Education 2.0 & 3.0

The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Sociology was approved by the ACRL Board of Directors on 27 January 2022, as a Companion Document to the ACRL IL Framework. "Developed by the ACRL Anthropology and Sociology Section’s Instruction and Information Literacy Committee, the companion document defines Sociological Information Literacy as an understanding of how information and scholarship are created, published, disseminated, and used by individuals and organizations. The document describes connections between the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy and the Sociological Literacy Framework (SLF) developed by sociology professors Susan Ferguson and William Carbonaro. 

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework allows us to understand the importance of utilizing web 2.0 in teaching and learning. Social annotation tools such as Hypothes.is allow teachers to fulfil the three essential UDL components: engagement, representation, and action & expression through thoughtful use of the platform.

Social annotation tools such as Hypothesis and Voice Thread, when used well, boost student engagement, enhance critical thinking, expand reading comprehension, and increase student interaction. Of the several social annotation tools currently available, our institution uses Hypothesis. Hypothesis’ motto—“Making reading active, visible and social”—sums up why we think social annotation is so valuable for our students: it engages students and invites them to read and think together as a group by sharing real-time annotations of websites or PDFs (Hypothesis, 2021). The richly multimodal, interactive nature of Hypothesis offers instructors a platform through which they can employ the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to improve engagement and accessibility for all learners.

If we could build a new framework to show how learners and leaders can thrive in a fully digital, automated future, what would it look like?

Last week, I introduced the COUP framework, which is a great framework to start with OER research. However, some categories of the COUP framework have been researched more extensively than others. For example, one of the biggest “selling points” of OER is cost. But is a free resource always the better option if students don’t achieve good grades in the end?

Vice-chancellors and senior executives from more than 40 UK universities have contributed to a new framework, launched today, to help higher education leaders realise the benefits of a long-term strategic approach to digital technology.