From zero to fifty in one year: Library and faculty collaboration to integrate digital literacy training in the core curriculum of English Literature

This presentation highlights how an institutional mandate to develop improved digital literacy, and oral and visual presentation skills in students, drives faculty and librarians to collaborate on the integration of training in these skills in a foundational literature course. Success partially depends on the appeal of the tools taught.

This presentation describes the cycle of development of the integration of digital literacy training in the core curriculum of English Literature, through the collaboration of faculty and librarians. On review of its Mission and its learning outcomes for students, John Cabot University has mandated that our students should not only have good written communication skills, but also good visual literacy and oral communications skills, which also include improved digital literacy. This institutional mandate inspired collaboration in training in these skills between a librarian and a faculty member teaching a foundation-level literature class. The book-like format of Flipsnack, which we saw presented at an Amical conference, seemed a good tool to begin with for literature students. They were trained in its use by the librarian and they presented their Flipsnack projects at the end of the semester. Student feedback on the tool was negative as they felt that they would prefer to learn about the advanced capabilities of Powerpoint or Prezi, instead. In the following semester, the librarian switched to this training and we also introduced training in Zotero. Peer review was added. Presentations were great and students happy. This training is now part of the curriculum of that foundational course.