This study aimed to investigate the extent to which a class of grade 10 students at a private, co-educational school in Johannesburg, South Africa, are digitally literate and how they engage with digital technology both inside and outside the classroom. The study also aimed to explore some implications of these students‟ digital literacy practices for the teaching of English at the school. Data were collected from interviews and from questionnaires completed by the students. Students also wrote digital literacy histories. The main finding is that the participants in the study are digitally literate and engage with digital technology on a day-to-day basis. They are the lap generation (Tapscott, 1998) as they are lapping their parents and teachers with regard to their knowledge and use of digital technology. This use occurs primarily in their out-of-school, or social, environments and is not being drawn on substantively in the classroom, even in a well-resourced school.

Children in the UK today live in an increasingly mediatised world. With rapid evolution in mobile technologies they are faced from an increasingly young age with a plurality of choices at the level of device, mode and platform. Research argues that this landscape can offer exciting and empowering ways for children to learn, socialise and create, but that it also poses challenges in terms of wellbeing and relationships with information. Understanding how to support children to engage with devices healthily, critically and constructively has therefore attracted research attention across a number of disciplines from media education and online safety through information behaviour to new literacies. In some respects this has led to a proliferation and fragmentation of ‘literacies’ that can be overwhelming to navigate. However, bringing them into dialogue it is possible to find some common ground around what reflective engagement might look like. There is also agreement across these disciplines that in order to develop responsive ways of encouraging and supporting reflective engagement more research attention needs to be paid to the messy realities of children’s situated practices. Bringing this bottom-up research into dialogue with a tentative definition of reflective engagement based on existing models and ideas from the literature was the aim of the present study. The study was initially informed by learning ecology perspectives that situate children’s practices within a set of different contexts. Using this as a heuristic framing device the study explored the shaping of children’s engagement through a number of different lenses: material, socio-emotional, pedagogical and cultural. Using a case study approach I spent time with seven children, their families and their peers across home and school settings. In so doing I sought to generate rich qualitative data about practices, the aspects of context shaping them and the emergent understanding and reflection arising around them from both children’s and adults’ perspectives. Thematic analysis of this data brought insights that built on the tentative characterisation of reflective engagement I began with. However, the findings also revealed some challenges and ‘entry points’ in terms of reflective engagement that hadn’t been anticipated. Synthesising these entry points under the notions of practices, spaces, resources and roles I shifted gear from exploratory to pragmatic and adopted the over-arching concept of ‘sponsors’ of reflective engagement as way of moving forward. The thesis concludes with the suggestion that identifying or creating ‘sponsors of reflective engagement’ could be a dynamic and constructive way of mobilising the assets and addressing the needs of a primary school community.

Syftet var att undersöka vilka hinder och möjligheter förskollärare upplever i arbetet med IKT som ett stöd för barns utveckling och lärande. Vi utgick från Vygotskijs sociokulturella perspektiv med tyngdpunkt på samspel och redskap. Åtta utbildade förskollärare har deltagit i semistrukturerade intervjuer. Resultatet visar att det finns många möjligheter att stödja barns utveckling och lärande med IKT i förskolan, t.ex. använder förskollärare IKT för att stärka barns samspel, självförtroende, språk och matematik. Resultatet visar också att de flesta förskollärare i studien anser att användandet av IKT på förskolan behöver begränsas. En slutsats är att förskollärare behöver kompetensutbildning inom IKT för att främja barnens lärande och utveckling på bästa sätt.

This review of the literature is third in a series of investigations into educational technology curriculum integration for the Tucson, Arizona office of the International Rescue Committee (IRC). It is a broad investigation into the theory, methods and delivery of supportive instructional materials to refugees via mobile learning. It examines current international program methods that will aid in design of U.S. mLearning programs to support the IRC’s mandated goal of promoting self-sufficiency for resettled refugees.

This study investigated the significant differences and correlations on college students¡¦ reading motivation and their internet literacy. A total of 950 college students were stratified randomly selected from 17 Taiwanese colleges. All participants completed ¡§Reading motivation¡¨ and ¡§Internet literacy¡¨ scales. In addition, 5 target students with highest scores on internet literacy were recruited for standardized test and follow-up interview. Independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and canonical correlation assessed the similarities and differences between groups. The initial findings were as follows: 1.College students¡¦ reading motivation and internet literacy appear to have moderate performance. 2.Female college students¡¦ mean score on ¡§reading motivation¡¨ was significantly higher than their male counterparts. 3.High academic achievement college students¡¦ mean score on ¡§internet literacy¡¨ was significantly higher than low academic college students. 4.College students who major in engineering, manufacturing domain¡¦s mean score on ¡§internet literacy¡¨, dimensions of ¡§information accessing¡¨, ¡§information sharing¡¨ were significantly higher than social sciences, business management domain¡¦s college students. And college students who major in liberal arts domain¡¦s mean score on dimensions of ¡§information creating¡¨ were significantly higher than agronomy major¡¦s college students. 5.College students with higher reading frequency¡¦s mean score on ¡§reading motivation¡¨ and ¡§internet literacy¡¨ were significantly higher than low reading frequency college students. 6.College students with higher book-borrowing frequency¡¦s mean score on ¡§reading motivation¡¨, dimensions of ¡§information creating¡¨ were significantly higher than low book-borrowing frequency college students. 7.College students consume more time on reading¡¦s mean score on ¡§reading motivation¡¨, dimensions of ¡§information creating¡¨ were significantly higher than these consuming less time on reading¡¦s participants. 8. College students with longer internet seniority¡¦s mean score on ¡§internet literacy¡¨, dimensions of ¡§information accessing¡¨, ¡§information evaluating¡¨ and ¡§information integrating¡¨ were significantly higher than less internet seniority¡¦s college students. 9.College students with higher educational expectation had significantly higher mean scores on ¡§reading motivation¡¨ and ¡§internet literacy¡¨ than these low educational expectation participants. 10.Canonical correlations between college students¡¦ ¡§reading motivation¡¨ and ¡§internet literacy¡¨ were found in this study.

This study investigated the relationship between digital literacy and academic performance in the context of an online learning high school program aimed at students from underprivileged groups. The study proposed that digital literacy should be understood as a construct of several variables that create a progression from basic--though indispensable--physical conditions of access to technology, to complex skills and attitudes that permit a student to succeed in an online learning situation. Using path analysis as a methodological tool, the study tested a three-stage model that measured the chain of effects of the variables that integrate the digital literacy construct both among them, and on academic performance as the overall dependent variable of the study. The model organized the variables in three stages: conditions of access to technology; general digital skills (that included motivation, knowledge and skills to use digital technology, as well as frequency and diversity of usage practices of technology); and context-specific skills required to successfully use technology in a particular domain (in this particular case, online distance learning). The study found that in the particular online learning context of this investigation, better conditions of access to technology had a mediated and strong positive effect on academic performance by increasing the use of Internet for social and entertainment purposes, which in turn led to a higher use of the learning platform software and to better digital and academic skills. These skills had a positive effect on academic performance through independent learning as a mediating variable. A second finding--that runs in part in an opposite direction--was that better conditions of access increased the use of social networks, which had both a positive effect on independent learning in terms of increasing familiarity with the Internet and computer resources, and a negative effect, perhaps simply because the time one spends with social media may diminish the time one has available for learning. / text

Magister Commercii (Information Management) - MCom(IM) / The high rate of youth unemployment is a global phenomenon and a worrying factor. This contradicted the opportunity presented by the ICT sector, which requires e-skills, particularly e-literacy/or digital literacy skills in the entire sectors of the economy, not only ICT. Ala-Mutka (2011) defines e-literacy skills as the "basic technical use of computers and the internet". ICT skills are viewed as essential in the modern day world in order to improve individual’s chances of securing and keeping employment. Various initiatives to improve youth employability in South Africa, particularly those that are studying TVET colleges or those have already graduated. Various approaches have been adopted such envisaged by the White Paper for Post-School Education and Training of 2013 i.e. preparation for workplace, self-employment through close cooperation of TVET colleges and industry (DHET, 2013). Employers assume that graduates are familiar with computer and Internet usage. Thus, the study set the following objectives: • To understand the theoretical and contextual background of promoting employability; • To explore existing employability frameworks that might be relevant for promoting employability; • To identify and categorize the factors that are relevant for promoting employability obtained from pertinent literature; • To validate these factors by interviewing key TVET stakeholders and ICT experts; • To propose an employability framework customized for the South African context; and • To explain the use of these factors within the proposed employability framework. The objectives were realised by reviewing pertinent literature, which led to the development of an employability conceptual research framework for South Africa. A conceptual research framework that consists of five factors from the e-skills national curriculum competency framework: (i) e-skills for service delivery; (ii) e-skills for new jobs; (iii) e-skills for existing jobs; (iv) self-employment; and (v) ICT practitioner skills. In-terms of e-skills levels i.e. ICT user skills, e-business skills and ICT practitioner skills. The first three sets of e-skills are associated with ICT user skill, e-skills for self-employment are associated with e-business skills and then ICT practitioner skills. This conceptual research framework was subsequently empirically verified using an interpretive approach by interviewing key TVET stakeholders and an ICT expert. The empirical findings affirmed the validity of the above-mentioned employability factors but also uncovered two additional factors: (iv) practical experience and infrastructure. These factors were subsequently incorporated into the final employability framework for South Africa. The main contribution of this study is the fact that it brings a new employability framework for TVET colleges for the South African context, with the hope that it can be applicable in similar environments in the developing context. There are some limitations in the present study due to a small research sample that was caused by the unavailability of employed graduates. However, it is believed that this limitation did not deem the results and the academic and practical contribution of the study invalid.

Syftet med vår kvalitativa studie var att ta reda på hur förskollärare arbetar med digitala verktyg för att främja barns språkutveckling genom intervjuer med fyra yrkesverksamma förskollärare. Vi har utgått från ett ämnesdidaktiskt perspektiv i vår analys samt utgått från digital literacy begreppet. Vår empiri som samlades in transkriberades och delades in i teman utifrån olika aspekter av förhållningssätt. Vårt resultat visar att de förskollärare vi intervjuade var till mesta dels positiva till att använda de digitala verktygen i arbetet med språkutveckling. Den nackdel som framgick av förskollärarna var i fall undervisningen skulle kunna sakna ett syfte. Resultatet visar också hur de digitala verktygen används i verksamheten på de två förskolor som förskollärarna arbetar på. De digitala verktygen används mest som ett komplement till de analoga verktygen för att främja språkutvecklingen samt för att skapa undervisningssituationer i större grupper och för att skapa utvecklande och fantasifulla lärmiljöer. Svaren visar att förskollärarna har olika erfarenheter kring de digitala verktygen. Vissa av dem använder de oftare än andra, dock vill de alla lära sig och bli bättre.

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As a way of extending perspectives of writing and learning, this thesis explores everyday literacy activities and their role in function in shaping people's activities. Taking up an autoethnographic approach to studying the mundane literacies of everyday life, this thesis offers a fine-grained analysis of the processes and practices involved in two specific literate activities I have engaged in over the two years: creating a mixtape for a friend and streaming my participation in online video games. As key findings, the analysis of these everyday literate activities suggests that the interactions between people and social contexts figure prominently in the production and use of everyday texts, that everyday life is profoundly mediated by digital literacies, and that everyday literacies are often central to people's academic and professional lives. Ultimately, these analyses point toward the need for further inquiry into digital literacies, and to the potential pedagogical benefits of encouraging students to examine the mundane literacies at play in their everyday lives.