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Digital Literacies in Education SIG (2016 – 2019)

Digital Literacies in Education SIG brings together practitioners, researchers, consultants and others who are interested in sharing experiences from research and practice in relation to digital literacies.

Between 2016-2019, the Digital Literacies in Education SIG brought practitioners, researchers, consultants and others with interest in sharing experiences from research and practice in relation to digital literacies together

SIG members collaborated to publish Digital Literacies in Education. It is available from the UKLA Bookshop.

	Cathy Burnett (Convenor) Sheffield Hallam University My research explores children’s on/off screen meaning making within and beyond educational contexts. I am particularly interested in social and material dimensions of the ways that teachers and children take up digital media in classrooms in the current policy environment, and in the possibilities and challenges associated with such practices. My recent work with Guy Merchant has focused on ways of conceptualising and engaging with ephemerality and emergence in researching virtual play.
	Julia Davies (Convenor) University of Sheffield My research has been concerned with exploring how individuals and groups make use of digital technologies in their everyday lives. I have had a particular interest in how online social network sites have played an increasingly important role is shaping people’s uses of new technologies, influencing how they see themselves, others and their place within the world. This has involved the consideration of how we narrate our lives to ourselves and others through multimodal means. These foci have allowed me to consider how academic institutions might learn from the ways in which digital practices in the home and community might be accounted for, extended and challenged within educational institutions and curricular.
	Clare Dowdall (Convenor) Plymouth University I currently lecture in Language and Literacy Education at Plymouth University (UK), working with research students and students in Post Graduate and Initial Teacher Education. My research is grounded in the New Literacies and focuses on areas relating to children’s digital and school-based literacies. Currently I have a particular interest in notions of text and how texts are produced by children in the 21st century, both in school and other contexts. I am a member of the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) Executive Council and also the Associate Editor for the UKLA’s international journal Literacy.
	Michelle Cannon My work expands the concept of literacy to include digital dimensions beyond traditional language skills. With a particular interest in iPad film-making with primary children, I explore holistic and dynamic approaches to meaning-making that embrace cultural context, social interactions and the processes of crafting digital media products. Using creative research methods, I also contribute to current thinking on forms of pedagogy that accommodate less hierachical and more inclusive/participatory media learning practices in schools.
	Sue Dymoke University of Leicester I am a Reader in Education at the University of Leicester and my research focuses on poetry pedagogy. Three current projects investigate: theoretical perspectives on young people’s poetry writing development as a social practice; Spoken Word education and the nature of poetic identity as constructed through poetry composition. Recent publications include: Dymoke (2016) ‘Integrating poetry-focused digital technology within a literacy teacher education course’ (in C. Kosnik et al Building Bridges: Rethinking Literacy Teacher Education in a Digital Era) and Dymoke, Barrs, Lambirth and Wilson (2015) Making Poetry Happen (Highly Commended, UKLA Academic Book Award 2016). My blog is at suedymokepoetry.com
	Aline Frederico University of Cambridge After working for several years in publishing in Brazil, I decided to get back to academia to explore how children read digital literature. I have then embarked in a PhD journey at The University of Cambridge, where I explore, from the lenses of multimodal social semiotics, how 4-year-old children make meaning from story apps in a joint-reading situation with a parent. The affordances of the text, the children’s intentions and motivations and the socio-cultural context are all considered in the exploration of these complex meaning-making situations.
	Julia Gillen Lancaster University I summarise my research interests as “digital literacies enhancing life.” This gives me a lot of scope to look at fascinating practices in online spaces interwoven with people’s other activities. I locate myself in Literacy Studies, which means that I generally want to understand the context of activities, located in space and time. Current topics I am investigating include exploring children’s digital practices outside school and the extent to which these are recognised, valued and influence practice inside primary schools (the NP3 project) and Citizen Humanities (the Edwardian Postcard Project).
	Caroline Green Kings Preparatory School Currently, I am Second Deputy and an English teacher at Kings Preparatory School. Two years ago, my school installed Wifi and took an initiative to trial a bank of twenty iPads. Although initially, the iPads were seen with trepidation by a number of staff, at the end of the year it was agreed to introduce 1:1 iPads across Year 6. This was the beginning of my journey of exploration into using mobile technology in the literacy classroom. It was also the catalyst for my decision to take up the challenge of a PhD with a research focus on reimagining literacy in a digital age.
	Jeanette Hannaford My research lies in the intersecting spaces of language and literacy, pedagogy, and digital culture in home and school spaces, in the lives of globally mobile children. I have particular interest in digital literacies and identity, critical literacies, international education, and gender theory. My research is informed by my wide-range of teaching experiences, across Grades 2-12, in an international spread of locations. While from an Australian background, I think of myself as a member of the ‘international community’, having lived in a number of countries due to my partner’s work with the United Nations. I currently reside in New York.
	Anna Harrison University of Roehampton I am interested in children’s responses and engagement to multimodal digital texts, particularly adaptations of classic picturebooks as picturebook apps. How do reluctant readers engage with these digital texts? What part does haptic engagement play in this experience? What kind of meta-language do children have in order to talk about their digital picturebook experiences? Does the use of iPads lead to more social collaborative reading experiences? My recent work includes research in 2016 in two schools in South West London on Year 1 pupil responses and engagement with The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Loud Crow, 2011, and Puffin, 2011.
	Colin Harrison University of Nottingham I am currently Emeritus Professor of Literacy Studies in Education at the University of Nottingham, and most of my research has focused on the intersection between literacy and technology. My first published study was of children writing stories based on the PacMan game on the BBC Model B computer, in 1986. From 2003-6 I chaired the International Reading Association’s Literacy and Technology Committee. I worked on six projects for Becta, including ImpaCT2, Web2.0 and Impact09. More recently I have been working in two areas: innovation in online learning in HE, and children’s critical Internet literacy.
	Helen Hendry Bishop Grosseteste University I am currently researching undergraduate students’ development as academic readers and writers and the role of digital literacy in this process. I am conducting a collaborative research project, involving students as co-inquirers, which examines the experiences of undergraduate education studies students (with other subjects) through the course of their degree. I am also interested in teacher education and recently gained my PhD, which focused on the development of students’ and newly qualified teachers’ knowledge and practice for teaching early reading. My work uses activity theory to inform my perspective on higher education and teacher development.
	Linda Laidlaw University of Alberta, Canada I am Professor in Language and Literacy Education at the University of Alberta. Formerly a classroom teacher, my current research focuses on digital and mobile technologies in primary education, and is particularly interested in the relationship between children’s digital literacy practices at home and their experiences at school. I have developed two Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Grants projects focusing on digital literacies: Literacy learning in playful spaces: Using multi-modal strategies to develop narrative with young learners (completed); and A comparative investigation of pedagogical possibilities of digital tools for family and school early literacy education(ongoing).
	Amelie Lemieux McGill University, Canada I am a Ph.D. Candidate (Literacy and Curriculum, McGill), and a Bombardier SSHRC scholar, Lieutenant-Governor General of Quebec medal recipient, and act as French Liaison for the Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada. My research focuses on youth’s aesthetic meaning-making and reading reception of literary works in classroom settings. My project has been recognized by the Canadian Foundation for Economic Education (CFEE) with the Tim Casgrain award for research excellence in literacy studies. My original contributions to research in language and literacy studies have been recognized by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Quebec Fonds de Recherches Société et Culture (FRQSC), and the Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada (LLRC). My research on aesthetic meaning-making and reading reception was ranked 1st out of all provincial applications in 2014 by the FRQSC.
	Fiona Maine University of Cambridge I am a lecturer in literacy education at the University of Cambridge and my research investigates children’s critical and creative thinking and language as they respond to different modes of text. In particular, I am interested in exploring the commonalities of narrative across visual, filmic and digital gaming texts whilst highlighting the specific modal differences that challenge our concepts of literacy and how we teach it. My recent studies have included using film to teach reading comprehension and investigating children’s engagement and immersion in digital storyworlds.
	Julian McDougall Bournemouth Univeresity I am Professor in Media and Education, Head of the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I was the founding editor of the Media Education Research Journal and currently edit the Journal of Media Practice. I run the Professional Doctorate (Ed D) in Creative and Media Education at Bournemouth University. I convene the annual International Media Education Summit, held in a different country each year and am author / editor of a range of books, chapters, journal articles and reports in the fields of media education and media literacies. Projects and publications: http://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/jmcdougall
	Lori McKee Western University, Canada My research interests are situated at the intersections of multimodal literacies, pedagogies, teacher professional learning, and early childhood education. My current work explores the ways that early primary educators can integrate digital and multimodal resources into their classroom pedagogical literacy practices supported through a Community of Practice (e.g., Lave & Wenger, 1991) and the implications these multimodal literacy practices can have on children’s literacy learning.
	Guy Merchant Sheffield Hallam University My published work is concerned with the relationship between literacy and technology and how that plays out in the lives of children and young people as they move between home and school settings. In my research I place this in the context of wider social and cultural shifts in communicative practice. My recent work is motivated by an interest in crafting alternative accounts of emergent meaning around digital technology. New theoretical and methodological approaches for exploring this have been developed through collaboration with Cathy Burnett in our explorations of how virtual worlds and mobile technologies get taken up in classrooms.
	Becky Parry University of Nottingham I am Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham, in the School of education, and am a member of the Centre for Research in Arts, Literacy and Creativity. I am interested in arts education and playful approaches to the teaching and learning of literacy. My research focuses particularly on children’s film and media and film and media education. I am author of ‘Children, Film and Literacy’ published by Palgrave Macmillan. I was formerly a teacher and cinema educator and have worked on numerous creative production projects with children and young people. I have a strong interest in participatory and arts-based approaches to research.
	John Potter University College London I am Reader in Media in Education at the University College London Knowledge Lab in the Department of Culture, Communication and Media at the UCL Institute of Education. My research and publications are in the fields of: media education, new literacies, creative activity and learner agency; the changing nature of teaching and learning in response to the pervasive use in wider culture of media technologies in formal and informal settings. Before moving into Higher Education, I worked as primary school teacher and held teacher education posts at both the University of East London and Goldsmiths College.
	Candice Satchwell University of Central Lancashire I am Reader in Education and Literacies at University of Central Lancashire. I am particularly interested in the ways that people use literacies in their everyday lives and how these literacies relate (or not) to those prevalent in education. I am Principal Investigator on an AHRC-funded project, Stories to Connect With: disadvantaged children creating phygital community artefacts to share their life-narratives of resilience and transformation. In this research, I am examining how young people’s literacy practices can be harnessed in the co-creation of stories about their lives, and the opportunities for creative digital and print forms for telling the stories to a range of audiences.
	Suzanna So Har Wong University of Alberta I am a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Language and Literacy Education at the University of Alberta. My doctoral research focused on preschoolers’ multiliteracy practices at home and their parents’ perspectives on these multiliteracy practices. Currently, my research interest is in children’s digital literacy practices in early childhood education settings and teachers’ digital literacy teaching practices in primary classrooms.
	Nicola Yuill Children and Technology Lab, school of psychology, University of sussex We are interested in how technology can be used to understand and support children working and playing together, at school and at home, in typical and atypical development, with peers, with parents and with teachers. We develop and evaluate technology-supported interventions for reading comprehension and investigate the role of technology in parent-child shared reading. An underlying theme of our work is the role of social interaction and collaboration in learning and development. How do interactions between peers support learning? How do parents scaffold children’s learning at home? What role does technology play in supporting children’s collaborative play and learning? And how might developmentally-appropriate technology be used creatively and innovatively to support these interactions?