2. Project context
Undergraduate students may be enthusiastic,
competent users of digital tools but need
guidance to use them in an academic context.
Simon Snowden, Lecturer,Academic lead, University of Liverpool
Clickable image: https://stream.liv.ac.uk/tjcb69jn
4. Project aims
The project aims to support the transition of
first-year students in their academic study and
employ them with skills that would benefit them
beyond graduation.
5. Objectives
• Engage 5 digital champions (3rd year students) to offer
peer-learning for first-year students on making their
academic study easier.
• Engage the Digital champions in creating videos in the
form of digital stories.
• Create edit and share the videos for wider use.
• Investigate students’ perspectives on micro-
certification as a way of recognising their skill
development.
• Evaluate the pilot and whether this peer-learning model
is successful for wider adoption institutionally and
beyond.
7. The Digital Champions 2013/14
Bradley Griffin Adam Byrne
Emily Evans Laura Cash
Who makes good
Digital Champions?
8. Intended outcomes
• First-year students
– To foster the development of digital learning skills
in students in a disciplinary context.
• Digital champions
– To gain further confidence in their digital skills
through peer-learning.
– To be able to articulate the progress they have
made in the area of digital literacies development.
9. What happened?
• Training and support (e.g. RefWorks by Library)
• Peer-learning drop-in sessions
– In library – Friday afternoons!
– With laptop
• Digital story creation (video)
• Later: Facebook group & handout created by
students
19. Benefits for the Digital Champions
“When you have the responsibility to
teach others,
you change your ways of doing things.
You review your bad [study] habits and
develop good habits.”
“Good for the CV”
“Good feeling of being
able to help students”
Skills acquired:
Digital study skills
Problem-solving
Teamworking and
leadership skills
20. Benefits for first-years
”I could really relate to
Digital Champions as they were my age
and experienced the same thing as
me.”
Advice gained on digital skills - essay writing, using referencing
software and general advice on being a Management School student:
“[Digital Champions] made the research for my assignment easier”
“reassuring”
22. Self-perception of need
vs
“It was extremely
helpful even
though I didn’t
realise this at first.
I visited them
twice for general
advice.”
“Students are
more familiar with
the technology
and don’t feel they
need the
support.”
24. What aspects of general advice would
be most useful to you? (n=37)
13
9
15
21
3
0
5
10
15
20
25
Gaining
confidence in
Y1
Getting to
know senior
students
Familirise
with Y1 study
requirements
Advice on
assignment
writing
Signposting
me to
ULMS/Uni
support
25. What DL support would be useful? (n=37)
19 19 19
17 17 17 16 15 14
12 11 10
8 7 6
4
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
26. Areas in most needed: those
relevant to their assignment writing
All 7 areas of digital literacies in need
27. Student suggestions (Y1+Y3)
• Keep doing the Digital Champions project!
• Practicalities:
–Timing: Not last thing on Fridays!
–Venue: Outside lecture theatre.
• Better introduction as to what Champions can
offer.
• Champion-led Y1 workshop - chance to get
to know them
• Online extension to reach Champions.
28. Considerations / Recommendations
• Online access :
– considerations e.g. Champions’ workload, response
time, availability?
– VLE vs Facebook?
• Training
– Extend training for Champions : e.g. media literacy
(see gap/needs list).
– ?Identify DL practices in Co/Extra/Curriculum?
29. Next year plans
• Continuing with this approach in the
Management School and
• Looking for wider institutional adoption
– Linking to existing peer-learning initiatives
• Certification and links with HEAR
30. University of Liverpool Project team
TündeVarga-Atkins (co-lead), eLearning Unit
Emma Thompson (co-lead) & Beryl Stanley, Library
Simon Snowden (academic lead), Management School
Dave Hocker (multimedia)
Digital Champions 2013/14
Adam Byrne, Laura Cash, Bradley Griffin and Emily Evans
Poster credit
Lynne Crook (drawing)
Amy Jackson (typography and digitisation)
Blog: http://digilearnblog.liv.ac.uk/
Contact : tva@liv.ac.uk
Notas do Editor
https://stream.liv.ac.uk/tjcb69jn
Digital Champions’ skills in information literacy and digital scholarship were developed as part of the EBL ULMS211 modules.
For instance they were exposed to searching management databases, critically evaluating and storing information as well as analytical strategies aided by digital tools such as Wordle. They also were shown other digital tools such as mindmapping software to help organise their thinking.
They also received training in referencing and RefWorks by the Library (digital scholarship and info literacy).
Thus, underpinning their development was also the development of learning skills and ICT literacy.
Champions had to develop their own video stories – giving them skills in media literacy. (Next year we hope to develop these skills a bit more so that they can also shoot, edit and produce their own digital stories.
Communication and collaboration skills were developed when students were choosing Facebook to extend their reach beyond the drop-in sessions. (Next year we may do this in the VLE to allow each student, not each may be a Facebook user, to contact them.)
Finally, it was important for Champions that their work is to be visibly recognised – for now agreed LinkedIn endorsements – but Badges are being explored. Potential links will be HEAR and MyLiverpool.
No single DL area is prominent in terms of need – but distributed.
All needs are in the context of their study – assignment writing (referencing, evaluating information = Library!)
High need in terms of digital tools that can be utilised for their study (19 out of 37)
[Taking part in digital networks and Current awareness of networks = quite high! Shows they are thinking of their time beyond graduation but in a purposeful, critical way]