Category Archives: digital literacies

digital literacies

Integrating digital literacies into the curriculum

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Presenter: Candice Livingston, Faculty of Education and Social Sciences

Date, time and location:

21st of July, 13.30-15.30, lab 303, IT center, Bellville campus

28th of July, 13.30-15.30, e-Learning Building, Cape Town campus

Seminar description:

Digital literacy is defined as “the ability to effectively and critically navigate, evaluate, and create information using a range of digital technologies.” Many educational professionals cite digital literacy as a critical 21st century skill. But the question that so many struggle with, is how exactly does one integrate digital literacies in a teaching programme?

The challenge for lecturers is effectively integrating digital technology in order to improve their teaching practice but also to ensure that it is not superficial but rather, meaningful in a way that creates new information. The ultimate goal should also rest on the idea that students should be able to engage with the digital technology and use it themselves, thus improving their own digital footprint and becoming responsible digital citizens.  The following questions are useful when evaluating the use of digital technologies in your teaching:

  • What is the best technology tool for helping my students learn this content?
  • How will this technology help my students achieve the learning objectives?
  • What are the best practices for teaching with this technology tool?
  • What are the most important technology tools you need for your job?
  • What technology tools will improve your ability to do your job?

This workshop will present tried and tested examples of developing digital literacies through the use of the following digital technologies:

  • Digital storytelling
  • Blogging
  • Podcasting

Examples will be drawn from the Faculty of Education but will be transferable into other disciplines.

To book your place please use our online booking system.

 

Resources:

Link to recording

Achieving visibility and better rankings on Google Scholar (hands-on)

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Facilitator: Melius Weideman, Faculty of Informatics and Design

Date and venue: 17th of March 2016, 13.30-15.30, Centre for e-Learning (CPT campus)

Workshop description:

High rankings on search engines are not negotiable for many websites, but especially  those of e-commerce ventures. At the same time the value of citations of a researcher’s academic publications is being used as an indication of the impact of his/her research work. Google Scholar has established itself as a point of reference in terms of academic visibility, although surrounded by some controversy.

In this sessions, achieving this visibility for academic publications through Google Scholar is demonstrated through examples. The role of high quality content and the use of weight-carrying keywords and key-phrases are highlighted. A variety of other platforms are also identified as supportive to Google Scholar.

Pre-requisites for this workshop include: a full understanding of spoken and written English; familiarity with a browser; an academic publication record; a very basic familiarity with HTML code and familiarity with the general use of search engines.

Audience: Practising researchers. Participants will obtain most value from this series if they have a number of completed academic publications (journal articles, conference papers, theses, etc).

To book your place please use our online booking system

Becoming a digital scholar – workshop

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Facilitators: Daniela Gachago and Izak van Zyl, Center for e-Learning/ETU

Dates and venue

  • 3rd of March 2016, 13.30-15.30, Lab 303, IT center Bellville
  • 10th of March 2016, 13.30-15.30, e-Learning building, Cape Town (repeat)

Description of workshop:

Connecting and engaging with fellow academics online using social media has become an important part of an academic’s research practice. Academic reputations today can be considerably enhanced by developing an online profile or ‘academic identity’, that brings your work quickly to the attention of larger numbers of people than you can reach through conventional publishing or conference attendance.  Academic social networking sites such as www.academia.edu or www.researchgate.net are important platforms to increase one’s academic visibility. These workshops will introduce some of the tools that can help you maintain, look after and monitor your online academic identity while setting up a personal research environment, such as Twitter, Slideshare, Google citations, Academic.edu, Researchgate, Mendeley and blogging.

To book these workshops please use our online booking system or email gachagod@cput.ac.za.

Embedding digital literacies into the curriculum

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Facilitator: Tabisa Mayisela, CILT, UCT

Date and time: 8th of October 2015, 14.00-16.00

Venue: Mowbray Campus

Seminar description:

In order for students to meaningfully engage in technology-enhanced educational practices, they need to be digitally literate. At the same time, the world out there needs higher education graduates who can successfully participate in the technology driven workplace environment. That is, graduates who can: find and evaluate information; understand and use digital tools to collaborate, and solve real-life problems; and create and effectively share information and knowledge. Due to these needs, digital literacies have become part of the essential graduate attributes.

Bearing in mind that disciplines may embrace different digital literacy practices, the purpose of this session is to: 1) provide an overview  on digital literacies in higher education, 2) showcase case studies and 3) introduce frameworks that academics could use for embedding digital literacies into the curriculum of their respective courses.

To book your place please use our online booking system

For more information email gachagod@cput.ac.za