TLDR 3

Digital Literacy in Transition: Web Literacy, Screen Reading, and Open Learning

Published: July 10, 2015 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Too Long; Didn't Read (TL;DR), issue #3. This week brings insights on web literacy evolution, the ongoing debate about screen versus print reading, and fascinating tensions in digital communities.

🔖 Key Takeaways

Web Literacy Evolution: The Mozilla Web Literacy Map continues developing as a framework for digital citizenship skills
Screen Reading Science: Research reveals both similarities and crucial differences between digital and print reading comprehension
Community Governance: The Reddit revolt demonstrates how volunteer moderators can challenge corporate platform decisions
Pedagogical Focus: Starting with pedagogy rather than technology creates more meaningful educational transformation
Open Learning Quality: Research suggests video-heavy xMOOCs may be pedagogically problematic despite their popularity

Thank you once again for being one of the first to sign up for this newsletter. In this weekly email, I'll pull together some of the content that I shared out throughout the week. It's basically things that I think you should know & discuss. Please feel free to respond back, and share out with others.

I had two posts this week:

This week we started up my final stretch of classes at UNH. These include the starting & ending sequence of classes in the IT&DML program.

📺 Watch

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Comic-Con 2015 Behind the Scenes
A special look behind the scenes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Yes...I'm sharing this because it's Star Wars. I'm also intrigued by the use of live action, and the awareness of the limitations of computer generated imagery (CGI) by the directors. It's an interesting commentary by a group that is trying to make a film that uses the newest in digital technologies, but still connects back to the original films.

📚 Read

Everything Science Knows About Reading on Screens
We often engage in this debate about whether or not online reading is really reading. In 2008 the NY Times took some of our research from the NLRL to look at how reading has changed. My opinion is that the skills of reading online (and on screens) is the same, yet different in some ways to reading offline. We do need to recognize that reading on a screen...especially a screen of different sizes will have consequences.

The Higher Life: A Mindfulness Guru for the Tech Set
've been doing a lot of research on meditation and some of the skepticism surrounding it. I'm starting a new 30 day challenge in which I'll be meditating every day. I'll start by using the Headspace app mentioned in the piece from the New Yorker.

Why Start with Pedagogy? 4 Good Reasons, 4 Good Solutions
Excellent post from Cathy Davidson in which she makes the case for focusing on pedagogy in education. Despite all of the challenges in the world, by focusing on your classroom and pedagogical choices, educators can act as agents of social change.

MIT and German Research on the Appalling Use of Video in xMOOCs
The research examines the use of video as a teaching tool in professor-centric massive open online courses (xMOOC). Some of the takeaways from the research provide some insight into best practices for open learning. Specifically, "Think twice before using video.... it seems problematic that online learning pedagogy is concentrated so heavily in this medium."

Thanks to Stephen Downes for sharing.

Google's Dream Robots Run Wild Across the Internet
Early last week this post made the rounds online and sparked some curiosity as we looked at what happens if/when robots/androids dream. This week the images and videos got a bit more strange.

Why Character Development in Education Might Not Be Such a Good Idea
According to a Demos report, education focused on the development of character and specific traits may not be a good idea. It is not known how embedding these traits in education enhances or modifies learning objectives. It also may ignore cultural or societal values places on these characteristics.

Reddit Moderators Lock Up Popular Pages in Protest
If you've never heard of Reddit, it is a web-based blog that displays news based on personal preferences and community likes. Reddit is often called the "front page of the Internet" and the backbone of this community are the moderators for the individual discussions, or "subreddits" on the site. The protest stems from the firing of Victoria Taylor who was one of the key advocates for the "Ask Me Anything" interviews and a contact for most moderators.

At the end of the week, Ellen Pao steps down as CEO after the Reddit revolt.

Author Ernie Cline Was Told Video Games Would Rot His Brain, But Who Holds the High Score Now?

After you read this post, go read Ready Player One. By the time you're finished, you'll be ready for when his latest, Armada is released on July 14th, 2015.

🔨 Do

Interested in learning more (or making your own) open badges?

You've probably heard me (or countless others) talking about digital badges and want to get a better understanding of what they entail. Sign up for this open badges course put together by Doug Belshaw and Bryan Mathers. As an added bonus, they're releasing the course on GitHub, so you can edit/revise/comment as you see fit.

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Part of the 📧 Newsletter archive documenting digital literacy and technology insights from the early TL;DR era.