Course Syllabus
Specific information about this course and its requirements can be found below. For more general information about taking Saylor Academy courses, read the Saylor Student Handbook.
Original Course Designer
Open Education Resource Foundation
Course Description
This course will enable learners to develop and apply digital and learning literacies critical for learning success in tertiary education for the 21st century.
Course Introduction
Learners will develop the digital and learning literacies to maximize their learning in a contemporary digital learning environment for higher education. You will develop the academic skills to discern the credibility, accuracy and integrity of open access resources available on the Internet and corresponding digital tools to research, analyze and present information for academic purposes. You will also develop competence in a range of digital tools including: social media; communication and collaboration tools; and publishing tools; to support learning in contemporary society. This will include knowledge of copyright, open licensing, media literacy and digital citizenship.
Note: This course will initially be offered concurrently in partnership with OERu. You are more than welcome to work through all four units at your own pace, but may find an increase in student-to-student interaction if following the schedule used by OERu and their community of learners.
This course is comprised of the following units:
| Unit Name | OERu Start Date | OERu Finish Date |
|---|---|---|
| Digital Skills for Online Learning (LiDA101) | March 14 | March 28 |
| Digital Citizenship (LiDA102) | April 4 | April 18 |
| Open Education, Copyright and Open Licensing in a Digital World | April 25 | May 9 |
| Critical Media Literacy and Associated Digital Skills (LiDA104) |
May 16 | May 30 |
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course your will be able to:
- Apply digital tools effectively to demonstrate learning literacies including advanced search strategies to identify and select relevant open access resources to research, analyse, produce and present information for tertiary education purposes.
- Develop a positive digital online identity in support of learning commensurate with good practice for privacy, security and interpersonal communication
- Develop and effectively apply knowledge of copyright, open licensing and license remix compatibility utilising open education practices to support tertiary learning in a global digital context.
- Develop critical media literacy skills and use multimodal communication to express outputs of learning effectively in a digital online environment.
Course Materials
The primary learning materials for this course are readings, lectures, video tutorials, and other resources.
All course materials are free to access, and can be found through the links provided in each unit and subunit of the course. Pay close attention to the notes that accompany these course materials, as they will instruct you as to what specifically to read or watch at a given point in the course, and help you to understand how these individual materials fit into the course as a whole. You can also access a list all of the materials used in this course by clicking on Resources in the course menu.
Course Discussions
Throughout this course you will find numerous prompts to participate in course discussion. Most of these prompts include a link to a topic on discourse.saylor.org, where you can post your replies. Each of those topics already include tags that will allow your reply posts to also be fed into one of the the larger Learning in a Digital Age course feeds, connecting you to a global audience of learners. (There is one feed for each micro-course, for instance, this feed for LiDA101.)You are also encouraged to start your own discussions based around what you learn in this course. You can create new discussions by signing into discourse.saylor.org and starting a new topic. Make sure to tag your topics with either lida101, lida102, lida103, or lida104 (depending on which unit of this course your discussion corresponds to). Alternatively, you can use the following links that organize posts by tag. New topics created from these pages will automatically include those tags:
Earning College Credit and Micro-credentials
If you would like to gain formal academic credit, this course forms part of the OERu's free first year of study with pathways to achieve one of two exit qualifications:
- Certificate Higher Education Business (OERu) at the University of the Highlands and Islands, UK; or
- Undergraduate Certificate in First Year Foundations at Thomas Edison State University, USA.
You will also be able to earn an optional micro-credential for assessed learning from Edubits. Successfully completing the four micro-credentials for the Learning in a digital age course will qualify you for transcript credit towards the Certificate of Higher Education in Business (OERu).
Tips for Success
LIDA100: Learning in a Digital Age is a self-paced course in which you the learner determines when you will start and when you will complete the course. There is no instructor or predetermined schedule to follow. While learning styles can vary considerably and any particular learner will take more or less time to learn or read, we estimate that the "average" learner will take 30 hours to complete each unit. Preparing and participating in assessment for credit will take an additional 10 hours per unit. The total time commitment for LiDA100 if you are planning to achieve college credit is 160 hours. However, you do not need to complete the full course in a single sitting, because you can complete the units individually taking your own schedule into account. We recommend that you work through the course at a pace that is comfortable for you and allows you to make regular (daily, or at least weekly) progress. It's a good idea to also schedule your study time in advance and try as best as you can to stick to that schedule.
Learning new material can be challenging, so below we've compiled a few suggested study strategies to help you succeed:
- Pay special attention to Unit 1, as it will lay the groundwork for understanding the more advanced, explanatory material presented in the latter units.
- Take notes on the various terms, practices, and theories as you read. This can help you differentiate and contextualize concepts and later provide you with a refresher as you study.
- As you progress through the materials, take time to test yourself on what you have retained and how well you understand the the concepts. The process of reflection is important for creating a memory of the materials you learn; it will increase the probability that you ultimately retain the information.
- Although you may work through this course completely independently, you may find it helpful to connect with other Saylor students through the discussion forums. You may access the discussion forums at https://discourse.saylor.org.
Technical Requirements
This course is delivered fully online. You will be required to have access to a computer or web-capable mobile device and have consistent access to the internet to either view or download the necessary course resources and to attempt any auto-graded course assessments.
- To access the full course including assessments, you will need to be logged into your Saylor Academy account and enrolled in the course. If you do not already have an account, you may create one, free of charge, here. Although you can access some course resources without being logged into your account, it’s advised that you login to maximize your course experience. For example, some of the accessibility and progress tracking features are only available when you are logged in.
- Occasionally, Flash may be required to run certain multimedia and/or interactive applications in the course. Should you be prompted to enable Flash, click the option to allow or follow these instructions for enabling Flash on your computer or laptop.
For additional technical guidance check out Saylor’s tech-FAQ and the Moodle LMS tutorial.
Additional Accounts
Learning in a digital age is a course about learning on the Internet. Consequently, you will need to create accounts on different technologies. You will be directed in the course materials where and when to create online accounts for selected technologies. However, at the start of your course, we recommend that you also create an account on the OERu LiDA101 micro-course site (opens in a new window) by clicking on the "head graphic" at the top of the site.
Fees
There is no cost to access and enroll and participate in this course. All required course resources linked throughout the course, including textbooks, videos, webpages, activities, etc are accessible for no charge. The course is also designed so that learners can complete all activities using free and open source software, so there is not cost associated with course specific software.
Should you decide to be assessed for formal college credit, there is a cost for the assessment options. More details about those assessment options, and their costs, can be found within each course unit.
International Collaboration
The LIDA100 course a unique international collaboration involving the Saylor Academy and the OERu international network of institutions. The Saylor learning community will have the opportunity to interact with the OERu learning community using open technologies for these communities to interact with each other.