The document summarizes a presentation given by Colin Harrison at the UKLA Conference in Sheffield from July 12-14, 2019. The presentation focused on the pedagogical and moral imperatives of new literacies in education, emphasizing being mindful, productive, and critical. It then provides nine strategies for enhancing critical internet literacy that were discussed, such as proceeding with a clear understanding of the task, being alert and suspicious of information found online, reading between the lines, and making joint decisions as a group.

1. UKLA Conference: Sheffield, 12-14 July, 2019
Digital Literacies in Education symposium
The pedagogical and moral imperatives
of new literacies:
Be mindful, be productive, be critical
Nine Strategies for Enhancing
Critical Internet Literacy
Colin Harrison, University of Nottingham, UK

2. What are the pedagogical and moral imperatives for
the teacher of new literacy practices?

3. The Internet is not a safe learning environment
Who are the soldiers in
the ‘Army of Jesus’?

4. The Internet is not a safe learning environment
Who are the soldiers in
the ‘Army of Jesus’?
In an email from St Petersburg,
a Russian ‘translator’, Irina
Viktorovna Kaverzina,
explained: “I created all these
pictures and posts, and the
Americans believed that it was
written by their people.”

5. The Internet is not a safe learning environment

6. The Internet is not a safe learning environment
Who is deep in the
‘Heart of Texas’?
‘Heart of Texas’, a Russian-controlled
Facebook group had 500,000 reads, and
was ‘liked’ by Donald Trump’s son. One of
the 13 defendants indicted by Robert Muller
was Yevegny Viktorovich Prigozhin, also
known as “Putin’s cook”.

7. The Internet is not a safe learning environment

8. The Internet is not a safe learning environment

9. The Internet is not a safe learning environment

10. The Internet is not a safe learning environment
We hoped that the 1.7 billion
websites accessed over the Internet
would be a liberating, safe, open
and authoritative learning
environment
But in fact, the Internet:
- is largely unedited
- contains wilfully misleading
information
- uses search engines that try to hide
their promotion of paid-for content
- 76% of all websites send tracker
data via cookies to Google
- one click on Google can send your
data to 350 other web sites

11. • More opportunities for social and dialogic learning
• Daniels (2016) on Vygotsky – обучение:
learning/teaching/education/nurture
• Mercer on ‘interthinking’ in knowledge creation (2019)
• Encouraging more reading practice to speed up word
recognition and vocabulary, which will free-up capacity for
comprehension- and Critical Internet Literacy (Spiro et al., 2015)
• More guided support to develop Critical Internet Literacy skills
(Harrison, 2016, 2018):
• More collaborative/social learning on the Internet
• Assessing relevance
• Assessing trustworthiness
• Generating better search terms
In the light of all these factors, what are the most
urgent imperatives for the teacher?

12. In the light of all these factors, what are the most
urgent imperatives for the teacher?
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy
Harrison C. (2018)
Defining and seeking to identify critical Internet literacy:
a discourse analysis of fifth-graders’ Internet search and
evaluation activity. Literacy, 52 (3), 153-160
• Guided support to develop Critical Internet Literacy skills:
• More collaborative/social learning (work in a group of 3)
• Assessing relevance (Planner)
• Assessing trustworthines (Evaluator)
• Generating better search terms (Navigator)

13. 1. Proceed With Good Understanding of the Task
- Quite rare!
- Planner’s role crucial
- Jessica (all names are pseudonyms):
Let’s just look and see if it answers our question,
because our question is ‘How many stars can
we see in the sky?’ So, we don’t just have to
look for the biggest amount of numbers.
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

14. 2. Be Clear About Your Role
This comes with both modeling with the teacher and
practice, but it makes a significant difference to group
processes.
Amie: I’m the Evaluator, so I’m trying to see
that we’re doing the right thing.
Lawrence: I’m the Navigator, and you’re the
Planner….
Hildegard: I’m supposed to be telling you guys
what to do.
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

15. Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy
3. Use Your Reading Strategies!
- Groups in which a member (ideally the Planner)
suggested skimming were more successful than
groups that opted for (sometimes painfully long)
reading aloud of large chunks of text.
Hannah: Yes, let’s just skim-read it;
Chloë: Shall we, like, skim-read and see if we can
find anything…?
- Discussing reading strategies within a group proved
to be really valuable.

16. 4. Explore the Whole Page
- Unlike books, many computer displays show
only part of the text that’s intended to be read.
- Some groups neglected to scroll down the page
and therefore failed to encounter key
information.
- The Navigator has important responsibilities in
this respect.
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

17. 5. Be Alert! Be Suspicious!
The Evaluators in this study were commendably
circumspect, and mistrusted Wikipedia on principle-
Ben: I don’t trust Wikipedia!
They mistrusted any site that displayed advertising-
Chloë: Why are there cars [here]?
Jessica: I don’t trust it….They’re just trying to
get money out of the website.
They were cautious about an overfriendly tone-
Cameron: I don’t trust this already. The writing looks
informal.
Paige: It’s trying to sound like it’s your friend.
This is just blah-de-blah.
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

18. 6. Read Between the Lines
This is perhaps the key to Critical Internet literacy.
First, the Planner can try to monitor comprehension-
Hildegard: Are you actually taking any of this in?
Amie: [grins] No!
Paige showed caution; she noticed that a website named
Answers.com may appear to give answers but has wholly
unedited content:
Sometimes titles can be deceiving, because, like,
sometimes Answers.com, because it says ‘Answers,’ we
think it has the answer [but it doesn’t].”
Similarly, Chelsea trusted the less scientific site more,
because she understood it better: This one is concise. The
other one has got larger words and stuff, so I trust this one.
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

19. 7. Integrate Information Across Sources
This high-level skill also depends on a group avoiding
premature closure.
Here, the Planner and Evaluator managed it well-
Hannah: Let’s go back and look at the positives
and negatives about them. This one- you can
tell it’s real because it’s got a caption below the
picture.
Chloë: Yeah.
Hannah: And you know the other website- some
websites just want you to ‘like’ them on
Facebook.
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

20. 8. Make Late Decisions
Premature closure is always a threat, especially if one
group member values speed over depth.
The Planner’s role can be vital
Lucy: Let’s look at them all again.…
We need to go on the one we trust most and
look at that again.
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

21. 9. Make Joint Decisions
This is key to making the best use of the different
skills in a team, and again it comes with practice.
Logan: We’ve got to work together…’cause working
together is key to answering the question.
Later, Olivia noted: So, we’ve gone through all the
websites, and we’ve gone through all the relevant…
EarthSky definitely answered our question and gave
us extra information.
Logan responded: Yes, Sky and Telescope and
EarthSky are similar. Did you notice that? They are
similar, and they are the most relevant.
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

22. Nine Strategies for Enhancing
Critical Internet Literacy
1. Proceed With Good Understanding of the Task
2. Be Clear About Your Role
3. Use Your Reading Strategies
4. Explore the Whole Page
5. Be Alert! Be Suspicious!
6. Read Between the Lines
7. Integrate Information Across Sources
8. Make Late Decisions
9. Make Joint Decisions
Nine Strategies for Enhancing Critical Internet Literacy

23. UKLA Conference: Sheffield, 12-14 July, 2019
Digital Literacies in Education symposium
The pedagogical and moral imperatives of new literacies:
Be mindful, be productive, be critical
Colin Harrison, University of Nottingham, UK
colin.harrison.ac.uk"Our past is bleak. Our future dim. But I am not reasonable.
A reasonable man adjusts to his environment. An unreasonable man
does not. All progress, therefore, depends on the unreasonable man. I
prefer not to adjust to my environment. I refuse the prison of 'I' and
choose the open spaces of 'we'". Toni Morrison (2019)
Morrison, T. (2019) Moral Inhabitants. The Source of Self-Regard.

24. UKLA Conference: Sheffield, 12-14 July, 2019
Digital Literacies in Education symposium
The pedagogical and moral imperatives of new literacies:
Be mindful, be productive, be critical
Nine Strategies for Enhancing
Critical Internet Literacy
Colin Harrison, University of Nottingham, UK
colin.harrison.ac.ukHarrison C. (2016)
Are Computers, Smartphones,
and the Internet a Boon or a Barrier for the
Weaker Reader?
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,
60(2), 221–225
Harrison C. (2018)
Defining and seeking to identify critical
Internet literacy: a discourse analysis of
fifth-graders’ Internet search and
evaluation activity.
Literacy, 52 (3), 153-160