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Aisha Walker

Thinking onscreen

1 April 2015
by Aisha
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Digital literacy or competence: why does it matter?

I imagine that people reading or hearing my argument for ‘digital competence’ rather than ‘digital literacy’, ask why the terms matter. Surely, they say, what is important is that people have the necessary skills to use digital tools regardless of … Continue reading

12 March 2015
by Aisha
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Digital literacy or digital competence?

The terms ‘digital literacy’ or ‘digital literacies’ have been in use for some time now to refer to the skills required for using digital tools. Although in common parlance people often say “I’m not computer-literate” to claim that they don’t … Continue reading

5 March 2015
by Aisha
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The authority of writing

I stumbled across a supermarket leaflet on its way to the recycling bin.   The leaflet was promoting post-new year ‘healthy’ special offers such as fruit chunks and yogurt-coated flakes. Leaving aside the question of why a leaflet dated early January … Continue reading

1 October 2013
by Aisha
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The problem with blogs

Academic staff routinely advise students against citing blogs in their essays. This can be a problem for students as Google and other search engines often return results for blogs and for other ‘grey literature’ above results for peer-reviewed articles unless … Continue reading

3 September 2013
by Aisha
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Digialects

impson and Walker (forthcoming)  use the term ‘technolects’ to describe varieties of language used in digital contexts.  We proposed this as an alternative to words such as ‘netspeak’ (Crystal 2006)  in order to reflect the fact that different digital contexts … Continue reading

29 August 2013
by Aisha
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Academic Hygiene

Academic hygiene (Walker, in press) is particularly important when students are working extensively with digital resources.  With paper-based study, students who do not practice good academic hygiene might find themselves searching the library bookshelves on assignment-submission day for the book(s) … Continue reading

17 June 2013
by Aisha
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Digital Dichotomies

It seems that there is an irresistible urge to categorise people as ‘techies’ or ‘non-techies’.  The best-known of these dichotomies is Prensky’s ‘Digital Natives’ vs ‘Digital Immigrants’ (Prensky 2001a, 2001b).  Prensky’s argument was that today’s children and young people are … Continue reading