Digital transformation begins with people. How do we become digitally literate?

Digital transformation is at the heart of the University of Leeds’ vision for the next ten years. This transformation will enhance students’ learning and enrich research activity, as well as improve the University’s own institutional operations. Leeds’ ambition is to use digital technologies and approaches to fulfil its desire to be a university that makes a difference.

However, digital transformation begins not with technology but with people, Leah Henrickson argues. She explains what makes us ‘digitally literate’ and how digital literacy helps us get the most from the digital in our lives.

Research that changes lives.

Four simple words, inspiring researchers at the University

of Leeds to reshape the world.

I am Professor Simone Buitendijk, since arriving at the University

in 2020 as Vice-Chancellor.

I've been amazed by the passion, creativity and ingenuity of the

research community to make a difference.

Having the opportunity to exercise choice is really key to palliative care

and that individualised care that supports the person in the last few months of life.

We need to learn from the mistakes that we've made and we

need to learn from the instances where prevention atrocities work.

I think the COVID-19 pandemic actually forced us to become a

little bit more digitally literate.

Although I do think we still have some room to kind of, continue growing.

One of my priorities has been to learn more about the sheer

range of research carried out by early career researchers at Leeds.

They are the new generation of world changers people working tirelessly

with communities and academics around the world on finding solutions to

seemingly intractable problems.

Over the course of this podcast series, I will be in conversation

with those researchers.

Join me as our World Changers described new discoveries and

approaches that will make the world a better and more equitable place

to live.

It's about research that changes lives.

In this podcast segment conversation with Dr.

Leah Henrickson from the School of Media and Communication.

We will be discussing digital literacy and the University's

Digital Transformation strategy, which will enable Leeds to engage

with new communities anywhere in the world, be they people who

want to study with us online or find out more about our research.

Digital transformation, argues Dr.

Henrickson, should not only focus on technology and platforms,

but importantly how people interact with that technology.

Hello, Leah, and thank you for joining me today.

Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

Wonderful, so let me start by asking you what attracted you to media studies?

So I actually got into media studies through books when I was a kid.

I loved spending time in my local library.

My mom would take me to the bookstore and we would flip through books for hours

on end.

And I was fascinated with the idea that you can have access to

so much knowledge and so many stories through these books.

As I got older and I was trying to figure out

what I wanted to study at university, I realised that I can study this.

I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto.

I got to focus on book studies with a little bit of media studies in there.

I then did my master's degree

at the University of London, but I focused on the history of the book.

Then I started thinking about where the book is going to be in ten years.

In 50 years, and what is the future of the book.

And that's how I got into studying things

like artificial intelligence and digital media specifically.

That's that's fascinating.

And you mentioned you were interested in what the future is of the book,

because the book is not a column,

but it has changed a lot the way we can spread knowledge.

And of course, with digital media, everything is is

different, expanded, I probably should say.

How does that approach changed with digital media?

Yeah, I mean, as you say, the book is still with us.

There's nothing wrong with a good book.

I love me a good book.

But I think digital media allow us so many different, new and exciting ways

to express ourselves and to communicate knowledge, to tell our stories.

And so I think these digital media, they stand alongside more traditional

media like books, like newspapers, and they just give us another layer

of self-expression, another way of increasing interpersonal

understanding and telling our stories the way that we want to tell them.

Your essay focuses, I think, rightfully on digital literacy

because, of course, if we want to use these digital media

effectively, we need to be digitally literate.

Can you explain a bit more about digital literacy

is for you in your research, but maybe also in your daily life?

We hear a lot about literacy and usually when we talk about literacy,

we're talking about textual literacy.

So the ability to to read digital literacy takes it a little bit further.

So if we want to explain digital literacy, there are generally three

things that digital literacy includes.

So let's use a phone as a as an example.

The first is functional literacy.

So being able to use the technology

to kind of complete basic tasks to participate in everyday life.

So for a phone that could be making a call,

sending a text message, the next level,

once you get the functional level down, is critical literacy.

So it's asking those questions about, okay, but why does the phone work

the way it does? Who's doing the programing?

Who is selling you that product?

Who is financially profiting?

What are the power structures behind that?

What are the intentions?

And it's asking those why questions.

And then the final step, once you get the functional and critical literacy down,

is this internalised state where you embed the technology

into your everyday activity to suit your needs and your wants.

That internalisation, is that a psychological process

or is it something else?

How does that work for for people?

There's so much room for exploration in this area.

I'm glad you asked this question

because it's a question I can't answer, to be honest.

We have some research out there about the effects of textual literacy on the brain.

So there are some cognitive scientists who have studied the effects

of textual literacy on thinking processes and what areas of the brain

light up when you read.

We don't really have that research for digital media yet.

There's a lot of work to be done.

I've recently written

a paper, it's under review right now, so fingers crossed that it gets accepted.

But it's all about arguing for we need to do this research.

It's arguing about this internalisation of digital media and and saying

we need to figure out how our brains work, because we know that

when we use different technologies, we, we process information differently.

We ask different questions.

We we use different

problem solving techniques, but we don't actually know

what the psychological processes are behind that.

So there's a lot of work to be done in this area.

I'm looking forward to that paper.

Sounds fascinating.

Me too. Thank you.

LAUGHING

So so

can I continue on that theme of digital literacy?

What would you say are the levels of digital literacy in the general community?

But for me, even more interestingly, maybe in the student population,

I think we older people in academia often

assume that students are digitally literate,

that digital natives is a term that's been floating around a while ago.

I don't think that that's necessarily the case, but

I'd love to get your take on it.

Yeah, I think we we have a decent level

among the student population and of functional literacy,

we see our students, they are comfortable

uploading their documents to submissions, portals.

They use social media, their texting on their phone.

They are using these technologies in very functional ways

to communicate with other people. And that's that's great.

I teach the BA students in digital media and the M.A.

students in new media.

And what we are urging students to do through these courses is to think

more critically about how and why they use technologies.

And I think our students in general, they know how to log on to the Internet,

they know how to use these programs, and they're comfortable doing that.

But what they're not so comfortable with is asking those critical questions

related to power structures and why things work the way they do.

And do they have to be that way.

So what we're urging students to do in our own courses, but also throughout

the University, is to ask those critical questions, ask the why.

When we taught online entirely last year due to COVID 19 restrictions

and all of a sudden we were almost forced to ask those questions.

So we had to very quickly, as University staff and students,

become comfortable with functionally

using these technologies, being able to log on to teams to zoom,

to, you know, use the whiteboard on Zoom, use breakout rooms.

But we also had to think very critically about what technologies we were using

right there was a whole conversation about Zoom and data privacy.

Does Zoom adhere to GDPR?

Like these are all questions that are examples of critical digital literacy.

So I think the COVID 19 pandemic actually forced us

to become a little bit more digitally literate, although I do

think we still have some room to kind of continue growing in this area.

And what kind of questions do you ask your students to pursue?

And I'm specifically interested in the ethical end of those questions

because I think a lot of the problems that popped up were

ethical issues around indeed inclusion or the lack

thereof, and GDPR and privacy.

Can you give an example of ethical questions that your students

are pushed to to answer, even if it's a bit uncomfortable for them?

Yeah.

One example of an ethical discussion

that we have a lot is related to data collection.

GDPR is all about data collection and data storage and the regulations

that we have in place to protect everyday folks and maintain their privacy.

For listeners who are not aware.

Can you explain what GDPR means?

Yeah.

So the general Data Protection Act is a European

Union regulation that was put in place a few years ago.

It's essentially an advocacy policy

on behalf of consumers and everyday people to make sure that their data

isn't being used inappropriately and that only the data

that people need is being collected and stored.

So data collection is a really rich area of discussion

for the ethical issues about digital technologies.

Yeah, thank you. And that was really helpful.

I want to ask you something slightly different.

I know you banned an experiment in one of your classes and the 2021 last year.

Can you can tell me a little bit more about that because what I read about it,

it sounds absolutely fascinating, the digital storytelling.

Yeah, it was a series of experiments, I think.

I run a second year module for undergraduates called

Digital Storytelling, and it's all about

giving students the opportunity to explore different ways

of communicating using digital technologies.

This module attracts students from across the School of Media and Communications.

So we have some journalists, we have some exchange students,

we have some language students, students with very little experience

using digital technologies in kind of practical ways.

So what I decided to do in this class this year was just throw

all of the things that I wanted to try, but had always been a bit too

scared to try at the students all at once.

So I dove in headfirst.

I decided I was like, You know what would be cool?

A class playlist.

So the students got together and throughout the module

we would listen to a playlist

when the students were doing independent work in the workshops,

but they got to decide what the class sounded like.

And it was this really subtle way of giving students agency in the class

and saying, You know, you decide what we listen to while this happens.

You are in control here.

We tried out so many different digital technologies.

We tried out things like Gather Town, which is an online kind of virtual space

where you use avatars

and you can build rooms and make the room look exactly like what you want it to.

We made interactive narratives, we did films, we did photo essays, we made memes

and we talked about how memes could be a form of storytelling. And

I think

it just ended up being this hodgepodge

of digital technologies, and at the core of it was the student.

Throughout this whole process, the students were encouraged

to tell their own personal stories, so they were reflecting on their own lives.

And I would give them theory

and then tell them, you have to apply this theory to your own lives

and then tell a digital story using this method.

So they were constantly

reflecting on their own personal experiences and perspectives.

But the outcome wasn't an essay or a written piece of work.

It was a series of digital stories.

Amazing.

Amazing.

And students love this, didn't they?

I have never gotten such good feedback on my teaching.

They absolutely loved it, and I've also never given out such high grades.

My check marker, the person who checks to make sure that my marking is is fine.

My check marker and I were both absolutely blown away

by the quality and the insight that this work demonstrated.

The students were really self-reflective, but they also engaged

really critically with the concepts that I had introduced in the class.

I think they also just enjoyed not having to write an essay in the humanities.

They're constantly writing essays.

I'm an academic.

I love me a good essay,

but they got to be a little bit more creative and they got to choose

what form they told their story and communicate their knowledge

and insight in ways that they felt best suited them.

This is really fascinating, Leah.

I'm just wondering, as you're talking, how applicable this is, storytelling

and students to to learn how to do that and to be creative,

that would be to more lab based work, for instance,

and to learn to tell a story about engineering or science

or other things and their own experiences can can you comment on that?

Of course.

So my group of students was predominantly from media and communication.

They're predominantly

from humanities backgrounds, and they're used to doing a lot of writing.

They're used to doing quite a bit of verbal communication as well

in more science subjects, mathematics, technology, where they're doing

more practical work, they're doing more math, kind of numerical work.

I think this could still apply no matter what

field of study you're in, whether you're a student or a staff member,

you need to be able to communicate your ideas effectively.

You need to figure out who your audience is,

and you need to meet your audience halfway.

And digital media give us more options for where we meet our audience

with students in in more science and mathematics subjects.

These kinds of storytelling methods give them ways to explore

that content from using new perspectives, using new means of expression,

they can communicate their knowledge

in different ways

that might complement the work that they're already doing in that space.

And likewise, as staff members, if I'm talking to other academics,

a traditional academic

journal tends to be the middle point where I go to meet other academics.

But if I'm trying to talk to the world's more widely, or if I'm trying to talk

to a group of elementary school students or what have you,

these forms of digital storytelling give me so many more options, so

to speak, to them in ways that engage them.

That makes them as excited about my research and my content as I am.

There's a lot of potential for this kind of storytelling work

to be integrated into other other disciplines across the university.

So yes, I think that there's plenty of opportunity

for further exploration and application of this of this kind of work.

Yeah. Thank you.

I think we're inclined to to underestimate

the power of storytelling as academics and people

who've been brought up with writing down their research results.

Yeah, I think something to keep in mind as well is when when we talk about media,

the word media is the plural of

of the word medium, which means middle right is a middle ground.

And for a long time, books have been that middle ground.

They've been the kind of meeting space for readers and authors.

And and that's that's worked. That's been fine.

But these digital media give us so many different kinds

of middle grounds that we can use.

And and I think that's really exciting.

While I'm listening to you, I'm

thinking the University of Leeds is embarking on and really

yeah wide, wide ranging strategy around student learning and student

experience are going to move away from students being passive

and listening to lectures to much more group work.

And one of the main advantages there are many, but one that I really like

you said, students can then bring their own lived experiences,

their backgrounds, into the classroom and into the teamwork.

And it draws

students from all kinds of backgrounds into being much more active participants

and puts them in a really good place for graduate employment

and work and their lives after they leave the university.

And this sounds like a really, really great example of that kind of thinking.

Do you agree?

I absolutely agree.

When I heard about these changes that were being proposed,

I admit I was a little bit scared.

It sounds like a lot of work.

It it requires a lot of kind of overhaul in the way that we teach now.

Right.

Because we are serious academics.

We you know, we are professionals.

So we we have this idea that teaching means somebody at the front of the room

and the students are all sitting there absorbing all of our wisdom.

And, you know, I have a lot of wisdom to offer.

So but at the end of the day,

we learn as much from our students as they learn from us.

And I think these kinds of changes really allow us to explicitly recognise

the value of these students perspectives and the value of their stories.

I also think it's just it's time to prepare our students

for the world of employment and the world after university.

They'll need to learn how to communicate and how to use these technologies

and to set themselves apart from other applicants.

They need to have kind of a portfolio of work that says, “Hey,

I have these soft skills, I have these transferable skills,

and I've had time to experiment in a safe space.”

I think you're so right and it sounds like you're

already doing everything that we're going to be steering towards.

This is just a great example of that kind of philosophy.

So I was wondering to take it one step further into what the University is doing.

As you know, we're also embarking on digital transformation

and not just in education and also in our research and societal outreach.

And that's why I think digital literacy, not just for our students,

but also for the general community outside of the university,

such an important theme.

And how do you see your ideas

fitting into the bigger digital transformation movement?

And this, if I may call it that, in our now university.

Obviously digital media means a lot of things.

There are a lot of digital technologies and there are,

quite frankly, some things that work really well as they are.

We don't need to do a huge overhaul across the board, but

I think it's important for us to reflect on, you know, where do we want to go.

So as part of a digital transformation, what are we transforming to?

It helps to have a sort of idea of the end goal, but in order to do

that, you have to figure out what you're transforming from.

So that requires a lot of critical self-reflection

as individuals within the university, but also institutionally, it requires

this kind of audit of what is working, what should we continue doing?

And a lot of that won't be digital, and that is absolute fine.

But it also requires us to acknowledge what we could do better

and where can we improve.

And it might mean that digital technologies can help us improve.

It might mean that digital technologies won't help.

But we need to think about what we are doing now

and what do we want to be doing in the future.

Yeah, no.

And I think it's great that as teachers were allowed not to always know everything

and not to be the sage on the stage, but the guide on the side.

This is not so.

I don't know what you're.

Talking about, Simone. I know everything.

LAUGHING

Yeah, I know. I completely agree with you.

And I think that that phrase, having that guide on the side

and being there to support students as they grow and direct their own

learning experience because the students are they're smart.

Right.

And we need to give them credit for how smart and how motivated they are.

And as much as I would love to say that, I actually do know everything.

I don't. And I learn so much from them.

Yeah, I know.

I know. That's exactly how you feel.

This sounds wonderful.

I want to ask you about a project that's not yours, but that you mentioned

explicitly in your essay.

And it sounded absolutely fascinating.

And if I'm not mistaken, it's it's around something called algo rave.

You said how I pronounce it. I'm not even sure how to say it.

Yeah. Algorave is, is what that's called.

Would bit more about that because I think

it's a great example of how really good

scholarly work that's innovative and new actually can change

communities and change people's lives in very tangible ways.

And so could you talk a little bit about the project, your colleagues project?

Yeah, this is I think it's a fabulous project as well.

It's led by Dr.

Joanne Armitage, who is a lecturer in the School of Media and Communication

with me and Joanne is an Algorave artist herself.

So Algorave is an amalgamation of two words

algorithm, so algo and rave.

So kind of like a dance rave.

And what she does is she goes to these clubs and she programs

in front of the dance floor and the code is projected onto a screen.

And as she codes, it's the code that makes the music.

So she's making this computer generated music that people are

then dancing to and coding is

commonly seen as a masculine activity.

And we see this right, we see that STEM subjects.

So science and math and technology subjects are often male dominated.

And that creates kind of a weird environment for women

who are doing algorithms because this is very masculine activity.

You now have women joining and there are a lot of issues when it comes

to women's senses of safety, women's senses of belonging in these communities.

And what Joanne has done is she has run a series of workshops

with women to teach them how to code and how to do Algorave specifically.

So a lot of these women have never coded before.

They've certainly never done an algorave.

But this is an opportunity

for them to learn coding skills and to get a little bit creative.

So you're learning coding as you're doing these tasks

that allow you to explore the potentials of code

and to express yourself and make the music that you want to make.

And she's documented this work in an open access

so publicly available article called Spaces to Fail In.

It's in a journal called Dance Cult that's online. And

what she's

saying throughout the article is that these women really do

benefit from these women's specific coding spaces.

They feel like they're part of a community,

they feel a sense of belonging, and they are learning

new skills in a kind of playful way.

The thing about Algorave is you can't do it wrong.

So even if it doesn't sound the way that you want it to sound like,

it still sounds pretty cool.

So yeah, Joanne's

work is absolutely amazing and she's still active in this space.

If you look up Joanne Armitage on YouTube, you'll find some videos of her at these

at these parties, coding and making some really bangin music.

That sounds absolutely wonderful.

I must say. I'm tempted to to try.

I fully support you. Please.

Please do

Yep, I think I'll have to do something here.

So I'll start by looking at the YouTube videos.

It sounds absolutely wonderful and what a great example of how

our research work and scholarly work can be so innovative and so meaningful

too, to people in the community, in this case, women in the community.

Absolutely.

I think I think we're sort of getting to the end of this interview.

It's it's sad because it feels like I want to talk to you for another hour.

It's all absolutely wonderful.

But I want to give you an opportunity

I'd like an overarching final question.

you’re were one of the World Changers now because you were invited

to write an essay in and we published

your essay is part of this collection.

And so you're you're a University of Leeds World Changer.

And I'd like for you to say a little bit

and you don't have to do it in a minute, just whatever time you need

about how, in your view, understanding

of digital literacy can help us as a University, as an organisation,

and to play a part in making the world a better place.

Because I think that's what universities need to do, and it's certainly

a very big artist in the ten year strategy at the University of Leeds.

So please, yeah, your perspective on how your work can help.

I think the thing about the phrase world changers is that it doesn't specify

if you're changing the world for the better or for the worse.

And I think

LAUGHING

I think.

It's.

It's useful to consider if we get this wrong, there's

we can change the world for the worse.

And I think it's important for us to figure out what what we can do

as a community to work towards better

and meaningful and impactful change.

If we want to change the world for the better,

we need to figure out how digital technologies can serve us.

We need to make sure that we are providing people with opportunities to learn

how to use those technologies,

to tell their stories, the way that they want to be told,

to figure out how to best communicate our knowledge and insight.

And we need to change the world together.

That is wonderful.

What a great way to end this interview.

And it's been absolutely great to talk to you.

And I think the University of Leeds should be very happy that they have you

as part of their community.

I know you're going to be doing some amazing work

in the next few years and beyond.

I feel very privileged

that I'll be able to to watch you and see what you're going to be doing.

Thank you so much, Leah, for this this fascinating half hour and

and looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's been great.

Thank you for listening to this podcast from the University of Leeds, to find out

more about the work of our early career researchers and to read essays written by

World Changer researchers, please go to the World Changers page on the University

website, details can be found in the information that accompanies this podcast.