Learning and the Digital Generations

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2016:

120 hours

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject will introduce students to the complex and emerging relationships between learning and digital communications. Drawing on the idea of digital generations, it enables students to gain an understanding of the ways in which digital communication is integrated into the lives of new generations. The subject will enable students to understand the ways in which young people both access and produce knowledge, blurring the boundaries of knowledge production and consumption and local and global spaces. It will explore how digital communications open up new opportunities for learning in both formal (e.g. schools) and informal (e.g. leisure) settings, challenging traditional ideas about where and how young people learn. It will also enable students to understand more about the ways in which digital communication technologies can enable disadvantaged young people to draw on local and global ideas and resources and produce new cultural knowledge through the use of new (digital) literacies and forms of civic engagement. Finally the subject will draw on both local and global examples, including the role of digital communications in youth-led revolutionary movements. On completion of this subject students will have a deepened understanding of the potential uses of digital communications for producing new knowledge and expanding the possibilities for learning.

On completion of this subject students should be able to:

• Have a knowledge of the relationship between learning and digital communications
• Understand the role of digital communications in supporting global flows of ideas, knowledge and products
• Be aware of the ways in which digital communications promote new literacies and can benefit disadvantaged young people
• Have an understanding of the challenges and opportunities that digital communications present for education and learning in the 21 st Century

There are two assessment tasks:

• Research essay 1 drawing on appropriate literature and concepts introduced in lectures and tutorials , 1500 words, due early in the semester, 40%
• Research essay 2, drawing on appropriate literature and concepts introduced in lectures and tutorials, 2500 words, due late in the semester, 60%

This subject has a minimum hurdle requirement of 80% attendance at all tutorials, seminars and workshops.

Readings will be posted on the LMS

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Arts
• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

This subject should enable students to:

• Become active global citizens
• Be critical and creative thinkers, capable of understanding how digital communications blur production/consumption, learning/teaching, local/global
• Engage meaningfully in public discourse about digital communications
• Have an understanding of the ways in which digital communications supports cultural diversity