The Adult Literacy and Numeracy Professional Development Program (ALNPP) is a course for those working in preaccredited education across the state of Victoria, Australia, through the division of Adult Community and Further Education (ACFE).
For 10 weeks at the height of Victoria's lock-downs (August to November) participants from across the state met and worked through a wide range of topics across four broad areas - Theory, Practice, Frameworks, Reflection, Resources.
Digital Literacies
The development of a fifth major area for investigation - Digital Literacies - was an addition to the course I delivered for Wyndham Community Education Centre.
As the Australian Council of Adult Literacy (ACAL) has recently stated
Digital skills are increasingly being discussed and incorporated into programs and funding models. ACAL has started a conversation around whether digital literacy is different to digital skills/ the mechanics of using technologies. We are suggesting that digital literacy is the interaction between literacy and numeracy practices within/in technological contexts – digital literacies.
https://acal.edu.au/toward-a-definition-of-digital-literacy/
The ACAL definition seems a bit arcane to me but (I think) basically posits the idea that "Digital Skills" are the mechanics and "Digital Literacies" are the contexts in which communication using those technologies takes place. I think of the difference in terms of the types of "knowing" the French distinguish. Digital Skills are a kind of "savoir" = "how to do" and Digital Literacies are more akin to "connaître" = a kind of "deeper knowing" or more nuanced acquaintance. In this case it would involve understanding not only how to use a technology, platform or tool in the mechanical sense but understanding when it is best used, for, by or between whom and why you would use it.
There is a good discussion of the distinction here.
It was precisely the exploration of this intersection between "digital skills" and "digital literacies" that I was keen to explore with the group.
The approach taken involved an exploration of theory and practice specifically in relation to:
*Critical analysis of Kalantzis and Cope's Five Theses on the Future of Learning;
*Critical analysis around the practicalities of migrating f-2-f classes into various online environments;
*Critical consideration of the Digital Literacy Skills Framework (DLSF).
Access the Digital Literacies Unit website here :
https://sites.google.com/view/alnppdigitalliteracies/home
Other Delivery Components
The course delivery also included these extra components :
*a supportive orientation stage consisting of a video guide, printed manual and tutorials for those new to to online conferencing;
*a rigorous communication strategy directing participants to readings, discussions , recordings, and resources before, during and after weekly conferences;
*a private archive of conference session recordings for for those who could not attend a particular session and subsequent reference, research and review;
*a program of "guest participants" (experts in a particular field) who would attend and participant in group discussion, leave a posting and other resources for the group to bounce ideas off. Many of the participants themselves also volunteered to do "mini-presentations" on aspects of the course which they felt they had particular expertise.
Feedback
There was a great deal of feedback collected. It was overwhelmingly positive and reinforces my impression that teachers, not only in the fields of adult literacy, numeracy and language education, but much more generally, are looking for opportunities to extend the range of their practice. Once they are presented with examples of what can be done online, they seem keen to forge ahead.
As one participant put it ...
The introduction of Digital Literacy to the ACSF and how it will affect our approach was magnified in this time of Covid. I could not have imagined 6 months ago that this topic would have generated so much discussion within the group. I was reassured that my concerns within this space were somewhat echoed by others. However, it was not a tone of despair, it was a feeling of 'How as trainers can we do this better?' The digital literacy unit offered some answers. Why would you simply create a pdf of existing resources to deliver training? The opportunity to deliver in a whole new way that actually enhances the learning experience is within our grasp, however the learner must stay central to the decisions surrounding the development of such platforms.
