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Friday, April 8, 2016

There's a Disconnect on Digital Literacy

A February survey of students and faculty members said that neither group thinks much of the other’s digital literacy. The 2016 State of Digital Media in Higher Education Report made the case that learning outcomes would improve if institutions did a better job of providing information and access to digital resources, according to a report in eCampus News.

One of the main findings from the report was 45% of the responding students consider themselves highly digitally literate, while only 14% of the faculty agreed with them. Conversely, 49% of the faculty said they were highly digitally literate, but just 24% of the students agreed.

More than 90% of faculty members and 76% of the students said that multimedia-enhanced lectures were more engaging, but both groups gave low marks to university-provided resources to digital media. Just 20% of faculty and 32% of students said they accessed course-related digital media through university resources.

“Schools are making huge investments in infrastructure, yet they’re cutting at the efficacy of their own institutions by not providing content for students to use in their new digital center or on the cloud,” said TJ Leonard, CEO of VideoBlocks, the digital-resource provider that conducted the online survey. “Schools should be doing everything possible to prepare students for the 21st-century economy, and it’s hard to imagine that without access to digital media. They have to make resources available and give students consistent access to them in the classroom, the library, and off campus to get the full value out of digital media.”