1. SDSU
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities
Project Overview Data from surveys, student reflections, writing assignments, and interviews were collected in order to
Map SDSU students’ digital literacy practices, attitudes and skills
Guide the integration of critical digital literacy into writing classes
Inform the creation of materials for teaching critical digital literacy in GE writing classes
Support and train TAs teaching writing and critical digital literacy
Contribute to the Digital Humanities Initiative and the creation of modules for teaching core digital literacy skills

2. SDSU
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in GE Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities
Project Overview
Data (surveys, reflections, interviews) was collected from students in first year writing classes, and from students in an upper division RWS course who possess “advanced” digital literacy skills.
Pilot study in fall Conducted larger study in fall 2016 (includes materials on “fake news”) and will review data in summer 2017.
It was collected from students in first year writing classes, and from students in an upper division RWS course who possess “advanced” digital literacy skills. Wanted a point of comparison. So ABOUT 100 first year students, and 20 upper division students. In 2016 we collected data from 450 students, and will work on this in summer 2017.
We are also trying to bring in some attention to digital literacy as a topic, but also as a set of skills we can introduce, in a very modest way. For example, SEARCH, unit 2 – give them library instruction, but also broader, more critical approach to searching using everyday tools such as google. To that end, Each of the major texts takes up the issue of what it means to read, write, argue and analyze in the digital age – provide distinct, different positions. Thompson – optimist, focused on writing; Boyd has a more critical view, and she focuses on reading, writing and critical analysis; Carr’s plays the pessimist and curmudgeon, and is mostly focused on reading.
THE WIKIS – can be a way of approaching CDL; work with blogs and a wiki.

3. Survey Research Questions
SDSU
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities
Survey Research Questions
What are students’ most common forms of engagement with social media resources? Which digital resources are students using most often to read, write, socialize and interact?
What purposes, attitudes and assumptions accompany students’ use of social media resources?
To what extent are our students’ digital literacy practices similar to those documented in recent research studies?
When we compare first year students’ use of social media with those of more experienced, “sophisticated,” upper division undergraduate students, what is seen?
Definitions of digital literacy often include the ability to search, store, tag, annotate, network, curate and analyze texts. To what extent do our students show facility with these skills?
Do our students’ uses of new media present “bridging” opportunities, ways of leveraging existing practices in order to support key academic writing/reading/research/thinking skills?
The survey focused on the following questions:

4. The Context The “Conversation” Who cares? What is at stake?

5. The 2000s: Digital Utopianism
1999 – Y2K, Blair Witch project, Columbine, Tom Cruise & Nicole just got together,

6. "We are in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization." (Lunsford, 2007)
“Today’s classroom is the web itself, and it’s a classroom of seamless transfer of information, of collaborative, individualized learning, and of active participation by all members of class.” (Richardson, 2007.)
“21st Century Writing marks the beginning of a new era in literacy, a period we might call the age of composition.” (Yancey, 2009)
“In the case of the web, writers compose authentic texts in informal digitally networked contexts, but there isn’t a hierarchy of expert-apprentice, but rather a peer co-apprenticeship in which communicative knowledge is freely exchanged.” (Yancey, 2009)

7. “Digital media offer us an opportunity for equality, for letting everyone be producers as well as consumers. With digital media people can often bypass official institutions and oversight to produce their own media, knowledge, products, services and texts.” (Gee and Hayes, 2011)
“Facebook provides a commons for people, not unlike the commons that used to be in small towns and large.” Yancey, “Writing in the 21st Century.”
We are also trying to bring in some attention to digital literacy as a topic, but also as a set of skills we can introduce, in a very modest way. For example, SEARCH, unit 2 – give them library instruction, but also broader, more critical approach to searching using everyday tools such as google. To that end, Each of the major texts takes up the issue of what it means to read, write, argue and analyze in the digital age – provide distinct, different positions. Thompson – optimist, focused on writing; Boyd has a more critical view, and she focuses on reading, writing and critical analysis; Carr’s plays the pessimist and curmudgeon, and is mostly focused on reading.
THE WIKIS – can be a way of approaching CDL; work with blogs and a wiki.

8. Rhetoric of the Digital Native
Marc Prensky’s “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” adopted by many writers, journalists, policy makers, and some scholars.
“Today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors.” (Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” 2001.)

9. “‘Digital natives’ rhetoric is worse than inaccurate: it is dangerous… it allows us to eschew responsibility for helping youth and adults navigate a networked world. If we view skills and knowledge as inherently generational, then organized efforts to achieve needed forms of literacy are unnecessary…all we as a society need to do is be patient and wait for a generation of these digital wunderkinds to grow up. A laissez faire attitude is unlikely to eradicate the inequalities that continue to emerge. Likewise, these attitudes will not empower average youth to be sophisticated, critical internet participants.” Dana Boyd, 2014, The Social Lives of Networked Teens, p.197

10. Hargittai and Hinnant, "Digital Inequality: Differences in Young Adults' Use of the Internet”
Mapping the Writing Lives of First-Year College Students, Jeff Grabill and Stacey Pigg.
“The ERIAL Project: Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries”
Atkins and Reilly, “The Impact of Resource-poor Techno-ecologies on Student Technology Use”

11. “The prevalence of Google in student research is well-documented, but Illinois researchers found…students were not very good at using Google. They were basically clueless about the logic underlying how the search engine organizes & displays its results.” (Kolowich “What Students Don't Know”)
“Duke and Asher were surprised by the extent to which students appeared to lack even some of the most basic information literacy skills that we assumed they would have mastered in high school.”
*“What Students Don't Know,” Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Education,
August 22, 2011

12. A New (Digital) Literacy Crisis?
“In the 1950s critics pondered, ‘Why Johnny Can’t Read.’ Now they should ponder ‘Why Johnny Can’t Search.’ Whose fault is that? Not the students. If they’re unable to navigate online information it’s because, rather amazingly, they’re almost never taught search literacy in schools.” (Thompson, Smarter Than You Think, p. 205.)

13. In Google we trust?
Pan et al. secretly altered the search results students received, putting low ranked results at the top. Most students appeared to use these results, anyway, trusting the ranking given. “In Google We Trust: Users’ Decisions on Rank, Position, and Relevance.” Bing Pan et al.

14. Sample Survey Results from Fall 2015

15. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities Research Questions
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities
Research Questions
What are students’ most common forms of engagement with social media resources? Which digital resources are students using most often to read, write, socialize and interact?
What purposes, attitudes and assumptions accompany students’ use of social media resources?
To what extent are our students’ digital literacy practices similar to those documented in recent research studies?
When we compare first year students’ use of social media with those of more experienced, “sophisticated,” upper division undergraduate students, what is seen?
Definitions of digital literacy often include the ability to search, store, tag, annotate, network, curate and analyze texts. To what extent do our students show facility with these skills?
Do our students’ uses of new media present “bridging” opportunities, ways of leveraging existing practices in order to support key academic writing/reading/research/thinking skills?
The survey focused on the following questions:

16. Q3: Specify Ethnicity
Answered: Skipped: 0

17. PHONE AND LAPTOP ARE THE KEYTHINGS
PHONE AND LAPTOP ARE THE KEYTHINGS. TABLET AND DESKTOP USE FAR LESS USED.

18. Q5: At university, when taking notes in class, do you mostly take a) handwritten lecture notes or b) use a computer?
Answered: Skipped: 2

19. SDSU CTL Digital Humanities
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in GE Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities

20. Q11: When you read news stories online, what is the most common way you access them (e.g. via a Facebook link, Instagram, Yahoo, , visiting a news site like CNN, some other site.)

21. Q31: When you are searching and surfing web pages, for fun or as part of school, how do you store and organize links to what you find so you can go back and retrieve them later?

22. Q33: If you do take notes on the web pages you find, how do you do this?
Answered: Skipped: 0

24. Q23: Did you know you can search web pages by date range
Answered: Skipped: 1

26. Q40: Have you ever been taught how to evaluate the credibility or reliability of a web page?
Answered: Skipped: 1

27. Q56: As part of their undergraduate experience, do you think new students should be given instruction in how to use digital tools to search, navigate, research, evaluate, bookmark and annotate sites/online texts?

28. SDSU
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities
Sample Findings (2015)
First year students use a small number of social media tools and services often, but rarely use most other tools and services (this contrasts with more experienced, “power users.”)
Texting, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat are (at present) by far the most commonly used social media services. A smaller number use Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit
Most students prefer to take hand written lecture notes, despite ~95% owning a laptop
The ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) project is a series of studies of student digital literacy conducted at Illinois universities.
“The majority of students -- of all levels -- exhibited significant difficulties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process”… They tended to overuse Google and misuse scholarly databases. They preferred simple database searches to other methods of discovery, but generally exhibited ‘a lack of understanding of search logic’ that often foiled their attempts to find good sources.”

29. SDSU
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in RWS Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities
Sample Findings
First year students far less frequently blog, create content for wikis, post comments to web sites, compose fan fiction, read or contribute to newsgroups/listservs, create web sites, videos or music.
Most first year students have limited knowledge of key digital literacy skills such as search, annotation, tagging, bookmarking, curation, web site analysis, web genre knowledge, etc. In this regard SDSU students resemble other students their age in comparable academic institutions.
The ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) project is a series of studies of student digital literacy conducted at Illinois universities.
“The majority of students -- of all levels -- exhibited significant difficulties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process”… They tended to overuse Google and misuse scholarly databases. They preferred simple database searches to other methods of discovery, but generally exhibited ‘a lack of understanding of search logic’ that often foiled their attempts to find good sources.”

30. SDSU
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in GE Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities
Sample Findings
SDSU students who are older, more sophisticated “power” users of digital media are more skilled in their understanding of web genres, search literacy, and their ability to tag, store and curate material that they can use later in their writing and research.
They are more adept at gaining information from social networks, and at finding ways of “bridging” their personal and academic use of social media tools and resources.
For example, they are more likely to use sites such as Reddit, which host some academic communities and conversations, and use such sites as part of their academic work.

31. The 8 Habits of Highly Effective (Digital) Students
SDSU
CTL
Digital Humanities
The 8 Habits of Highly Effective (Digital) Students
Background information (knowledge of online genres, conventions, technical formats, etc.)
Search – from basics, to advanced search, to “reflexive search,” and “social search”
Annotate, capture and store digital text
Tag, sort, archive and curate (read to write, research, contribute and publish)
Analyze, interpret, evaluate, interrogate, and triangulate (rhetorical knowledge)
Network – map, visualize, cultivate connections
Stream, feed, filter, follow and collaborate
Manage Personal Learning Networks

32. SDSU
CTL
Digital Humanities
Sample Findings
When first year SDSU students do engage in some more “advanced” digital literacy practices, such as creating content for a blog or wiki, this is not usually self-sponsored. Rather, it is usually because it was required by a teacher.
First year students access news stories primarily through Facebook (40.7%), news aggregator sites such as Yahoo News or Google News (23.26%) or a specialized news site such as CNN or BBC (20.9%).

34. SDSU
CTL
Digital Humanities
Sample Findings
FY students do not appear to have effective strategies for annotation, retrieval & curation of materials they find online. For example, most use “stand alone” bookmarks. Many paste useful links into MS Word, and some even hand write web addresses on paper. Students do not seem to have many effective strategies for “reading to write” online.

35. Sample Findings SDSU CTL Digital Humanities
When asked how the most common forms of online activity they engage in connect to their academic work, students had three main responses:
They see no connection between their experiences online and their academic work.
They feel it is helpful for coordinating academic work activities, connecting with others, collaborating with other students, and discussing classes and university life as a kind of “backchannel.”
They see reading and writing online, and participating in digital environments as useful for acquiring literacy skills and social skills that are broadly relevant to their academic lives.
(Responses #2 and #3 appear more common amongst older, more “sophisticated” users of digital media.)

36. SDSU
CTL
Digital Humanities
Sample Findings
Half our students feel they are not equipped to evaluate the credibility of web pages, and most students have limited knowledge of how to use the advanced functions on search engines and specialized tools such as google scholar.
Most students (87%) say undergraduate education should include instruction in how to use digital tools to search, navigate, research, evaluate, bookmark and annotate sites and texts.
The ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) project is a series of studies of student digital literacy conducted at Illinois universities.
“The majority of students -- of all levels -- exhibited significant difficulties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process”… They tended to overuse Google and misuse scholarly databases. They preferred simple database searches to other methods of discovery, but generally exhibited ‘a lack of understanding of search logic’ that often foiled their attempts to find good sources.”

37. Comparing results to other studies
SDSU
CTL
Digital Humanities
Comparing results to other studies
Compared to results from recent studies that contrast digital literacy practices across institution types (for example Michigan’s “Writing in Digital Environments: The Writing Lives of College Students”) SDSU students appear to resemble students at M.A. granting state universities and students at Research universities. The resemblance to the latter may be due to the assignments faculty give students that require particular kinds of engagement with new media, rather than self-sponsored student activity.

38. SDSU
CTL
Digital Humanities
Sample Findings
■ This pilot survey confirms some of the “limitations” in student digital literacy identifiable in recent studies and reports with respect to search, annotation, curation, etc. However, preliminary results suggest that these limitations may be as much a function of limited rhetorical knowledge, limited knowledge of print and web genres, and lack of background knowledge often assumed of “digital natives.” They also appear a function of students not being explicitly taught these skills in their earlier education.

39. Online Teaching Materials For Critical Digital Literacy
SDSU
Mapping Digital Literacies & Piloting Critical
Digital Literacy Instruction in GE Writing Courses
CTL
Digital Humanities
Chris Werry, Rhetoric & Writing Studies
Online Teaching Materials For Critical Digital Literacy
We developed a template wiki containing tools and resources writing teachers can use to teach critical digital literacy. This platform can be duplicated so a group of teachers can use the same resources. The modules include material on search literacy, site/author evaluation, rhetorical analysis of web pages, social bookmarking, tagging, annotation, and the curation of online materials for writing and research projects.

40. The wikis come with assignments, texts, spaces for group work and student blogs, writing resources, research tools, announcements and conference schedules. Teachers and students use the wikis to share material, display writing done in class, coordinate group work, and manage class presentations.

43. Annotation, bookmarking, peer review and feedback
Used the Hypothes.is Tool for Annotation, Bookmarking, Peer Review and Feedback. Individual and group annotation of texts Collaborative reading and analysis of texts Embedding texts in discussion Modeling teacher's analysis and note-taking Commenting on student writing & peer review Seeing how scholars annotate texts Hypothes.is helps students become more active readers, collaborators, critical thinkers, and writers; it helps them compose for the web and prepare for class discussion

46. Student blogs We trained teachers and students to use blogs for homework, reading responses, class work and portfolios. Teachers linked to student blogs from the course wikis, discussing blog writing in class. Students read about blogging as a form of "public thinking" and as a component of digital literacy.

47. Some adventurous teachers used the social bookmarking and annotation tool Diigo so students can highlight, store, tag, annotate, conduct research and curate the texts they read online. Groups bookmark texts, and students can follow other users, see the annotations they make and the bookmarks they create.

49. Creating & Sharing Modules for Teaching Core Digital Literacy Capacities. We have developed a set of resources for teaching core critical digital literacy capacities, skills and knowledges. We have a module on search & web site evaluation. The search module moves from the basics, to search as inquiry and research, to critical analysis, reflexive search (searching others' search patterns) and social search.

50. Excerpts from the Search Literacy Module
Integrating Critical Digital Literacy Into GE Writing Courses
SDSU
CTL
Excerpts from the Search Literacy Module
Digital Humanities
Chris Werry, Rhetoric & Writing Studies

51. Example: search literacy
SDSU
CTL
Digital Humanities
Example: search literacy
Search skills as technical capabilities, but also
Fun and interesting
A space of inquiry and creativity
A way of analyzing texts and posing critical questions
A way of assessing credibility
“Reflexive” – students should reflect on the way they use search, and on how data from search results can be used

52. Becoming a search ninja
You can search by site, date range, exact words in a phrase, file type, “exclusions,” etc.

54. Reflecting on Your Search Strategy
How did you do it?
Describe the search engine you used
What terms did you enter? Why?
How many results did you receive?
How far did you look (past the first page?)
What kind of results did you get?
What did you select, and why?

55. Beyond Basic Search
What are some “sophisticated” ways of using google (and similar search engines) for research purposes?
Meta-search, or “searching people’s searches” in order to create data of your own that can be used in your papers
“Google trends” – can be used to help identify flu outbreaks, purchase patterns, social trends, etc.
Ngram Viewer

56. Ngram Viewer
Google Ngram viewer lets you search the frequency of words in books.
This can also be used for various kinds of research. Consider, for example, what this search of books for the term “vampire” suggests:

57. Interview with the vampire and TWILIGHT

58. Google Trends data from February 2014 to February 2015
Top U.S. Searches 2014
Top 2014 Searches by State

59. Patterns in searches for drugs (Adderall increases during finals weeks)

62. Google searches and predicted election results

65. Using search to pose critical questions and assess credibility
Using search to pose critical questions and assess credibility. Places to start:
Search who created and owns a site and when was it registered (
Search for the Google page rank
Search who links to a site (
Search external links (who/where a site links to)
Search the history of a site and the changes made to it over time (

68. GIBill.com now redirects to Veteran’s Affairs

69. Digital Literacy Materials to Use with Unit 2
As an exercise in digital literacy you could have students look at the site GIBill.com. This was a site set up by a group of for-profit colleges designed to persuade veterans to enroll in for-profit schools. It was shut down by the federal government as it was deemed to be a deceptive site that tricked veterans into thinking it was organized by the government, and was primarily informational and educational. The site has now been replaced by this message:
USE THIS AS A TEST CASE – USE THE TECHNIQUES MENTIONED BY RHEINGOLD. TRIANGULATION

71. Martinlutherking and martinlutherking.org

72. Social Search
WOT (web of trust tool – crowdsourced ratings and comments on websites)
Locate the web sites, listservs, groups, mailing lists, or blogs for organizations related to your area of study, profession, or work interests.
Search these resources or use this community to “filter” your inquiries.

75. Resources
“Students must learn to evaluate the origins, authorship, history, accuracy, objectivity, completeness, currency and relevance of every digital document they encounter; they must learn to notice and see through slick graphic design…There is little doubt that ‘triangulation’ is the future of information seeking.” Pegrum, “Social Media & Digital Literacies”
“Triangulation is what detectives do – try to find three different ways to test a source’s credibility. For example, you could google the author’s name, enter the author’s name in the scholarly productivity index, and use the literacy resources at factchecked.org to triangulate a source.” Rheingold, “Crap Detection 101”
“Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education,” Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL).

76. Resources for assessing credibility
There are online resources for assessing credibility. Rheingold’s “Crap Detection” files (by field: politics, medicine, journalism, etc.)
Organizations such as HASTAC, etc.
There are web tools that help investigate credibility (pagerank, whois.icann.org, archive.org, etc)
There are “rules of thumb” for examining web pages.

77. Print literacy remains a core literacy, offline and online – the ability to “write eloquently, communicate clearly and argue persuasively – is essential to hold your readers’ attention in a web article, present yourself authentically on a blog, or carry a point in a controversial Wikipedia entry.” (Pegrum).
Advancing critical digital literacy does not require an entirely new set of skills. Many skills transfer. We do need to teach new online genres, and help students how see knowledge is created, shared and authorized in a variety of online contexts.

78. Teachers already provide students with skills relevant to CDL
Teachers already provide students with skills relevant to CDL. We just need to revise, supplement and integrate these skills.
Critical thinking and rhetorical understanding are important parts of CDL.
The Association of College & Research Libraries “Framework for Information Literacy” has moved in this direction – from “skills” to rhetorical and critical analysis.

79. Web genres
Reflexive knowledge
Rhetorical analysis
Teaching tools and platforms that support our pedagogies and teaching CDL.

81. Facebook, Fake News & Digital Literacy
Fake news spread rapidly through social media platforms - one study suggests “top fake election news stories generated more total engagement on Facebook than top election stories from 19 major news outlets combined.”

82. The degree of the problem is suggested by the fact that some major political figures could not tell fake news from real news. Two prominent examples were president Trump and General Flynn, the (until recently) national security advisor.

84. A day after a black activist was kicked and punched by voters at a Donald Trump rally in Alabama, Trump tweeted an image packed with racially loaded and incorrect murder statistics.