{"id":2739,"date":"2015-07-14T09:30:23","date_gmt":"2015-07-14T08:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/?p=2739"},"modified":"2015-08-11T10:49:34","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T09:49:34","slug":"flipping-the-institution-higher-education-on-the-post-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/2015\/07\/14\/flipping-the-institution-higher-education-on-the-post-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"Flipping the Institution: Higher Education in the Post Digital Age"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"8399337241_52f0280326_z\"<\/a>

flickr photo by Scott McLeod<\/a> shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license<\/p><\/div>\n

The 2015 Academic Practice and Technology conference<\/a> at the University of Greenwich focused on \u2018Flipping the Institution: Higher Education in the Post Digital Age\u2019. There was a huge range of sessions to choose from, so this is just a flavour of what I took away from the day.<\/p>\n

What is the post-digital age – and are we there yet?<\/b><\/h3>\n

The \u2018post-digital\u2019 theme ran through the conference and there were interesting discussions across sessions – and on Twitter – as to what we mean by \u2018post-digital\u2019.<\/p>\n

The notion of a ‘post-digital age’ seems to be based on the assumption that digital tools are now ubiquitous and taken for granted. If we accept that we are all digital citizens, then we can move the focus away from the technology itself to what is happening\u00a0in the spaces it creates.<\/p>\n

The pervasiveness of digital technologies brings with it new learning needs and keynote speaker\u00a0Jonathan Worth<\/a> emphasised the need to teach ‘of the digital’ not just ‘in the digital’, educating students to be engaged critically with digital tools, platforms and resources.<\/p>\n

Others pointed out that the digital does not yet reach everyone; \u2018digital confidence\u2019 is not the same as \u2018digital literacy\u2019 and we should not make assumptions about the digital awareness of what keynote speaker\u00a0Nick Bryan-Kinns<\/a> referred to as the \u2018mobile first\u2019 generation.<\/p>\n

This understanding underpins work being carried out by Jisc on digital capability and digital wellbeing<\/a> – identifying the capabilities staff and students need in order to \u2018thrive in a digital environment\u2019. Helen Beetham\u2019s presentation<\/a> focused on \u2018how learners’ digital practices are challenging traditional approaches to learning and teaching\u2019 but also led to discussion of the diagram of the six elements of digital capabilities recently produced by the Building Digital Capability project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Six<\/a><\/p>\n

The six elements of digital capabilities, \u00a9Jisc, CC BY-NC-ND<\/a><\/p>\n

Digital capabilities in practice<\/b><\/h3>\n

Developing staff and students\u2019 digital capabilities was shown in practice in the presentation by Jenny Fisher and Hayley Atkinson<\/a> (Manchester Metropolitan University) who discussed assessing a Social Care and Social Work module by group animation. There were several advantages to this innovative assessment:<\/p>\n