The Institute for Research on Digital Literacies has a broad interdisciplinary mandate to engage and facilitate discussion, information sharing, comprehensive inquiry, and pedagogic innovation across four research streams. Our goal is to respond quickly to changes in technology, media, and culture, and to promote inclusivity and diversity in research and scholarship in a digital age.
Digital Learning, Technology and New Pedagogies
What impact do emerging technologies, digital media, and networks have on transforming teaching and learning today? How can we reframe conversations around purposes of access and accessibility, equity and diversity, within and beyond digital contexts? What lessons can we borrow from informal learning communities, from new pedagogies and from digital humanities research to create more dynamic and meaningful learning environments? How do we utilize online, mobile, and other digital tools to generate more inclusive learning practices and spaces supportive of deeper learning, as well as transformative modes of cultural production?
Digital Literacies Across Generations and Age
How do the current iterations of digital cultures and spaces extend innovative tools for connection and learning? How do different generations and groups of people to engage in conversation around digital literacies, learning, and tools? How can we build critical thinking and social justice into media and digital literacies training for people across all ages and experiences?
Surveillance, Privacy and AI
How do digital surveillance cultures reshape ideas around privacy and security? What connections exist between the regulation of digital spaces, governments, private corporations, and individual users? How do AI and automated processes challenge or perpetuate established practices around education and citizenship? How are these systems embedded in or resistant of systemic structures of power?
Digital Culture, Critical Literacies and Social Media
How are digital spaces and cultures extensions of our everyday lives? What new possibilities arise? How do digital technologies impact the production, distribution, and consumption of popular cultures? What limitations and possibilities for connections do social media provide? How do we engage and connect in a world where social media is relentlessly present and seemingly everywhere?