Identifying relevant digital literacy skills required for my job

E-activity1.2  in module three of the Practice Context course is identifying what digital literacy skills are required my for job. My job is disability lecturer for year two of a Bachelor in Social Services. I am required to teach the course, development the third year level course and be research active.

Karback (2012) in their blog '33 digital skills every 21st Century teacher should have' proivdes a lists of skills and links to resources. From this list I have identified the following skills as relevant to
my area:

• Use Social bookmarking to share resources with and between learners
• Use video content to engage learners
• Use infographics to visually stimulate students
• Use social networking sites to connect with colleagues and grow professionally
• Create and deliver asynchronous presentations and training sessions
• Be able to detect plagiarized works in students assignments
• Understand issues related to copyright and fair use of online materials
• Find and evaluate authentic web based content
• Learn about the different ways to use YouTube in your classroom
• Use note taking tools to share interesting content with your students
• Use of screen casting tools to create and share tutorials
• Conduct an effective search query with the minimum time possible
• Conduct A Research Paper Using Digital Tools
• Use file sharing tools to share docs and files with students online

The above list is quite long and little daunting, however some things on the list I already do through Moodle, such as 'Use file sharing tools to share docs and files with students online'. Other things are not necessarily a requirement but I think would be a good work skill to have, for instance 'Use social networking sites to connect with colleagues and grow professionally'. Developing my professional online profiles could assist me keep up with what is happening in my field to assure that I am teaching and researching the most contemporary issues and information.

 In terms of what areas do I feel confident, not many really, actually only one: conduct an effective search query with the minimum time possible. I pride myself on being able to find relevant and interesting information quickly! As a new teacher this skill is vital as I am slowly building up my own library of resources and am finding I need to locate soem good references for each class. Next year I will have those references already saved on my desk top ready to use. Although there will always be the need to continue to up date my resources.

I am slowly beginning to use Moodle as an online teaching and learning tool. In the first semester I predominantly used Moodle to upload course readings for students to access. This semester I have developed a consistent structure under each topic. I outline the topic objectives, followed by a short
e-activity, with the relevant readings and links at the bottom. This way the students can engage with the content at anytime. For instance, one student fractured their leg and could not come to class, but they were able to work from home and participate in the class acivities by completing the
e-activity. I am also using the e-activities as a way for learners to share information.

I have recently discovered how to create a 'book' in Moodle, which is a great alternative to power point presentations. I am currently creating my first 'book' for my next class. I can't tell yet whether a Moodle book is better than a power point presentation.










Reference:
Kharbach, M (2012, June). 33 digital skills every 21st Century teacher should have. Retrieved from http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/06/33-digital-skills-every-21st-century.html