Comments on: My Ed.D. thesis proposal: What does it mean to be ‘digitally literate’?

By: Austin Dentist

Austin Dentist — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:18:00 +0000

test

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:39:06 +0000

@Andre: Exactly! I haven’t been too impressed with the lack of urgency in finding myself a new one, either…

By: Andre

Andre — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:46:35 +0000

Your proposal is impressive.Incidentally,I just passed my Ed.D proposal.I am studying at the university of Sheffield.I am focusing on boys and literacy.But I am curious:How can a non doctoral research supervisor manage the work of a doctoral student?

By: Help me write my job spec. for next year! at dougbelshaw.com

Help me write my job spec. for next year! at dougbelshaw.com — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:23:05 +0000

[...] and accelerate perhaps one thing I’m really interested in. As you can imagine, with my Ed.D. thesis exploring the ‘Digital Literacy’, that’s the latter taken care [...]

By: Mike Burnitt

Mike Burnitt — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:57:45 +0000

Hi Doug,
I’m due to start my Ed.D next year. It’s really interesting and useful to read your proposal. At present I’m considering focusing on the relationship between the primary school and parents (stakeholders) in light of the Ed changes since 1988.
Regards Mike.

By: John Thompson

John Thompson — Tue, 27 May 2008 13:08:25 +0000

4. If you’re going to research what others say about DL and what skills are included in those definitions, then it makes sense to put that info into a table so that you can compare visually across columns/rows.

By: Doug Belshaw

Doug Belshaw — Tue, 27 May 2008 06:25:48 +0000

Hi John,

Thanks for the questions and feedback. My response:

1. That’s certainly something I’ll be looking at. My gut feeling is that they’d all be on the same spectrum, yes.:-)

2. I’d need some counter-examples to prevent me simply saying ‘yes’. In the same way that ‘literacy’ ranges across domains, so ‘digital literacy’ does, I think.

3. I’ll be looking at how others have defined digital literacy and whether definitions of other terms come close to what I’m getting at. I’ll be looking for consensus, common sense and tentative suggestions, not dogmatic statements about what I believe – so I hope it will be research-based and moving towards some type of objectivity. :-p

4. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this. Could you elaborate?

5. Perhaps, but hopefully not! Also, I’m undertaking the Ed.D. for a variety of reasons. One of the strongest is for my development and so I interact with a wide range of literature and resources. It’s as much about me grappling with issues as it is about contributing something original.:-)

By: John Thompson

John Thompson — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:39:50 +0000

“digitally literate” — Questions…
1. Is DL the same at all age levels (e.g., high school graduate vs college graduate)?
2. Is DL the same for all professions?
3. Who is to define DL — you? Pretty subjective and not very research based.
4. Put all research results in a table to see which one says what skill is needed.
5. Won’t your results be outdated almost by the time you’re finished?

By: Anto

Anto — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:11:26 +0000

Hi Doug.
First if all: your work looks very good. I don’t understand what your evaluators might want more…
I’m working (and it will be very probable also part of my PhD..) on a project about the concept of “digital competence”. We are developing also tests and other assessments.
Maybe it could be useful share our works…
Here is the project main site.

By: Karyn Romeis

Karyn Romeis — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:16:06 +0000

I sympathise on the failure thing. Check out my post on the subject.

I reckon this is a good topic, but potentially broad. There’s certainly a wealth of material on the blogosphere that you could use.

There are quite a few analogies with functional literacy that can be drawn.