Assignment 3
1) The Universal Library: Realising Panizzi’s Dream (textbook)
Most discussion on the digital environment tends to focus either on journals or special collections. Much less thought seems to have been given to the monograph, which historically has been the backbone particularly of humanities and social science scholarship. The emergence of e-books and the flailing search by major publishers for a sustainable economic model has disguised some interesting developments. One fascinating aspect is covered in Gorrell’s study on e-books and audio books (Case Study 11). It has been suggested that only 29 per cent of library patrons have e-readers and that while so many publishers refuse to make e-books available to libraries, librarians would do better to wait until the hugely volatile market has settled down and focus resources on the needs of the majority. But the EBSCO model which Gorrell describes offers libraries a very attractive combination of aggregation, professional support and technical skill. As importantly, this new medium is not seen as separate, different and awkward, but is integrated into an existing platform with which users will be familiar. Again the key is aggregation, but this time of delivery platforms and tools. And most importantly of all, libraries are seen as partners for the delivery of a commercial product and not as museums of the book.[1]
2) A mixed-methods study to identify effective practices in the teaching of writing in a digital learning environment in low-income schools.(paper)
This paper reports on the teaching practices identified as effective for students’ writing progress in a digital learning environment. The study is situated within a design-based research partnership between researchers and a group of urban schools serving culturally diverse students from low-income communities who have implemented a digital pedagogy innovation which includes student device ownership, wireless access and a shared pedagogical approach. The research design logic was to select demonstrably effective teachers as ‘case studies’ in order to understand what effective teachers in the innovation did that promoted greater progress in writing. Qualitative analyses of selected teachers’ class sites and students’ individual blogs identified features of teaching practice hypothesised to promote student development in writing. To strengthen our understandings, teachers were interviewed to check the comprehensiveness and validity of our interpretation. Classroom observations from these case study teachers were compared with observations from a larger group of teachers to investigate whether identified practices were differentially employed by these effective teachers. Finally, the effects on student writing achievement of the relative presence of these practices in all observed classes were predicted using a hierarchical linear model. Our findings indicate effects of using digital tools in ways that promote complex compositional tasks, discussion and critical thinking. The study adds to a growing number of studies that investigate the nature of effective pedagogy within a digital environment. It contributes to the identification of promising practices for the design of more effective instruction in writing within classes that have ubiquitous digital access.[5]
3) The Mediating Role of Digital Informal Learning in the Relationship between Students’ Digital Competency and their Academic Performance (Article)
Students’ digital competencies are important for their academic performance. Although scholars have highlighted the importance of students’ digital informal learning in developing their digital competence, the mediating role of digital informal learning between digital competence and academic performance have remained unexplored. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the mediating role of digital informal learning between higher education students’ digital competence and their academic performance. The data were collected from 319 students from Shiraz University in Iran. Data were analysed using structural equation modeling via AMOS. The result showed a positive effect of the students’ digital competence on their digital informal learning and academic performance. Moreover, digital informal learning as the mediator variable had a positive effect on the relationship between digital competence and students’ academic performance. In conclusion, to improve students’ academic performance, educators and curriculum designers should consider both their digital competence and their digital informal learning.[9]
4) Opinion of students on online education during the COVID‐19 pandemic(Study)
The COVID‐19 pandemic forced universities around the world to shut down their campuses indefinitely and move their educational activities onto online platforms. The universities were not prepared for such a transition and their online teaching‐learning process evolved gradually. We conducted a survey in which we asked undergraduate students in an Indian university about their opinion on different aspects of online education during the ongoing pandemic. We received responses from 358 students. The students felt that they learn better in physical classrooms (65.9%) and by attending MOOCs (39.9%) than through online education. The students, however, felt that the professors have improved their online teaching skills since the beginning of the pandemic (68.1%) and online education is useful right now (77.9%). The students appreciated the software and online study materials being used to support online education. However, the students felt that online education is stressful and affecting their health and social life. This pandemic has led to a widespread adoption of online education and the lessons we learn now will be helpful in the future.[12]
II. Gender Studies
1) Digital Media and Gender(paper)
The study of gender and digital media encompasses interdisciplinary scholarship seeking to understand gendered engagements with digital media, how digital media spaces become gendered, and how gendered practices change through digital media. Scholars in this area have traditionally focused on feminist concerns with the possibilities of girls and women being able to represent themselves rather than being represented. Accordingly, women and girls in the West currently form a major area of study in gender and digital media research. However, debate about the extent of gendered empowerment possible through digital media continues. Much scholarship focuses on symbolic interactionist accounts of how gender is presented in digital media. Other gendered subjectivities such as older femininities, masculinities, studies of online queer spaces, trans identities, and accounts of the interaction between race and gender are smaller but growing areas of research.[2]
2) LGBTQ Youth and Digital Media: Online Risks (book)
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth consume more digital media than their peers. This chapter offers an examination of the existing literature of pertinent theoretical frameworks, LGBTQ youth and their digital media use, as well as the potentially harmful impact these digital experiences may engender. The synthesis offers a broad illustration of the research in this area as well as identifies limitations in the field. Digital media offer useful tools for navigating some of unique developmental issues such as meeting partners, feeling supported, and getting sexual health information. However, these tools may be associated with risk and poor outcomes such as unsafe sexual behavior, sexual victimization, stigma within the LGBTQ community, body image issues, as well as potential criminal charges for producing and disseminating illegal sexual content. Challenges associated with this line of research are discussed and future directions are proposed.[7]
3) Gender and Learning(Article)
This article provides an overview of shifts in thinking about gender and learning over the last four decades, emphasizing in particular the social contexts, interactions, and impacts of learning arrangements. It outlines the impact of moves from debunking deficit assumptions of sex differences in the 1970s, through a broad concern with girl-friendly and inclusive approaches in the 1980s, to a new kind of concern with boys’ learning in the 1990s. It maps key themes and dilemmas addressed in research on gender and learning, The relation of gender and learning to school organization, teacher and peer interactions, and social and identity background factors is examined. Debates regarding the effects of single-sex and coeducational schooling on gender and learning are discussed, and some current directions and emerging issues noted, such as gender and digital learning.[8]
4) Young feminists, feminism and digital media (Opinion)
Over recent years, young feminist activism has assumed prominence in mainstream media where news headlines herald the efforts of schoolgirls in fighting sexism, sexual violence and inequity. Less visible in the public eye, girls’ activism plays out in social media where they can speak out about gender-based injustices experienced and witnessed. Yet we know relatively little about this significant social moment wherein an increasing visibility of young feminism cohabits a stubbornly persistent postfeminist culture. Acknowledging the hiatus, this paper draws on a qualitative project with teenage feminists to explore how girls are using and producing digital feminist media, what it means for them to do so and how their online practice connects with their offline feminism. Using a feminist poststructuralist approach, analyses identified three key constructions of digital media as a tool for feminist practice: online feminism as precarious and as knowledge sharing; and feminism as “doing something” on/offline. Discussing these findings, I argue that there is marked continuity between girls’ practices in “safe” digital spaces and feminisms practised in other historical and geographical locations. But crucially, and perhaps distinctly, digital media are a key tool to connect girls with feminism and with other feminists in local and global contexts.[10]
III. Environment
1) Women and Economic Dimensions of Climate Change (textbook)
By adopting an intersectional approach as a framework, this chapter unpacks the gendered nature of economic dimensions of climate change and identifies that climate change needs to be seen as a pervasive economic issue impacting differently on men and women. Drawing on research conducted in Australia and overseas, this chapter explores the critical linkages between climate change, women, and economic development and argues that women’s voices, leadership, and decision-making are critical to economic development and sustainability.[3]
2) A case study of the COP 21 summit in Paris(Case Study/Paper)
Climate change is often seen as a remote, complex or ‘unobtrusive’ topic by the general public – a topic about which many people acquire information mainly from media reporting. However, media landscapes are changing rapidly, particularly with the growth of the internet and social media. A number of new media organisations are challenging traditional media and have gained significant audiences for their environment content. We analyse the coverage by three of these – Huffington Post, Vice and BuzzFeed – of the COP21 summit in Paris at the end of 2015, and compare it with that of traditional media. We show that while the general spectrum of themes is similar across media outlets, there are differences in the volume of the coverage and in the emphasis that is laid on different themes by some, but not all, of the new players compared to traditional media.[4]
3) Digital Geohumanities (Digital Material)
The digital geohumanities draws upon tropes developed in Western geography and the humanities during the 20th century and can be contextualized within three waves of the digital revolution that greeted the dawn of the 21st century. Conventional practices in the digital humanities and contemporary human geography share certain foci and methods that converge in digital geohumanities practices and perspectives. This convergence possesses the potential to broaden the scope of research and practice not only between human and physical geography but also by incorporating disciplinary approaches in anthropology, history, literature, drama, media, and cinematic studies, to environmental and global climate change studies, GIScience, and computer science.[6]
4) Digital Environmental Metabolisms: An Ecocritical Project of the Digital Environmental Humanities (Research Article)
By combining literary, ecocritical, and media techniques with a mindfulness of the environment, “Digital Environmental Metabolisms: An Ecocritical Project of the Digital Environmental Humanities” contributes to the urgent task of re- orienting media theory toward environmental concerns. It is informed by the premise that, in our present Anthropocenic age defined by humans acting as a geophysical force, human bodies, cultural technologies, and the earth are intersecting material practices. I argue this intersectionality is neither cyborgian nor posthuman, as some media scholars insist, but is something far more natural: it is a metabolic relationship wherein each system is inherently implicated in the perpetuation of the others. Through a series of chapters that dispense with standard maps of cyberspace and the social network replacing them with a digital geography of wires, workers, warehouses, and waste, this project shifts the media theoretical focus from one grounded in computation to one fully rooted in the earth. Unlike others, like those mentioned here within, who are contributing to what may be called an emerging environmental media studies, I offer several practical and theoretical interventions, including Permaculture and Ecocritical Digital Humanities, that are capable of moving us toward more sustainable digital practice and a more robust Anthropocene Humanities.[11]
References
[1] Derek Law,4 – The universal library: Realising Panizzi’s dream, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-84334-620-3.50004-0.
[2] Sarah Cefai, Contemporary Feminist Media Cultures, The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication, 10.1002/9781119429128, (1-10), (2020).
[3] https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817465-4.00006-6.
[4] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.11.003.
[5] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.12.005
[6] International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Second Edition),Elsevier, 2020,Pages 1-6,ISBN 9780081022962
[7] LGBTQ youth and digital media: online risks,Editor(s): Michelle F. Wright, Lawrence B. Schiamberg, Child and Adolescent Online Risk Exposure, Academic Press,2021,Pages 303-325,ISBN 9780128174999
[8] Gender and Learning International Encyclopedia of Education (Third Edition),Elsevier,2010,Pages 432-437,ISBN 9780080448947
[9] The Mediating Role of Digital Informal Learning in the Relationship between Students’ Digital Competency and their Academic Performance, Computers & Education,2021,104184,ISSN 0360-1315
[10] https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517716952
[11] https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/14457
[12] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbe2.240
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