Digital literacies - in teaching and learning

Technology is transforming nearly every aspect of our world, and higher education is no exception. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and the role of technology in confronting existential challenges such as maintaining teaching and research activity during a significant period of campus closures and disruption, has only served to reinforce this point.

In most societies however, a rapid increase in the use of internet-enabled technologies, from computers and smartphones to the so-called 'internet of things' (e.g. Xia, 2012) has, for some time, been reshaping people's attitudes and behaviours (e.g. Ofcom, 2018), but also what students expect from a university education. And by 'students' I do mean all students, not just the so-called 'digital natives' (Prensky, 2001) who were born after 1984!