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2 Foreword New technologies of fer a rich variety of ways in which learners can interact, communicate and collaborate; however, both learners and teachers need to develop a complex set of digital literacies in order to harness the potential of these media. This edited collection is an output from a DIVERSE conference held at Dublin City University in It is an authoritative work outlining dif ferent strands of digital literacy research and is timely given the increasing impact that technologies are having on education. It covers both theoretical discourses on the topic, along with practical empirical studies of the use of dif ferent technologies, such as podcasts, mobile devices and virtual worlds. Yvonne Crotty sets the scene for the book in Chapter 1, describing the origins and focus of the DIVERSE 2011 conference, which included keynotes from two eminent speakers, Michael Wesch and Roy Pea. In Chapter 2, Michael Wesch provides a philosophical account of the impact of new media and the means by which social and participatory media enable us to actively engage, interact, communicate and collaborate; as he states, We were celebrating empowerment, new forms of connection and community, and new and unimaginable possibilities. He states that this is not just a technology revolution but also a social one. Despite this potential, his research and the research of others shows that students are not extensively engaging with new media and lack the critical literacy skills to make informed judgments about the relevance of resources they find for their own studies. Roy Pea and colleagues focus on a study about fostering collaborative learning through the use of digital video technologies for collaborative knowledge construction in a classroom. The study provides evidence of how to improve guidance for student teams solving a complex authentic task in history.

3 viii Foreword In Chapter 4, Vance Martin describes the use of wikis to foster democratic teaching. He uses an action research approach and draws in particular on the work of Vygotsky, Lave and Wenger and the concepts of social production and the open source movements. He concludes that [Technologies] can of fer all students the chance to find their voice, and become creators in their own education. In Chapter 5, Theo Kuechel plots the evolution of audiovisual technology over the last sixty years and, in particular, explores the potential shift of the use of these media from one-way presentation to the promotion of dif ferent pedagogical approaches. He describes a pedagogical model developed as part of a JISC-funded project, which consisted of the following elements: watch/observe, analyse/predict, empathise, create, share/ publish and collaborate. Stephen J. McNeill and Joshua N. Azriel also argue that we are witnesses to a global communication revolution, in Chapter 6. They describe a study using cell phones for journalism with a group of communication students. They used the phones to gather data on a new item and to produce a newspaper-style article. In Chapter 7, Glen Williams focuses on visual educational resources. He argues that Visual content can be harnessed to enliven our classes, provide illustrative examples, and enhance learning. He summarises the work of Hariman, Lucaites and Finnegan on the power of visualization, and concludes by arguing that we need to help students develop visual literacies in order to participate in today s media-rich environment. Yvonne Crotty and Margaret Farren, the editors of the book, describe the development of information and communication technologies at Dublin City University, in Chapter 8. The chapter begins by describing the Irish government s policies on ICT in education over the last twenty years or so. It goes on to describe the establishment of the Centre for Teaching Computing at DCU, along with a Masters in Computer Applications for Education that has now developed into the Masters in Education and Training Management (elearning). In Chapter 9, Jack Whitehead focuses on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP), drawing on Schön s research. He concludes by stating that the generation and legitimation of living educational

4 Foreword ix theories takes place in contexts that have been inf luenced by dif ferent historical traditions and sociocultural inf luences and that these contexts are in a constant process of transformation. Virtual worlds are the focus of Chapter 10, by Sabrina Fitzsimons. Her interest is in understanding immersion in virtual worlds and the stages one moves through: from separation, through transition and finally transformation. She describes her own experience, using an ethnographic approach, and argues that it is a challenging and experiential learning process. In Chapter 11, Fawei Geng and colleagues describe the development of podcasts at Oxford University; the initiative built on Oxford s initial developments from 2008 onwards. In particular, there were a number of shortcomings identified with the then approach to developing podcasts, namely: remoteness of contributors, scattered hosting and split collection interfaces. The JISC-funded OpenSpires project aimed to address these and to establish a rich Open Educational Resource repository. Evaluation of the resource indicated a number of benefits: motivating distance learners, supporting existing students, helping teachers in their professional development, and reuse in the classroom. Rüdiger Rolf and colleagues describe, in Chapter 12, a lecture capture system developed at the University of Osnabrück and, in particular, a project funded by the Mellon Foundation, Matterhorn, which involved thirteen partners. In Chapter 13, Meghan Dougherty and Adrienne Massanari outline best practices for bloggers. They begin with an overview of the type and purposes of dif ferent blogs, ranging from personal diaries through to information portals. The chapter provides a useful set of tips and hints for creating and maintaining blogs. In a postscript to the book, Mathy Vanbuel and Sally Reynolds describe the establishment of the MEDEA awards scheme in 2007, which aimed to recognise and reward excellence in media to support learning. What I particularly admire about this book is the rich set of empirically based examples of the use of dif ferent technologies to promote dif ferent pedagogical approaches. Together, they give an excellent picture of the potential of new technologies for education, but also demonstrate that both teachers and learners need to develop a complex set of digital literacies

5 x Foreword in order to harness this potential. Providing practical examples (as in this book), along with more structured guidance for the design of learning interventions, is the way to achieve this. As Michael Wesch states in Chapter 2, we are poised for a revolution in education. Technologies truly have the potential to transform; the question is, are we as teachers ready to embrace this potential? Gráinne Conole