Kara Kennedy (University of Canterbury) - The 2020s called
Channel: NDF - National Digital Forum
Date: 2016-12-07

Lightning talks
3:30 - 4.30pm Tuesday 22 November, Main Stage (Soundings)

Full Title: The 2020s called: They want workers to be digitally literate 

How can tertiary education improve to better prepare students for the digital demands of the GLAM sector? In light of the New Zealand Productivity Commission’s current inquiry into 'New Models of Tertiary Education,' it makes sense to consider how those of us in academia – specifically the Arts and Humanities – can better prepare students for the digital demands of society, including the cultural heritage sector. The Ivory Tower appears increasingly removed from society when academics ignore the growing gap between the print-based and digital worlds. They assume today’s students are digital natives who do not need to be taught digital literacy skills. But in fact, students are often merely consumers of content and lack basic knowledge about code, tagging, file degradation, advanced searches, bot material, ethical considerations, etc. When some of these students choose to enter the GLAM sector, they will need to know how to curate cultural knowledge and memory with the help of digital technology. Cultural heritage institutions need graduates to be digitally literate to properly digitize and preserve content (including born-digital), manage databases for institutional and research purposes, deliver technology-based educational programs, and more. Digital Humanities-inspired pedagogy offers a fruitful way of combining the traditional study of literature, history, and other subjects with digital literacy skills that students need to successfully preserve and protect the culture of the future.

Kara is a PhD Candidate in English Literature at the University of Canterbury. Her research focuses on twentieth-century science fiction and feminism, as well as Digital Humanities. She has been tutoring for a decade and worked as a research assistant on the website redesign for the Digital Humanities programme at the University of Canterbury, the first of its kind in New Zealand.