Tag: Digital Literacies

Bookmarked https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2025/03/classroom-guidelines-for-student-ai-use.html (controlaltachieve.com)

Now there are dozens and dozens of sample guidelines and policies for the classroom, and I have shared many of them in the past. Over the last few years I have reviewed these examples, spoken with educators across the country, and worked to identify the critical elements of classroom AI guidelines for students.

In the end I created two things:

  • A comprehensive template with classroom guidelines for student use of AI
  • A powerful prompt to help you modify my template to fit any grade level and any subject area

If you don’t already have a set of AI guidelines for your classroom, or if you are looking to improve the guidelines you do have, then I believe this template and prompt will be a great asset to help get you there.

Control Alt Achieve: Classroom Guidelines for Student AI Use – Free Adaptable Template

Reading Eric Curts’ discussion of classroom guidelines, I am reminded of Doug Belshaw’s suggestion that the first place to start with digital literacies is to collectively define what it is within the context of its use.

ᔥ “Eric Curts” in ControlAltAchieve 💡 #145 ()

Replied to https://thoughtshrapnel.com/2025/06/13/ai-use-case-primitives.html (thoughtshrapnel.com)

It’s not often I link directly to a LinkedIn post. However, the author of this, Ben Cohen, doesn’t seem to have posted it elsewhere, so needs must. Cohen also doesn’t cite the original source of the analysis he references, but it looks like it comes from an OpenAI report entitled Identifying and scaling AI use cases

6 AI use case primitives | Thought Shrapnel by Dr Doug Belshaw

Doug, I cannot help thinking about your work on digital literacies alongside the use cases.

  • Create stuff → ‘Creative’
  • Find stuff → ‘Cognitive’
  • Build stuff → ‘Constructive’
  • Make sense of stuff → ‘Confident’
  • Think stuff through → ‘Communicative’
  • Do stuff automatically → ‘Constructive’

You can shake up the water and oil all you like, but it always settles back down the same way?

Bookmarked https://blog.edtechie.net/analogue/recalibrating-your-analogue/ (blog.edtechie.net)

One antidote, which sadly won’t be adopted by those who need it most, is to purposefully recalibrate your analogue quotient. If AI fulfils more functions in life that people used to operate, then that should be balanced with deliberate analogue options. This can be small, to more meaningful, from objects to people.

Recalibrating your analogue – The Ed Techie by Recalibrating your analogue – The Ed Techie

Martin Weller’s discussion of ‘analogue quotient’ has me thinking about the discussion of digital rewilding vs digital permaculture. I feel like it is all about balance.

Replied to https://beyonddigital.org/2025/05/16/is-it-ever-too-early-to-learn/ (beyonddigital.org)

Digital and AI literacy isn’t just about understanding how technology works. It’s about building habits of critical thinking, empathy, and responsibility.

In a Primary Years Programme setting, and the same applies in other curriculum contexts, we already emphasize critical thinking, empathy, and action. These values align well with conversations about AI ethics. When students understand why it’s important to check sources, think before they share, get more than one perspective, and reflect on how algorithms shape what they see, we start to provide them with a toolkit to navigate the digital world with care.

Is It Ever Too Early to Learn? – Beyond Digital by Is It Ever Too Early to Learn? – Beyond Digital

John, I really enjoyed this post unpacking how you explore and address ‘AI’ in the classroom. I really liked your point about digital (and AI) literacies are about more than just the technology, that it is about critical thinking, empathy, and responsibility. This reminds me of Doug Belshaw’s discussion of skillset and mindset. It has me thinking about a course I did on cyber security and dark patterns and how these explorations are as much about a way of thinking that can start at a young age.

Liked http://nytimes.com/2025/03/29/opinion/ai-tech-innovation.html (nytimes.com)

Hype isn’t held to account for being accurate, only for being compelling. Mark Cuban exemplified this in a recent post on the social media platform Bluesky. He imagined an A.I.-enabled world where a worker with “zero education” uses A.I. and a skilled worker doesn’t. The worker who gets on the A.I. train learns to ask the right questions and the numbskull of a skilled worker does not. The former will often be, in Cuban’s analysis, the more productive employee.

The problem is that asking the right questions requires the opposite of having zero education. You can’t just learn how to craft a prompt for an A.I. chatbot without first having the experience, exposure and, yes, education to know what the heck you are doing. The reality — and the science — is clear that learning is a messy, nonlinear human development process that resists efficiency. A.I. cannot replace it.

Source: The Tech Fantasy That Powers A.I. Is Running on Fumes by Tressie McMillan Cottom

Bookmarked Micro-learning in 2025 by David TrussDavid Truss (daily-ink.davidtruss.com)

Want to learn a complex concept? AI will do two things for you. First it will curate your learning for you. And secondly it will be adaptive to your learning needs. Want to learn a complex mathematical concept? AI will be your teacher. Got stuck on one particular concept? AI will realize what mistake you are making and change how it teaches you that concept to better meet your leaning needs, and pace.

It’s like having content area specialists at your finger tips.

Source: Micro-learning in 2025 by David Truss

Clearly artificial intelligence tools are and will have an impact in and out of the classroom. What that impact is, I am not sure. However, I have been left thinking about a comment from Simon Willison I picked up via Doug Belshaw:

The key skill in getting the most out of LLMs is learning to work with tech that is both inherently unreliable and incredibly powerful at the same time. This is a decidedly non-obvious skill to acquire!

There is so much space for helpful education content here, but we need to do do a lot better than outsourcing it all to AI grifters with bombastic Twitter threads.

Source: Things we learned about LLMs in 2024 by Simon Willison

I also appreciated Stephen Downes’ response to the promise.

Truss argues that this will have an impact in classrooms. Maybe. But AI will be as welcome in classrooms as the plague. I mean, they're banning phones. Students will be the last to use AI as part of what they do, not the first.

Source: Micro-learning in 2025 by

As always, time will tell.

Read The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is
An original deep history of the internet that tells the story of the centuries-old utopian dreams behind it—and explains why they have died today

Source: The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is by Justin Smith-Ruiu

The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is could have been called “what we talk about when we talk about the internet”. Through this book, Justin E.H. Smith explores the basis of the internet in attention, the link to the past in figures such as Liebnez and Lovelace, the blur of where it starts and stops, as well as metaphor as a way of understanding.

Listened to audiobook via the Libby app.

Continue reading “📚 The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is”

Read How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
In How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Jenny Odell provides a critique of our current state of affairs, where even our attention has been capitalised upon through our use of technology.

In reality, Odell’s book is a critique of the dystopian current state of affairs, where even our attention has been capitalised upon through our use of social media. Odell’s book is an anti-capitalist challenge to social media, advertising, and the hyper-accelerated news cycle that dominates our lives. Though Odell is not anti-technology, she argues that the current state of technologies, specifically the monetisation of our attention through social media, is disrupting our ability to create physical communities and negatively affecting how we express ourselves. Counter to positive discourses about social media and the free speech it supposedly affords us, Odell posits that the addictive social media scene curbs our right to not express ourselves, depriving us of longer thought-processes, maintenance work, and community building.

Source: Revolutionary (Un)Productivity: a review of Jenny Odell’s ‘How to Do Nothing’ by Nicole Froio

In response, she collects together a range of ideas paying better attention to the world around.

It is not about logging off so much as a non-prescriptive guide to nudging yourself into caring about things that are not on your phone. Not because it is a moral good or will make you a well-rounded person, but because it’s soothing and enriching and fun.

Source: How to Do Something by Meaghan O’Connell

Bringing together ideas from thinkers, such as Haraway, Deleuze, Jamieson, James, Benjamin and Solnit, the book is more of a meditation, rather than a rigid guide, for how to do something more meaningful, human and interesting.

Her book is also worth reading for the ways in which it follows one person’s path toward liberation: As a deeply connected subject of the Internet, she shows us how she has found some peace.

Source: Jenny Odell and the Quest to Log Off by Kevin Lozano

Continue reading “📚 How to Do Nothing – Resistance to the Attention Economy (Jenny Odell)”

Liked Handbook of Children and Screens (SpringerLink)

The Handbook of Children and Screens is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, educators, and related professionals in clinical child, school, and developmental psychology, social work, public health, epidemiology, neuroscience, human development and family studies, social psychology, sociology, and communication.

Handbook of Children and Screens

via Ian O’Byrne

Bookmarked Critical AI Literacy is Not Enough: Introducing Care Literacy, Equity Literacy & Teaching Philosophies. A Slide Deck by Maha Bali (blog.mahabali.me)

What is my teaching philosophy? What do I believe about how people learn, how do I want to be as a teacher, how do I want my classroom environment to be? And I don’t just mean revising our learning outcomes and our assessments in a kneejerk way to figure out how to circumvent student AI use.

Source: Critical AI Literacy is Not Enough: Introducing Care Literacy, Equity Literacy & Teaching Philosophies. A Slide Deck by @bali_maha

Maha Bali goes beyond critical literacy to argue for a wider discussion of AI in education, including where it sits in regards to a teaching philosophy. This is covered in a slide deck attached to the post.

This has me thinking again about the Modern Learning Canvas and the discussion of pedagogical beliefs and where this sat alongside other aspects, such as learner’s role, strategies, enablers, practice, culture, policies, educator’s role and learning outcomes.

Replied to VOTING 2024 (toptools4learning.com)

What are the most popular digital tools for learning and why?

Source: VOTING 2024 – Top 100 Tools for Learning 2023 by Jane Hart

I have not reflected upon my top tools / workflow(s) for a few years, this therefore was a good excuse to stop and take stock.

As requested, here is my list of ten tools. Although not meant to be in any order, I have ordered my list based on use and importance:

  1. WordPress – WordPress is where I ‘collect the dots‘ in my ‘Collect‘ site and join them together in some sort of response in my main site. This has completely replaced my use of social bookmarking applications, such as Diigo, which I finally let go last year. Also, if I reply to anyone on the web, my reply starts on my site and is then syndicated elsewhere either via webmentions or manually.
  2. Libby (and BorrowBox, Libro.Fm, Spotify and Audible) – I (re)turned to reading/listening to books lately as my main source of ‘dots’. I have always read books, but they had become secondary to staying on top of various feeds. Now I often find myself churning through audiobooks on walks or while doing jobs around the house. My local library has a subscription with Libby by Overdrive, which I use to borrow books. However, I also use Bolinda Audio’s Borrowbox via the local library and Spotify at times, as well as purchase books from Libro.Fm and Audible.
  3. Moon+ Reader Pro – If I cannot find a book in audiobook, I will read it or listen to it on my Android phone via Moon+ Reader Pro. Although I have used Kindle in the past for this purpose, I like the options and flexibility that Moon+ Reader Pro provides. I also often use this app to annotate books that I listen to as audiobooks.
  4. Inoreader – For content online, I try and syphon everything through Inoreader, this includes Mastodon. Gone are my days of dipping in and out of streams. Sadly, I am no longer able to pull my Twitter feed into Inoreader, therefore I only use Twitter now to respond to certain people in certain situations.
  5. Pocket – When I find an interesting article, I often save it to Pocket to read or listen to later. However, I must admit, I do not get through my saves as I once did, especially after putting pause on my monthly newsletter.
  6. AntennaPod – I use AntennaPod for podcasts. It does what I need, but I really wish I had a cleaner way of collating what I listen to, other than sharing out elsewhere.
  7. Obsidian – I have started using Obsidian after discovering that I could easily pull all my annotations from Kindle with ease. I now pull my annotations from Moon+ Reader and keep track of the podcasts I listen to, sort of. I do not really use it to backlink etc, actually I do not use it that well, especially as I do not pay for it meaning that I have a vault on my phone and on my work computer. I often use it as a place to carve ideas out in Markdown. I used to use Trello for this, but it was feel a little too over-engineered for what I was trying to do, while I also use Literal a bit to track the books that I have been reading, but at the end of the day, Obsidian is (currently) my dumping ground.
  8. 1Password – I would not usually consider a password manager as a learning tool per se, but I cannot argue with Harold Jarche when he states that it “simplifies my online life and gives me more time for learning.”
  9. Google Sheets – As with 1Password, Google Sheets is not necessarily a tool that I learn from, but it is a tool that helps streamline a lot of my learning and makes it more ‘doable‘. For example, I realised that I did not have a clean process for recording my professional development required for my teacher registration, so I made a spreadsheet with a separate tab that allows me to collate the different standards associated with the learning.
  10. YouTube – I do not watch a lot of video, often preferring books and podcasts. However, there are times when I do look things up, check videos from channels I have subscribed to or saved to watch later after they have come up in my Inoreader feed.

ᔥ “Harold Jarche” in top tools 2024 – Harold Jarche ()

Replied to Secret, Safe and Informed: A Reflection on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the Collection of Data by Aaron DavisAaron Davis (readwriterespond.com)

There have been a lot of discussions lately about Facebook, social media and connected society in light of the Cambridge Analytica revelations. Here are my thoughts on what it might mean to be more informed consent. Secret and Safe?
At the start of Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins inherits a ring fr…

Doug, I was looking back at a past post today, and was reacquainted with your DML Central post on the ‘Brief History of Web Literacy’. You attempted to map the eras associated with the internet:

A few years ago, Doug Belshaw made an attempt at mapping the internet. He divided it into five eras:

  • 1993-1997: The Information Superhighway
  • 1999-2002: The Wild West
  • 2003-2007: The Web 2.0 era
  • 2008-2012: The Era of the App
  • 2013+: The Post-Snowden era

I have been thinking lately, with fake news and data breaches, maybe we are entering a new era, what Belshaw mooted as an ‘informed era’.

Source: Secret, Safe and Informed: A Reflection on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the Collection of Data – Read Write Respond by Aaron Davis

I was left thinking that in addition to the ‘informed era’, we may have entered a new era with AI?

Replied to The Feature is a “Dumpster Fire” by wiobyrne (digitallyliterate.net)

Welcome to Digitally Literate, issue #397. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.
This week I posted the following: Experiential Learning and Its Synergy with Artificial Intelligence – Anna CohenMiller sent me a request to get my thoughts abou…

As this technology advances, consumers will face new decisions about the products they purchase and the level of AI integration they are comfortable with. Just as we currently evaluate the specifications of a new smartphone before upgrading, we will need to understand the capabilities and potential implications of these emerging AI components. Do we want devices that can learn our preferences and habits? That can engage in open-ended dialogue? That can autonomously generate content alongside us?

The line between convenient digital assistant and autonomous artificial intelligence is blurring. Navigating this new landscape will require diligence from both companies and consumers to separate substantive technological breakthroughs from empty marketing claims. We must think critically about the roles we want AI to play in our lives and products.

Source: The Feature is a “Dumpster Fire” by Ian O’Byrne

I love how this newsletter starts out with Microsoft’s announcements, only to then for Recall to be recalled. I was left thinking about your points regarding comfort levels and thinking critically regarding the emerging AI components. For me, this reminds me of Doug Belshaw’s eight essential elements of digital literacies. Reviewing the list, I feel that I see a lot more dabbling with what is creatively possible and how to cognitively work through various challenges, but outside of my feed I am not seeing much critical conversations or setting up of cultural expectations. This makes me wonder if their is some sort of hierarchy of change in regards to the elements?

Bookmarked Five Differences Between Human and AI Tutors (danmeyer.substack.com)

This hope for chatbots takes a serious challenge—meeting the vast and varied needs of students—and trivializes it.

The positive framing for this article is that I have just described a product roadmap for AI chatbot tutors, one that they are moving ceaselessly along with every new language model release.

The negative framing is that we are asking a tool that is quite neat to do something that is far beyond its capabilities.

https://danmeyer.substack.com/p/five-differences-between-human-and by Dan Meyer

—

Reflecting upon recent experiences tutoring and being tutored, Dan Meyer provides five reasons why AI tutors will not replace human tutors:

– Human tutors seek context.
– Human tutors use multimedia.
– Human tutors create relationships.
– Human tutors are pushy.
– Human tutors know their limits.

Replied to The Unfulfilled Promises of Tech in Education: Can AI Succeed? (The Construction Zone)

Will this be it? Will we see radical changes in our educational systems? Is there something that makes it different this time?

Peter, I feel like I have tried critiquing you before and I am not sure how much hope there is even left:

can you really find wisdom in one-line? The answer is probably no, but you can definitely find hope. Hope for a different world, hope for a different way of doing things, hope for a more critical viewer. And sometimes that hope is all that we have.

Source: Can You Really Find Wisdom in One-line? by Aaron Davis

I still like Bill Ferriter’s argument, that technology makes higher order learning ‘more doable’:

Technology lowers barriers, making the kinds of higher order learning experiences that matter infinitely more doable than they were in previous decades.

Source: Do We REALLY Need to Do New Things in New Ways?
 by Bill Ferriter

However, I guess like all technology, it can also make lower order learning ‘more doable’ too.

As always, food for thought I guess.

Liked Why Not To Buy My New Book On Generative AI (Julian Stodd’s Learning Blog)

My new book, ‘Engines of Engagement: a curious book about Generative AI’ is published tomorrow. Pre-orders are already open, and it’s been really lovely to hear from people who have kindly already …

My new book, ‘Engines of Engagement: a curious book about Generative AI’ is published tomorrow. Pre-orders are already open, and it’s been really lovely to hear from people who have kindly already done so. We’ve even made it onto an Amazon bestseller list. The hardback book is really beautiful, and i’m very proud of it, but there is a compelling reason not to buy it. Because tomorrow, when it launches, it will also be available to download, for free, as an eBook.

Source: Why Not To Buy My New Book On Generative AI by @julianstodd

ᔥ “Stephen Downes” in Downes.ca ~ Stephen’s Web ~ Why Not To Buy My New Book On Generative AI ()

Replied to Technology in education – friend or foe? by Gill (macgirl19.wordpress.com)

I can absolutely appreciate the validity of the arguments the authors raised particularly the big one – for young people (and actually, many adults as well) the primary function of technology is entertainment so attempting to change this to a learning focus (and expecting it to easily translate) is far from ideal. Technology provides an endless menu of distractions. Even as I’m writing this blog post, there are other tabs in my browser tempting me and my attention does flit from time to time. And that’s on a task that was self-initiated.

I find this such an intriguing topic Gill, especially in a post-COVID world. Your discussion of technology and distractions has me thinking about the challenge to justify the impact many years ago. I feel that the biggest challenge is actually being mindful about the choices, too often if feels like choices are made out of convenience, rather than some deliberate consideration.
Liked Considering the Post-COVID Classroom by wiobyrnewiobyrne (wiobyrne.com)

As we deal with the current situation, we not only need to consider F2F, online, and hyflex education, we need to think about what pedagogy could and/or should look like in a post-pandemic system.

As we deal with the current situation, we not only need to consider F2F, online, and hyflex education, we need to think about what pedagogy could and/or should look like in a post-pandemic system.
Bookmarked Why ‘digital literacy’ is now a workplace non-negotiable (bbc.com)

The growing importance of digital literacy doesn’t mean workers have to master all the software out there to get a job. Instead, they have to be digitally confident: keen to try new technologies; embrace how the right tools can streamline routine tasks and improve workplace collaboration; while also having the flexibility and adaptability to learn new processes.

Today, employees need to assume they’ll keep upgrading digital skills. After all, the expectation when a worker begins a new role is either they have the digital skills to do the job or they’ll learn them – fast. “Hybrid and remote working were only relevant to 5% of the workforce before the pandemic,” says Zhou. “It’s nearly half of all workers now. Regardless of what work you did previously, an employer now expects you to learn whatever digital skills are required in a role.”

Alex Christian talks about the importance of digital literacy today. Beyond my issue with the plural of ‘literacies‘, I am left wondering about how we talk about something that is continually morphing and changing? There is a danger of describing it as something that one all of the sudden becomes, like Neo learning Kung Fu in The Matrix.

In part I was reminded of a tweet from Gillian Light:

Of course ‘digital literacies’ are a non-negotiable, my question is when are we going to stop talking about them as if they are static and instead talk about them as a process and practice, not a product or professional development session attended?