Companion website of Create to Learn: http://createtolearn.online People learn best when they create. Creating media is a powerful way to demonstrate your learning. But it’s also a way to generate ideas and transform static information into dynamic understanding. Today, the availability of free and low‐cost digital production tools are contributing to a participatory culture where people are not just consuming media but also sharing, remixing, and creating. Although a college course can still rely on the exclusive expertise of one faculty member and one textbook, it’s better when a course becomes a type of learning community where everybody learns from everybody. A learning community more closely models the kind of learning that happens in the workplace. To participate in a learning community, you can’t just be a passive receiver of information. By creating and sharing media as a way to represent what you are learning, you can activate your intellectual curiosity in ways that naturally make learning more engaging.

1. CREATE
to LEARN
Renee
Hobbs
@reneehobbs
Introduction to Digital Literacy

2. Chapter 1
Create to Learn
Pages: 3-14

3. What are the best ways to represent your
knowledge and learning?
Hobbs, R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley

4. Core Competencies for Careers
• Attention Management: Strategic decision making about how
and when to focus one’s attention in a dense information-
saturated culture
• Communication: Creating digital & multimedia texts, using
language, image, sound, and interactive media effectively to
express and share ideas
• Digital Etiquette: The ability to use appropriate codes &
conventions for communicating via e‐mail, video conference,
text message, and telephone requires sensitivity to ethical
dimensions of social relationships
• Search and Research: The ability to gather information and
sift through it to identify what’s relevant, trustworthy
• Collaboration and Leadership: The ability to coordinate
projects and organize group activity
Hobbs,R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley

5. Some Definitions
Knowledge:
• not fixed or static
• dynamic, networked & distributed
Literacy:
the sharing of meaning through
symbolic form (language, images,
sounds and other media forms).
Digital Literacy:
The ability to access, analyze,
create, reflect, and take action
using a wide variety of digital
tools, forms of expression and
communication strategies
Hobbs, R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley

6. Key Ideas about
Learning
To be successful in many fields of study, students must gain
knowledge through listening and reading – these are essential
literacy competencies
In higher education, there is a 1,000‐year‐old tradition of learning
by lecture and memorization. Much of what is learned this way is
soon forgotten.
Creating media requires learners to be active, selective and
strategic in transforming information they have encountered into
useable, useful knowledge
By creating and sharing media to represent their learning, their
completed work also may help others to learn
Hobbs, R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley

7. Creating Media as a
Way to Learn
Hobbs, R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley
• We live in a participatory culture where
people are expected to share and
contribute information & knowledge
• In participatory culture, sharing creative
expression is part of leisure, work, and
citizenship
• Having a variety of different experiences in
expressing ideas in different formats will
strengthen communication competencies
and support the habit of lifelong learning

8. Create to Learn
Process
• The term Create to Learn means demonstrating knowledge and
skills through creating a variety of forms of media– including web
sites, videos, infographics and data visualizations, vlogs,
animations, podcasts, memes, and more
• This enables people to demonstrate learning of rich content while
developing communication, critical thinking, creativity, and
collaboration skills
Hobbs, R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley

9. The Ethics of
Digital Authorship
PROBLEM:
59% percent of Facebook users share news without actually
reading it
Irresponsible communication practices are shaping our
shared political and cultural agenda
Ignorance and misinformation work against the practice of
democratic citizenship
Hobbs, R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley

10. The Ethics of
Digital Authorship
SOLUTION: “Do unto others…”
As a digital author, you create media messages responsibly with goodwill
towards your audiences because you expect that others will behave
accordingly
Hobbs, R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley

11. Key
Idea
s• Traditional academic essays are only one form of representing
learning and knowledge.
• Creating media is a powerful way to demonstrate learning,
advance knowledge & gain new ideas.
• Today, with free and low-cost digital tools, everyone can compose
multimedia text (videos, blogs, screencast, slide show, web sites,
remixes, podcasts etc.).
• By creating multimedia texts as a way to represent learning,
people activate intellectual curiosity in ways that naturally make
learning more engaging.
Hobbs, R. (2017) Create to Learn. NY: Wiley