Matt Cornock

Category: Digital Literacy

  • Reading: Becoming digitally literate (Eynon 2021)

    Reading notes. How we support learners from all backgrounds to be able to engage with online learning is of particular interest to me. Online learning can be transformative, it offers the possibility of open access, wide reach, international learning communities and learning for all levels of prior knowledge. In order for online learning to be…

  • Final grades do not prepare for the workplace

    Opinion piece, my views may change over time. I have often wondered whether a good grade equates to good employability. I’m currently participating in an online course, with one of the topics addressing recruitment. Often, recruitment is based on attitudes and experience, as much as the qualifications of an individual. Whilst specific knowledge and technical…

  • Digital capability in the curriculum: UCISA Spotlight on Digital Capabilities

    I recently attended the UCISA Spotlight on Digital Capabilities conference, bringing together academic developers, learning technologists, IT trainers and information literacy specialists together to explore approaches to developing staff digital capabilities. In this post I look at the JISC Digital Capabilities framework and how it applies to learning and teaching. For a full summary of…

  • Durbbu 2016: Creating failure opportunities

    The Durham Blackboard User Conference (#durbbu) this year encouraged learning from failure and through this theme enabled a more critical discussion of what works and what doesn’t when using learning technologies in higher education. From the sessions I attended, skills development and the role of learning technologies for this stood out the most. My tweeting…

  • Durbbu 2016 – Digital literacy and social networks

    Thoughts on Eric Stoller’s keynote from #durbbu 2016, considering the place for digital literacy and localisation of global expertise via online social networks. Digital literacy, to me, is the fluency of an individual to adapt to new forms of computer-based technologies, treating technology as an embedded part of daily life, but also to recognise the…

  • The paperless student: reading on screen

    Digital capabilities, specifically those for effective use of digital devices for reading documents, are incorrectly assumed to be part of students’ skills set. Whilst digital devices are prevalent, this does not mean that all their features are known or that the most appropriate software is installed on them. Students may be familiar with what they…

  • Headings are important in Word and PDFs

    The use of headings in documents in commonplace, but it is essential that heading styles are used rather than just increasing the font size using the font tools. Using headings styles in Word adds extra functionality for navigation and accessibility. Word heading styles also offer a quick way to create a table of contents that…

  • Accessibility essentials mini-lecture

    This post presents a 15-minute mini-lecture on accessibility, designed to be useful for anyone creating websites or online resources, including virtual learning environments. The lecture is not exhaustive, but introduces some of the considerations about disabled users’ experiences of the web and how you can create accessible web resources. Full accessibility guidance, including further advice…

  • How to make sure your PDFs are accessible

    Making your documents accessible to all students regardless of impairment is an essential skill for all educators to learn. We frequently make PDF documents available to our students, but we have a responsibility to make sure these are accessible to disabled students. There is an added advantage to this, in that making a PDF document…