Project Deliverables
Professional Development Learning Series
Comprised of 10 video modules to support K-5 teachers in the educating digital literacy
Professor Garfield Website Updates
Support for students in their digital literacy education
Our Project
The Professor Garfield Project and Digital Literacy Pathways Institute are the result of a yearlong collaboration between Ball State University’s Teachers College, Yorktown Community Schools, Delaware County Community Schools, Muncie Community Schools, Burris Laboratory Schools, and Ball State University’s Center for Emerging Media Design & Development.
Project Overview
In Spring of 2018, an EMDD team completed development of a beta version of the Professor Garfield website, a free and open tool built to educate K-5 students on the eight key components of digital literacy.
To better support K-5 educators in teaching digital literacy, the 2020-21 EMDD team created a digital literacy professional learning series for K-5 teachers in the Muncie community. The Digital Literacy Pathways project extends the goals of the 2018 Professor Garfield project in its support of digital literacy education.
The Digital Literacy Pathways project aims to provide K-5 teachers the resources needed to teach digital literacy in the classroom.
Ten self-paced learning modules are hosted at dlpathways.com and include multimedia instructional videos and additional support for teachers.
Project Background
In Spring 2020, EMDD received a $25,000 grant from the Discovery Women’s Group to develop a professional learning series for K-5 teachers focused on digital literacy. Discovery is a women’s collaborative philanthropic group created to support and fund innovative projects and programs at Ball State University – impacting students and benefiting our local, national, and international communities.
The grant has supported development of Digital Literacy Pathways: An educator’s guide to digital literacy, a professional learning series that recognizes that for K-5 students to master digital literacy skills, teachers must be better supported in their digital literacy instructional efforts.
A Samsung survey reported that 37 percent of educators want to use technology in the classroom but do not know how to implement technology. Additionally, more than one-third of educators believe that fundamental training and resources would be most helpful (Smith, 2019). Digital Literacy Pathways was developed to address this problem space and provide K-5 educators with training to help their students become digitally literate through cross-curricular instruction.
The EMDD project team developed content for 10 training modules (an introduction module, a module for each of the eight components of digital literacy, and a conclusion module), which were each divided into three sections:
Read & Watch
Explore & Do
Discover & Share
Project Deliverables
professional development learning series
Comprised of 10 video modules to support K-5 teachers in the educating digital literacy education.
professor Garfield Website Updates
Support for students in their digital literacy education
Partnership
The Professor Garfield Project and Digital Literacy Pathways Institute are the result of a yearlong collaboration between Ball State University’s Teachers College, Yorktown Community Schools, Delaware County Community Schools, Muncie Community Schools, Burris Laboratory Schools, and Ball State University’s Department of Journalism.
Related Research
The EMDD project team presented a poster in the Student Research In Progress session at the 2021 Broadcasting Education Association or BEA Virtual Conference.
The poster presents a case study called, “Digital Literacy Pathways Case Study: Understanding How to Develop Effective Educator-Centered Cross-Curricular Digital Literacy Professional Development Materials.”
The case study discusses content creation through user testing and website development.
Our Process
Professional Development Learning Series
The Professional Development Learning Series includes 10 training modules. Each module provides content to inform and guide K-5 teachers in digital literacy education.
Consulting with Educators
Upon drafting the initial content for each module, the EMDD team collaborated with seven K-5 teacher consultants from Burris Laboratory School, Delaware County School Corp, Muncie Community Schools, and Yorktown Community Schools.
Feedback from the teacher consultants helped the development team make improvements and ensure the professional learning series would meet the needs of educators.
Additional Collaboration
The EMDD project team also collaborated with two Public Relations Campaigns classes taught by Dr. Becky McDonald. For five weeks, the PR students developed ideas for the branding, promotions, and social media aspects of our marketing campaign.
The results of this collaboration provided the EMDD team with a number of ideas for promotional content production, as well as the name Digital Literacy Pathways.
Next Steps
The Digital Literacy Pathways professional learning series will launch in Summer 2021 and be available free to teachers in the Delaware County region.
Later this year, we hope to make the program available to all Indiana teachers.
Key Stats
Educator Consultants from Delaware County in Indiana
0
Professional Development Training Modules
0
Video scripts written & recorded for modules
0
Professor Garfield Website Updates
In addition to developing the Digital Literacy Pathways institute, the EMDD team also continued work on development of Professor Garfield’s 21st Century Literacy Project.
Language and Layout Changes
Based on feedback from the education division of Viacom – Garfield’s new parent company – the EMDD team conducted a language audit of the website to ensure the site would be more easily understood by young children.
Additionally, the team redesigned the website homepage to place more emphasis on the eight components of digital literacy and the project’s relationship with Ball State University’s Teachers College.
Design Thinking with Ball State Teachers College
The team also conducted two design thinking sessions with pre-service teachers in Ball State University’s Teachers College to develop ideas for new cross-curricular digital literacy activities. The first focused on brainstorming ideas for K-5 math, science, and social studies lessons that integrate digital literacy principles.
The second session allowed pre-service teachers to prototype cross-curricular digital literacy lesson plans. The EMDD project team used ideas generated during these sessions to develop prototypes for seven new cross-curricular digital literacy activities for the Professor Garfield site. Development for these exercises is ongoing.
Key Stats
Video scripts written, storyboarded, and recorded for student modules
0
New Interactive Cross-Curricular Digital Literacy Activities
0
Our Team
