A Digital Literacy Conference for K-12 Educators and Admins
Naperville, IL | September 14
Online | September 15
Thank you for registering for DigLitCon!
You will receive an email confirmation for your registration.
If you have any questions, please email us at events@ltcillinois.org.
Explore digital literacy during a two-day professional learning opportunity
for teachers, administrators, technology coaches, and library media specialists.
On average, young adults today spend nearly 10 hours a day consuming media, including at school and in their free time. Within that timeframe, they can be exposed to thousands of media messages – some of which require extra effort to analyze and contextualize.
Do these young adults fully understand what they are seeing on a daily basis? Can they distinguish between real or altered content? Now more than ever, digital literacy — the ability to use technology to locate, evaluate, interpret, and create information — is a critical skill that needs attention if students are going to thrive in the classroom and beyond.
Join education stakeholders from around Illinois for a two-day conference centered on digital literacy, with presenters offering their views on how to best integrate this new literacy into instruction across subject areas and grade levels. With this knowledge, educators will be better able to guide their students toward becoming productive, ethical, and empathetic digital citizens – both as consumers and as creators.
Date
September 14 & 15, 2023
Location
In-Person (NIU Naperville) & Online
Cost
Full Conference | $100
In-Person Workshops Only (9/14) | $75
Virtual Only (9/15) | $40
PD Hours
12
Questions
Please contact Brian Bates at bbates@ltcillinois.org with questions.
2023 Keynote
Julie Smith
Author, “Master the Media: How Teaching Media Can Save Our Plugged-In World”
Instructor, Webster University
Julie Smith is recognized nationally and internationally as a leading expert in media literacy. As a professor at Webster University, she specializes in media literacy, advertising analysis, social media, digital literacy, and Web 2.0 approaches.
A media literacy enthusiast since 1997, Julie now advocates for digital literacy education in schools and a public embrace of – rather than fear of – social media. Her book, Master the Media: How Teaching Media Literacy Can Save Our Plugged-In World, has also been called an “essential guide” for all educators seeking to transform their perspective on digital literacy in the modern classroom.
During her keynote, Julie will reveal the spot where media literacy and SEL meet in the classroom while highlighting activities that simultaneously sharpen proficiency in both. Educators will walk away with concrete ideas for supporting their students’ mental health and fostering digital citizenship skills at every grade level.
Session Strands
The term “digital literacy” encapsulates a series of big ideas centered around helping students become productive, successful digital citizens and consumers. The following strands are big-picture topics with subtopics listed beneath them.
Information & News Literacy
Presentations in this strand will address search skills, finding reliable sources, checking for credibility, and recognizing fake news.
Visual Literacy
Presentations in this strand will focus on understanding algorithms, analyzing images, sketch-noting, and using visual content (including GIFs and memes) to enhance engagement.
Digital Communication
Presentations in this strand will consider the impact of digital communication by discussing different means of communication (i.e. texts, GIFs, emails, etc.), social media, online communities, personal learning networks, rights as citizens and consumers, and social norms.
Digital Tattoos
This strand will consider the impact of your digital tattoo, mapping online spaces, performing data digs, and managing your online persona.
Ethical Use of Digital Resources
This strand will address ethical issues such as copyright, referencing digital resources, making and remixing digital content, and Creative Commons licenses.
General
This strand will share existing resources related to digital literacy including Open Educational Resources.
Digital Citizenship
This strand will share resources and discuss cyberbullying, digital wellness, screentime, civic action and responsibilities, and existing digital citizenship resources.
Media Literacy
Presentations in this strand with share strategies in media literacy topics such as persuasion tactics, big data, media literacy basic concepts, and branding and advertising (along with how to deconstruct media messages).
Computer Literacy
Presentations in this strand will focus on understanding general computer language and how systems work. It will include sessions on privacy and security, how to protect yourself online, understanding data collection techniques and practical skills to avoid fraud, phishing, spam, etc.