In technical communication, we have primarily focused on technological literacy, and most recently, code literacy. Hovde and Renguette (2017), drawing on the work of technical communication scholars who have addressed technological literacy (Breuch, 2002; Brumberger et al., 2013; Cargile Cook, 2002; Northcut & Brumberger, 2010; Selber, 2004; Turnley, 2007), consolidate this scholarship into functional, conceptual, evaluative, and critical levels of technological literacy. Instructional models exist for the purpose of cultivating technological (tool knowledge) and code (content management rules/knowledge) literacy. However, no innovative model exists for building digital literacy, i.e., literacy that includes “making ethically informed choices and decisions about digital behaviour... digital safety, digital rights, digital property, digital identity and digital privacy” (Traxler, 2018, p.4).
The proposed exploratory study focuses on student development of digital literacy as a result of use and/or curation of collections on immersive technologies. We envision a future in which technical communication students build digital literacy through such exploration and curation of online repositories on immersive technologies. We plan to study the abilities that students draw upon when exploring the collections and when determining which artifacts might be included in current collections as well as new collections that might be developed. At its core, this research examines the potential development of digital literacy through the act of exploring and curating collections on immersive technologies.
The proposed research comes as the result of a collaboration between the University of Minnesota’s Emerging Technology Research Collaboratory (ETRC, https://etrc.umn.edu/), a research group for investigating emerging technologies, Texas Tech University’s UX Research Lab (http://www.depts.ttu.edu/english/uxlab/), and the internationally known repository, Fabric of Digital Life (https://fabricofdigitallife.com/) and its affiliated Decimal Research Institute at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT, see Iliadis & Pedersen, 2018).
In partnership, we propose to develop instructional units that range from student use of the collections as a springboard for communication of their digital literacy experiences to more extensive involvement in collecting artifacts and proposing metadata for curation of new collections related to augmented reality, virtual reality, wearables, implantables, and embeddables. We will also develop the first customized metadata scheme to collect and catalogue discourses surrounding the potential and peril of AI, analytic tools, and AR and VR technologies within the context of digital literacy. In collaboration with UOIT colleagues, we will use the customized, open access CollectiveAccess software to identify, collect, archive, catalogue, and analyze the discourses (i.e., articles, images, audios, videos, other artifacts and events) surrounding emerging technologies to assist in our students’ exploration and/or curation of the collections.