From Digital Literacy to Online Identity

November 28, 2017 by

Social Media Remote by Animated Heaven on Flickr, used under Public DomainLast week, I shared a critical thinking activity that asked students to explore the definitions of digital native and digital literacy. With my activity this week, I ask students to consider the idea of online identity. I cover several aspects of online identity, so I will share several posts on the topic. Today’s post focuses on an activity that shifts from digital literacy to the online identity that someone builds with those literacy skills. This activity should take only one class session.

The Activity

  1. Have students review the characteristics of the terms digital native and digital literacy, which the class established during previous sessions. Make any updates or changes that students want to the characteristics.
  2. With the characteristics fresh in students’ minds, explain that the class will apply the ideas by discussing the digital literacy skills that a public figure needs today.
    NOTE: Focus the discussion on particular public figures to ensure that you can complete the discussion during one class session. Consider the public figures in the instructions below as examples. Choose other public figures if they will work better for your class.
  3. Ask students about the digital literacy skills that a state politician or the school’s president needs and why those skills are needed. Ask them to consider the role rhetorical factors play—how do the audience, purpose, and context matter in terms of the necessary digital literacy skills? Record their responses on one side of the board or similar display.
  4. Once students have the basic characteristics determined, explain that you want them to think about how the digital literacy skills they expect would change (or not) if the public figure were a digital native, recording their answers on the other side of the display. Provide a concrete example such as the student government president or a class president. Encourage students to address the same ideas that they considered for the first public figure they analyzed. If new ideas come up for the digital native public figure, have students consider whether it applies to the older public figure (and if not, why not).
  5. With details recorded for both public figures, connect the conversation to online identity. Explain generally that online identity is the personality someone builds as they use their digital literacy skills. Provide only a brief definition. Students will have a working idea of what the term online identity means. The goal here is to ask students to record their preliminary ideas about the concept in preparation of deeper analysis.
  6. Arrange students into four small groups, asking two groups to consider the state politician or school president and the other two to consider the student government president or a class president. In their small groups, ask students to brainstorm a list of artifacts that they would expect to find if they investigated their public figure’s online identity.
  7. To get them started, you can offer the guiding questions below, but indicate these are just some opening questions. Groups can add many more questions of their own to these starting points:
    • What kind of social media accounts would you expect the figure to have?
    • What sites would you expect the figure to have logins on?
    • Where would you expect the figure to post comments?
    • Where would you find photos that figure posted online?
  8. Depending upon the amount of time left in the class, students can either present their brainstormed lists, combining the ideas to create one list for the state politician or school president and the other two to consider the student government president or a class president. If you have run out of time, ask groups to turn in their lists and combine the lists before the next session.
  9. End the session by explaining that you will use these lists as a starting point for a research project on online identity that you will begin during the next class session. Ask students to continue thinking about online identity, and to jot down any additional ideas they think of to add to their lists at the beginning of the next session.

Follow-Up Activities

Depending upon your course textbook, you might ask students to read an essay about establishing identity, whether online or not. The Bedford/St. Martin’s title Acting Out Culture (4th ed, 2018) includes a chapter on “How We Identify” that offers a variety of relevant essays. If you want students to read specifically about online identity, Daniel Ruefman’s “Taking Control: Managing Your Online Identity for the Job Search” from Writing Commons frames the topic in terms that students can relate to personally.

Any Ideas to Add?

Let me hear your suggestions for talking about online identity and digital literacy in the composition classroom. Whether you have an assignment, a great reading, or another resource to share, I would love to see what you have to say. I might even feature your idea in an upcoming post!

 

[Photo: Social Media Remote by Animated Heaven on Flickr, used under Public Domain]

This post originally published on the Bedford Bits blog.

Filed under activity idea: english, Bedford Bits

@newsfromtengrrl for 2017-11-21

November 22, 2017 by

Filed under news

What Is Digital Literacy: A Critical Thinking Activity

November 21, 2017 by

Digital Natives: An Infographic Series about Emerging Adults, from Oxford University PressVirginia Tech Libraries are embarking on a digital literacy initiative, which focuses on “support[ing] all learners in exploring, evaluating, creating, and sharing a variety of digital content, including data, information, and media.” This work matches much of the work I have been doing all along in the writing classroom when I talk about digital resources and digital composing.

 

For the next few weeks, I will share some relevant classroom activities and assignments that align with the digital literacy work on my campus. I’m starting my series with an activity that focuses on defining what it means to be a digital native and, by extension, what we mean when we talk about digital literacy. Establishing an understanding of these two terms provides the support for all the future activities in this series. Depending upon the length of your class sessions, you may break up the activity into more than one session.

 

The Activity

  1. Establish what students already know and think about the terms digital native and digital literacy. Ask students to write what they know about the terms, using whatever strategy they find most comfortable (e.g., freewriting, listing, clustering/mindmaps).
  2. Have students share their notes on the two terms in small groups, working together to identify similarities among the responses and the strongest ideas they have recorded.
  3. Ask each group to present the similarities and strongest ideas they have identified, writing notes on the board or presenting from a shared slideshow.
  4. With class input, group related ideas that have been shared, rephrasing and reducing as necessary to narrow down the list of characteristics. Identify this synthesized list as the first draft of characteristics of the terms for the class.
  5. Explain that the class will next compare the first draft to ideas that are presented in infographics about digital natives and digital literacy.
  6. Share my Digital Literacy board on Pinterest, or share your own collection of infographics. Preview each of the infographics briefly with the class. If desired, you may limit this activity to a single infographic or a small number of infographics.
  7. Assign each group a specific infographic to analyze. Alternately, allow groups to choose an infographic, first-come, first-served style.
  8. Ask students to return to their small groups and examine the infographic closely, using the following questions to guide their conversation:
    • What facts about digital literacy and/or digital natives are included in the infographic?
    • What support is given for the facts?
    • What is the source of the facts? Are the sources reputable?
    • Do you agree with the facts in the infographic? How well do they match your experience?
    • How do the facts in the infographic compare to those in the first draft that the class created?
  9. After students have discussed their infographics thoroughly, ask them to consider whether to change or add to the first draft of characteristics. Have groups identify their points generally, explaining that the whole class will decide on the specific details of changes or additions.
  10. Once small groups have finished their work, ask each group to share their infographic along with the basic points of their analysis of the infographic, relying on their answers to the questions in Step 8 to structure their presentation. Ask each group to end their presentation by explaining any changes or additions they recommend as a result of their analysis.
  11. Once the group presentations are complete, sort the changes and additions that have been suggested. Ask each small group to reconcile the relevant changes with an existing characteristic and/or to draft additional characteristics.
  12. Have groups submit their revisions and additions to you. Before the next class session, combine all the characteristics into a new draft. Make copies to distribute or create a slideshow of the revised characteristics.
  13. During the next session, pass out copies or share the slideshow with the class. Ask students to review the new draft, and as a class make any additional changes to the characteristics. Explain that this revised, new draft will be used in future activities.

Follow-Up Activities

Next week, I will share a follow-up activity that asks students to think about how their characteristics relate to the idea of online identity. If desired, however, you can use these alternative activities:

 

  • Ask students, working individually or in small groups, to create their own infographics that present one or more of the characteristics that the class has established.
  • Treat the class list of characteristics as a collection of hypotheses about digital natives and digital literacy. Have students, again individually or in small groups, research a characteristic, looking for supporting data. Ask students to prepare a formal oral presentation of their findings as well as any recommendations to change the characteristic they have investigated.
  • Have students write narrative essays that describe a specific incident from their own lives or that they have observed that relates to one of the characteristics. Students’ stories should support or refute the characteristic they focus on.

Any Ideas to Add?

I would love to hear some new ideas on discussing digital natives and digital literacy with students. Do you have ideas to share or infographics that I can add to my collection? Please leave me a comment below with the details, and come back next week for my follow-up activity that focuses on online identity.

 

 

Infographic Credit: Digital Natives: An Infographic Series about Emerging Adults, from Oxford University Press

This post originally published on the Bedford Bits blog.

Filed under activity idea: english, Bedford Bits