Critical digital literacies: Developing agency and sustaining hope in troubled times

Many of us are thinking deeply about our roles as educators, learners and citizens (local and global) in a time of increasing inequality, pandemic, climate crisis, austerity and instability. The challenges we face within higher education –both global and specific to our own contexts– reflect, refract and can only be considered within this bigger picture. All modes of teaching and learning (in-person, blended and online) entail the use of increasingly opaque digital infrastructures and algorithmic decision systems. This keynote will explore the evolving, continual need to develop critical digital and data literacies. How best can we help students to develop critical agency as learners and creators, within and across online platforms and spaces including the open web – as educators, librarians and administrators, both individually and collaboratively? Particular attention will be paid to how we can amplify the effectiveness of this work, and support one another, by collaborating and developing strategies across roles and institutions. Cognisant of the trauma and turbulence of the past two years, this keynote will explore what it means for each of us to build and foster critical digital and data literacies at this moment, to support learning and learners, and to build critical and epistemic hope.