some other site.)

21. Q31: When you are searching and surfing web pages, for fun or as part of school, how do you store and organize links to what you find so you can go back and retrieve them later?

22. Q33: If you do take notes on the web pages you find, how do you do this? • Answered: 86 Skipped: 0

24. Q23: Did you know you can search web pages by date range • Answered: 85 Skipped: 1

26. Q40: Have you ever been taught how to evaluate the credibility or reliability of a web page? • Answered: 85 Skipped: 1

27. Q56: As part of their undergraduate experience, do you think new students should be given instruction in how to use digital tools to search, navigate, research, evaluate, bookmark and annotate sites/online texts?

28. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities Sample Findings (2015) • First year students use a small number of social media tools and services often, but rarely use most other tools and services (this contrasts with more experienced, “power users.”) • Texting, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat are (at present) by far the most commonly used social media services. A smaller number use Twitter, Tumblrand Reddit • Most students prefer to take hand written lecture notes, despite ~95% owning a laptop

29. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities Sample Findings • First year students far less frequently blog, create content for wikis, post comments to web sites, compose fan fiction, read or contribute to newsgroups/listservs, create web sites, videos or music. • Most first year students have limited knowledge of key digital literacy skills such as search, annotation, tagging, bookmarking, curation, web site analysis, web genre knowledge, etc. In this regard SDSU students resemble other students their age in comparable academic institutions.

30. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in GE Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities Sample Findings • SDSU students who are older, more sophisticated “power” users of digital media are more skilled in their understanding of web genres, search literacy, and their ability to tag, store and curate material that they can use later in their writing and research. • They are more adept at gaining information from social networks, and at finding ways of “bridging” their personal and academic use of social media tools and resources. • For example, they are more likely to use sites such as Reddit, which host some academic communities and conversations, anduse such sites as part of their academic work.

31. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities The 8 Habits of Highly Effective (Digital) Students • Background information (knowledge of online genres, conventions, technical formats, etc.) • Search – from basics, to advanced search, to “reflexive search,” and “social search” • Annotate, capture and store digital text • Tag, sort, archive and curate (read to write, research, contribute and publish) • Analyze, interpret, evaluate, interrogate, and triangulate (rhetorical knowledge) • Network – map, visualize, cultivate connections • Stream, feed, filter, follow and collaborate • Manage Personal Learning Networks

32. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities Sample Findings • When first year SDSU students do engage in some more “advanced” digital literacy practices, such as creating content for a blog or wiki, this is not usually self-sponsored. Rather, it is usually because it was required by a teacher. • First year students access news stories primarily through Facebook (40.7%), news aggregator sites such as Yahoo News or Google News (23.26%) or a specialized news site such as CNN or BBC (20.9%).

34. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities Sample Findings • FY students do not appear to have effective strategies for annotation, retrieval & curation of materials they find online. For example, most use “stand alone” bookmarks. Many paste useful links into MS Word, and some even hand write web addresses on paper. Students do not seem to have many effective strategies for “reading to write” online.

35. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities Sample Findings When asked how the most common forms of online activity they engage in connect to their academic work, students had three main responses: They see no connection between their experiences online and their academic work. They feel it is helpful for coordinating academic work activities, connecting with others, collaborating with other students, and discussing classes and university life as a kind of “backchannel.” They see reading and writing online, and participating in digital environments as useful for acquiring literacy skills and social skills that are broadly relevant to their academic lives. (Responses #2 and #3 appear more common amongst older, more “sophisticated” users of digital media.)

36. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities Sample Findings • Half our students feel they are not equipped to evaluate the credibility of web pages, and most students have limited knowledge of how to use the advanced functions on search engines and specialized tools such as google scholar. • Most students (87%) say undergraduate education should include instruction in how to use digital tools to search, navigate, research, evaluate, bookmark and annotate sites and texts.

37. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities Comparing results to other studies • Compared to results from recent studies that contrast digital literacy practices across institution types (for example Michigan’s “Writing in Digital Environments: The Writing Lives of College Students”) SDSU students appear to resemble students at M.A. granting state universities and students at Research universities. The resemblance to the latter may be due to the assignments faculty give students that require particular kinds of engagement with new media, rather than self-sponsored student activity.

38. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities Sample Findings ■ This pilot survey confirms some of the “limitations” in student digital literacy identifiable in recent studies and reports with respect to search, annotation, curation, etc. However, preliminary results suggest that these limitations may be as much a function of limited rhetorical knowledge, limited knowledge of print and web genres, and lack of background knowledge often assumed of “digital natives.” They also appear a function of students not being explicitly taught these skills in their earlier education.

39. SDSU Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical Digital Literacy Instruction in GE Writing Courses CTL Digital Humanities Chris Werry, Rhetoric & Writing Studies Online Teaching Materials For Critical Digital Literacy We developed a template wiki containing tools and resources writing teachers can use to teach critical digital literacy. This platform can be duplicated so a group of teachers can use the same resources. The modules include material on search literacy, site/author evaluation, rhetorical analysis of web pages, social bookmarking, tagging, annotation, and the curation of online materials for writing and research projects.

40. The wikis come with assignments, texts, spaces for group work and student blogs, writing resources, research tools, announcements and conference schedules.Teachers and students use the wikis to share material, display writing done in class, coordinate group work, and manage class presentations.

43. Annotation, bookmarking, peer review and feedback • Used the Hypothes.is Tool for Annotation, Bookmarking, Peer Review and Feedback.Individual and group annotation of textsCollaborative reading and analysis of textsEmbedding texts in discussionModeling teacher's analysis and note-takingCommenting on student writing & peer reviewSeeing how scholars annotate textsHypothes.is helps students become more active readers, collaborators, critical thinkers, and writers; it helps them compose for the web and prepare for class discussion

46. Student blogsWe trained teachers and students to use blogs for homework, reading responses, class work and portfolios.Teachers linked to student blogs from the course wikis, discussing blog writing in class.Students read about blogging as a form of "public thinking" and as a component of digital literacy.

47. Some adventurous teachers used the social bookmarking and annotation tool Diigo so students can highlight, store, tag, annotate, conduct research and curate the texts they read online.Groups bookmark texts, and students can follow other users, see the annotations they make and the bookmarks they create.

49. Creating & Sharing Modules for Teaching Core Digital Literacy Capacities. We have developed a set of resources for teaching core critical digital literacy capacities, skills and knowledges.We have a module on search & web site evaluation. The search module moves from the basics, to search as inquiry and research, to critical analysis, reflexive search (searching others' search patterns) and social search.

50. Integrating Critical Digital Literacy Into GE Writing Courses SDSU CTL Excerpts from the Search Literacy Module Digital Humanities Chris Werry, Rhetoric & Writing Studies