by Daniel Pan
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Brenta Blevins
More often than not, violations of digital ethics stem from a lack of education/ awareness and not malicious intent. If secondary education institutions were to implement emerging technologies in their programs, students would learn the ethical boundaries of these consumables before they purchased them on their own. This project serves to determine the biggest struggles that higher education institutions face when trying to implement new technologies.
Thanks for sharing your presentation, Daniel, and your work with Professor Blevins! Even before you got to the heart of your presentation, you did, in my opinion, two very smart things: 1) you relayed how your already-planned project became impacted by the pandemic and its thumbprint on higher education, underscoring the timeliness of the project; and 2) you told us who you are and how this identity relates to your specific project. Almost all research is motivated by very personal reasons, and you squarely acknowledged that. Then, moving to the presentation proper, you nicely reminded of the barriers to use of technology and suggested some solutions. As a professor who indeed struggled with the pivot to online instruction, I especially appreciated your frank acknowledgment of how time consuming mastery of technology initially is. Congratulations! Professor Richards
This study sure turned out to be timely! Under covid-19 restrictions I have students trying to complete their work with nothing more than a smartphone and limited data, or sharing one family computer with working parents and K-12 siblings, so it was good to see you mentioning access as a key piece of the puzzle.
What an interesting presentation, Dan! Like others have commented, how timely as well. It was evident you did thorough research and I loved that you considered your sample carefully.
I would expand your long-term implications to graduate students as well, not just education majors. From personal experience, I would have benefited from training in digital learning tools as a graduate student. Even though my degree was not in education, it would have helped me be a better professor from day one!
Great job!
Professor Dunn
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for sharing your work with us! Digital literacy is such an important asset—as you note—to employers—as well as for higher education. I appreciate how your research addressed a variety of different institutions, ranging from the private institution to the SLAC. One of the challenges, as we’ve discussed, is how broad digital literacy is given the impact of digital technology on all of our lives and how rapidly it’s changing—such as with the transition of so many institutions to online education this semester. I wonder how many different digital literacies you needed to create this project? I’ll bet it’s a long list, with everything ranging from Canvas to digital photography to the software you used for notetaking to the software you used to create this slide presentation –even to our library databases that brought us the readings on digital literacy you did this semester and the video chat software you used for conducting this list. One of the challenges we face with digital literacy is predicting just which skills will be the ones we need to develop. In January, who would have predicted everyone would need proficiency in Zoom by the end of the semester? I look forward to seeing your list of digital literacies for creating this project!