 Good afternoon and welcome to our first live online session of this afternoon, which is our third day of the Oat C 2022 conference. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. So for the next 30 minutes, we have Peter Tienen presenting for us and his session is titled, Gently Down the Streaming, Can Digital Literacy Help Turn the Tide on the Climate Crisis? So let's give a very warm welcome to Peter Tienen. Thank you Fiona and thanks everybody for virtually having me this afternoon. Good afternoon to you all. I have spent the last couple of days following the hashtag on Twitter, so it looks like you all have been having a wonderful conference and great talks that I've been following the reactions to. So I hope you continue to enjoy the conference. So as Fiona says, my name is Peter Tienen. I'm a lecturer in the Institute of Education at Dublin City University. I've been researching and interested in the area of digital literacy for over 10 years. I always wonder if it does it sound more prestigious to say over a decade or over 10 years? So we'll just go on over over 10 years. Predominantly early on I was really interested in looking at digital literacy in practice. So I felt that there was a lot to talk about what our students should be able to do rather than what they can do. So a lot of the work that I did over the last 10 years or so was around setting up activities and assessments for students around using digital content and then working with them to see what were they able to achieve, what were the challenges, what was their understanding of using digital content, etc. Anyway, so just to say that you know I've had an interest in this area for a long time but over the last couple of years I've been I suppose like us all just watching what's happening globally internationally with climate change and watching the headlines and I've become very interested in what's happening with to our environment and the impacts that humanity is having on our environment and I began to I was involved in a number of projects that were analysing some of the digital literacy frameworks etc and I just began to look and see well you know what focus are we putting on this area when it comes to digital literacy and could we be doing more in terms of in terms of how we as academics work with our students and broader society around digital literacy and how we work with our students in that regard when it comes to the impact that it may have on the environment. So just a quick overview to start and I'm sure you're aware those of you who are here are aware of this anyway but we know that like the ubiquitous availability of the technology has completely transformed our lives the way we communicate with each other whether that's through social media platforms, what's up and all of the different apps and social platforms that we use to communicate with each other it's transformed the way we work whether that be you know the last couple of years and the ability to work remotely I mean if the pandemic had a hit 20 years ago we've been able to keep going the way we did so that's changed our ability to work and also the way that we work it's changed the way people learn both in a formal sense the ability to learn online asynchronously remotely but also in terms of lifelong and life-wide learning so people can participate in learning interventions at times and in spaces that they weren't able to in the past and also huge impacts on how we consume our media you know so the amount the volume of content that's available to us has soared and also the ways in which we can engage with that content has soared and I suppose it's within that context that digital literacy is recognized as this essential skill this essential skill sorry I was just keeping on on comments there as an essential skill for 24th century living or modern living and for that lifelong and life-wide life-wide learning and you know that's evident in policy documentation at national international European level advocating for the development of digital literacy skills and highlighting the importance of digital literacy and it's it's also evident in the academic literature as well I mean this there's countless publications that look at the importance of digital literacy what it is what it looks like what it should look like what it will look like in the future so there is a recognition that this is an important skill but as I say as I said at the start one thing that's kind of hit me over the last couple of years is as we as we are you know on this on the edge of what looks like you know a change in the global global climate because of human activity do we have an opportunity I suppose is one way of putting it or is it time to look at how we are informing our students and society about digital literacy in terms of you know technology and how it impacts on their lives and is there an opportunity to focus the attention on the impact that technology is having on on the environment and really today what I'm trying to do is start start a conversation around this and maybe I should have said this at the at the start but obviously you know I'd like to keep this conversation going with anybody that is interested on my contact details are there if you connect with me on twitter at ptphonehome or on email peter.d.tieren.tcu.ie so this is a conversation I would like to keep going and I'm interested in speaking to anybody in the field who has an interest in this intersection between climate change and digital literacy so this is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all of the different technologies and their impacts on the environment but I just thought I'd do a quick snapshot of some of the things that that maybe aren't captured regularly in the literature there is economics has done wonderful work I know that Neil Selwyn comes to mind in terms of edtech and the impact of edtech and you know the next new shiny thing and do we really need the next new shiny thing all of the time but there's not as much done on what's happening in individuals day to day lives as I said this is just a snapshot of some of the different impacts that technologies and services and tools may have on the environment so if we look firstly at some streaming services so you're all more than aware that the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime and Disney Plus are at the user base has soared in the last number of years EU statistics that I could get my hands on 76 sorry 67 million subscribers on Netflix in the EU 2.2 million subscribers to Amazon Prime which no doubt is going to quadruple now with their release of the Lord of the Rings show and the amount of time we're spending watching streaming services is is increasing is increasing too and obviously all of this has an impact on the environment so you have data centers that are needed you have all of the networking technology that's needed in order for us to be able to watch this in the speed that we want to watch it at you know so there's not lag it's not pixelated it's it's clear in Netflix suffering 4k stream all of that takes um takes resources takes energy and has an impact on the environment but there's some interesting kind of nuances in this data too for example if we look at um the amount of emissions that are generated by watching a youtube program if you watch it on a on a smart tv let's say 40 inch smart tv and you switch that to watching it on your smartphone there's an 80 reduction in the amount of emissions that that's viewing takes so you know questions asked if i'm sitting watching a Netflix show on my own uh on the couch would it be better if I watch this on a tablet or you know switch it off my smart tv and watch it on my tablet would it really impact the viewing experience maybe maybe not but being conscious or being aware of some of the impacts that that might have on the environment something like Spotify so we know that shift away from the likes of vinyl and cd although you know must commend the reemergence of vinyl as a niche you know collector's item which is great to see but the predominantly the move away from vinyl and cd has vastly reduced the amount of plastic um that is needed for music production and distribution but overall greenhouse emissions from storing and distributing music online have doubled since the year 2000 so again there's a lot of work done on you know the the greening power of edtech and the promise of green the greening power of edtech um and you know is it always what it's what it's cracked up to be and i think the same we may tend to think that because the reduction in production costs of music you know that must be a positive uh that must have a positive impact on the environment but the research suggests that in some areas that's you know that's not the case and it's just um what i suppose what i'm starting to build towards is this informed decisions and just being informed about um about um the the impact that our use of technology has um social media too i see a question there i'll come back to it now one second social media too at the onward march of social media and the proliferation of of devices and platforms into new markets and new platforms into existing markets and facebook and twitter probably the the grandfathers of social media at this stage and then you've all the new platforms like tiktok and um instagram although that's not really new at this stage all of that coupled with you know this i suppose sensational appetite to store our lives online to have a picture for everything and have that picture uploaded to cloud storage um has an impact on the amount of storage that's required which obviously necessitates these organizations to have increased uh data centers and the energy demand for data centers is about one percent of global energy demand which is as much as a small uh small country um and that's despite you know there's huge pressure on on uh technology giants like facebook and google to uh develop more renewable practices around the energy that's required to run these um data centers um i just take a pause just to look at some of the questions i see vicki um yeah and so actually that that may be the next slide i haven't got presenter view on i'm not sure vicki if that's the next slide or the slide after i've just a comment or two on zoom um so uh steve that that comment there in relation to um the energy consumption was just related to the device apologies sorry i'm used to been able to scroll wheel back up that comment was specifically around the device and so there there i imagine there's also implications around you don't need to stream a 4k image to a mobile phone either uh maximum you might need is 480p or so and so that probably has implications also thanks for that steve um yes i think i said that um so then on to this is as opposed related to vicki's um comment there so we know that the ability to have our lectures and meetings and conferences online drastically reduces the carbon emissions and the energy consumption so sorry alt attendees um and that is due to you know heating a building lighting a building all of the catering costs all of all of the impacts of those people flying two conferences all of that has has its own um cost implications so we know that you know having lectures and meetings online has the potential to reduce the carbon emissions and the energy consumption required to lectures and meetings etc along with some of the other benefits and challenges that are associated with that um but what i found interesting just doing a bit some research for this was um my university certainly we we during covid had a camera on policy in as much as possible for increased engagement um but might we consider is it worth sacrifice worth making that if we went camera off unless required so let's imagine myself and and dom and vicki and steve are on a lecture together and it's only when i ask sorry i see steward and peter there as well it's only if i ask steward a question he puts on his camera to reply um that's camera off unless required could further reduce the energy consumption for platforms like zoom by up to 96 percent um so again this is not you know that my area is digital literacy as opposed to um energy i'm not an energy researcher i'm not a carbon emissions researcher i'm not on that side of the of the fence so to speak um this is a snapshot i suppose just to to raise the conversation about um about raise the conversation about raising awareness of this with with our students and wider society i'm just going to do a time check 30 minutes okay um similarly uh reducing unnecessary and thank you emails could save the carbon equivalent to 3000 diesel cars a year some of your research there so um all of the little things that add up um so you know that's as i say just just a snapshot it's not an exhaustive dive into the the carbon emissions and the energy consumption of all of our day today habits but i just wanted to give a snapshot of that um so then you know through my work and for this also just wanted to look and see well what are academics and our conceptualizations and the frameworks that we have around digital literacy what are they saying currently and are they mentioning uh digital literacy so if we look at some of the definitions um and some of the more commonly cited definitions of uh digital literacy in the literature you see we go from slightly chronological there martin nning and kim and churchill they're in 2020 so just a snapshot um so if we look at for example martin in 2005 said it's about using digital tools to identify evaluate analyze and synthesize digital resources nning in 2012 i'm not sure if i'm pronouncing that correctly sorry i've moved out of the light there a little bit um the ability to search for evaluate understand and integrate information found online kim in 2019 using digital technologies to analyze evaluate information and bringing in the communication uh with others and then churchill talked about the same things really except also the need to use information to address address authentic um authentic problems so absolutely no criticism i mean in publications i would have done in the past i would have arrived at similar um definitions of digital literacy all of these scholars have really important contributions to make to our discussions around digital literacy but just in the in the context of today's conversation um there's little evidence in the academic literature around the environmental impact as an element of digital literacy um and as part of the research that i that i've done um i wouldn't call it a full systematic review of the literature but um let me find the data here one second yeah so um i did a search on five four five databases so academic search complete access science applied social sciences index and abstracts and the british education index and i searched for digital literacy and climate change in the abstract or title digital literacy and carbon footprint in the abstract or title digital literacy and global warming in the abstract title and digital literacy and environmental impact in the abstract or title and it returned no relevant um results um so um yeah so as i said very important contributions but there seems to be a lack of the kit seems to be a lack of discussion in the in the literature around around this area um and then some of the conceptualization of the different categories or as some authors have described as the literacies of the digital again just a snapshot here i won't bore you by reading it all out but you can see there's lots there around being information savvy for one of a better way of putting it being critical around the media that we consume and our use of the media being able to work together um digitally being responsible socially responsible um the ability to work with on a cognitive level digital content so to understand it to repurpose it um to create new knowledge from digital media that's all present in the current categorizations of digital literacy but again you know not to to hammer the point home too much there's little evidence of the environmental impact as a digital competency um and then if we take a look at some of the digital literacy frameworks um this is by no means an exhaustive list again i have um as part of a number of projects i've been involved in over the last 12 to 24 months i've had to engage with um i've had to engage with a number of these frameworks that this is you know this is just a snapshot on these slides rather than you know we don't have the time either to go through all of them so looking at the digital framework for 2016 the mescal framework which i'm sure you are all aware is essentially built on top of the digital framework just open university and the British Columbia digital literacy framework all of these you know again i've done great work in helping us to conceptualize the literacy compartmentalize it i suppose in one sense so that we can tackle some things in some areas for example in science you might look a specific aspect of digital literacy uh if we look at um if we look at more social skills you might look at another aspect of digital literacy like critical digital literacy and um being critical of the information we consume anyway a slight tangent there but so they've all done great work um they've all done great work on Q&A starting in five minutes i better move thank you for that reminder um they've all done yeah so they provide us with great uh a great scaffold in terms of you know what what digital literacy is it's being a confident consumer of digital information a confident creator being safe and ethical online etc but the only one that really mentions it um is the DigiCompany UNESCO frameworks have it nestled under digital safety and they talk about understanding the environmental um and the environmental impact so um well i suppose for those i'm not sure if people are joining or they're just commenting if anybody joined the purpose of today and i really appreciate the opportunity provided by Alth to have a conversation um and i suppose a conversation that i'm trying to um to build on is what i want to start talking about is how can we begin to take steps around digital literacy and those of us who are interested and involved in um teaching and uh in universities and other other other um contexts around digital literacy education um there is a potential to refocus on and i want to start that conversation today um and there is a potential to think about guiding students to be more critical users of technology in an environmental sense um and also understand the impact of technology on on the world um just to return to one slide here which i don't think i said it at the time um two of the biggest biggest culprits for energy consumption are tiktok and reddit um and it's not that you know i'm not suggesting that if you told your under first-year undergrad students that look you know um out of all the social media platforms that are available to you tiktok is the one that is worst for the environment not all of them would suddenly decide okay tiktok is bad i'll move to another platform but it might begin um to build that awareness in them um that different platforms and different approaches different uses of technology at different times uh may have different impacts on uh on our environment so some of the things that i've been thinking about are the original definitions so giltster coined the term digital literacy back in 97 and he said um what i've been thinking about sorry i was thinking about repurposing his definition so we might say that digital literacy is the ability to or an aspect of digital literacy in the context of the environment might be the ability to locate and understand information regarding the impact of digital tools and use this information to make decisions to take account of the natural environment so some of the framing that we're already familiar with so we're already familiar with um locating information online as an aspect of digital literacy understanding information online as a as an aspect of digital illiteracy so it's um it's just trying to use the language that we're familiar with and try and um think about how we might encourage our students to look at this um to look at this aspect and become informed users of technology in this regard taking martin's definition we might encourage students to identify their current digital activities and analyze their carbon footprint before evaluating areas where improvements can be made so again taking existing definitions that we're familiar with and trying to um and trying to repurpose it so that it shifts the focus onto um onto the environmental impact of technology uh kim which promoted really the communication of our findings that was the key differentiator in kim's definition so you might encourage students to construct new meaning of their investigations build a picture of their trends associated with how they go about their work their study practices social practices and then in a in a manner that encourages them maybe to become advocates of this and communicate their findings with a wider audience so using existing digital literacy skills and building all that in terms of um in terms of contributing to this the discussion around the impact of technology on the environment i'm very close to time i think um so just to say that we look at the frameworks also i think attention could be a page to the frameworks um digicomp has done a lot of work in increasing the um increasing the visibility of the environmental impact section on their framework some of the others have not and i suppose for me when i look at it if my institution is is is wedded to the jisc framework let's say um and that's the one that i consult on a regular basis um to me that means that people in that institution may miss out on this aspect so i think it's incumbent on all of us you know as my third slide said as we're on this precipice of potential climate catastrophe to take some stock of um what we're doing with regards to technology and i believe that digital literacy while it has its critics in terms of becoming too bloated and you know an umbrella term that um that takes in everything to do with with digital and online i think those of us who are involved in developing these frameworks should take a look at our next iterations and consider including the environmental impact there so just as opposed to to close what are the positives of this um if we begin to increase the focus on environment environmental impact as a digital competence firstly it could increase our students and societies potentially understanding of the cost of tech um it could promote a more critical use of tools and services in our day-to-day lives and on a broader point if our students and society becomes more aware of the impact of technology it may have a spillover effect into other aspects of their lives so for example if i'm changing car would i be more aware of the potential environmental impact of the car i drive fast fashion all of that renewing my phone there's lots of stats that i you know didn't have time to consult or present today around mobile phone renewal and how you know it's the average across the EU is 18 to 24 months for more than 60% of EU citizens renew their phone every 18 to 24 months and all of the environmental costs that go along with that would increasing the environmental awareness around our use of digital tools in our day-to-day lives would that contribute to a broader understanding so i think that brings me to time i'm sorry i know i sped up significantly towards the end and didn't get a chance to consult some of the some of the questions that were in the box but i believe we have time now if that's if that's if i'm correct and i'm not sure do i read the questions or do i take questions now hi peter you can read the questions or um yeah i've just posted a message in the chat to ask people to post them if they have any questions okay so just while i'm i'm scrolling through through the chat there or anybody wants to post them and i mentioned this at the start i'd love to continue this conversation and anybody who wants to connect with me can do so on twitter or catch me on email and yeah it's it's as i said at some point during it i really appreciate the i really appreciate the opportunity from all to do this because it's like it's a developing thought process in my own mind and i wanted to have the conversation um so i appreciate that i'd love to continue this conversation with with um with other academics or anybody in the field i hope you already paper on this peter i actually did so it's it's uh in press the nordic journal of digital literacy will be the issue in october 22 it will have um this publication there thank you um is there a danger that institutions will pay lip service uh potentially um and that's why peter i i that's why i i was really keen when i was looking at this on academics academic definitions to change too because if if it becomes part of discourse in various aspects of education for example i predominantly work in i institute of education so i work with in teacher ed primary post primary and further education levels i mean if i begin bringing this into conversation then other educators will see it who may or may not be overly tech savvy um or may or may not have you know tech on their agenda apologies this is my phone's ringing in the office um so it's a it's a good question and i think it's something we need to be be aware of um we don't know how good institutions think um somebody really wants to speak to me apologies um how is it possible for some atis to take his stance um is it possible how is it possible when some yeah so i mean there's a lot of institutions that um at the time uh said we want to be things won't go back to the way they were and then suddenly once the pandemic was over they went they went back to exactly the way things uh things were so i do think that there's um i do think that there's opportunities to this is maybe a broader conversation but to learn while you know the pandemic was miserable in lots of ways we learned a lot about how we could really be flexible in our delivery modes um and delivery mechanisms and i think it would be a shame to completely forget about and lose all of those um flexible interactions and flexible timetables and all that stuff that that happened um i think it would be a shame to do that and um i i do think that institutionally there there should be uh flexibility in terms of offering blended face to face uh online modalities for students regardless of whether they be undergrad postgrad etc um so i i agree uh leone oh i i think by the name uh nice to see you i haven't seen you in a long time if i'm remembering the right person there um so i i haven't um steward i said as i mentioned at some stage during this my area really is digital literacy and i had to read myself into some of the aspects of climate change just i was looking at um what are the day-to-day uses that we have uh sorry what are the day-to-day uses of technology and what are some of the the potential detrimental impacts of that on uh on the climate on the environment i think it'd be very interesting i'm just started a collaborative project with um dr ben malin here in the institute of education um and he is he is much much more offay with this area than i am and we're looking at tracing the um the building the development production sorry i'm trying to find the right word the production of a mobile phone from start to finish uh and ending with the use of that mobile phone around apps and software um and we're trying to trace that and see how that might feed in to this this area but thanks for the question steward i think it's it's an it's an interesting next step see comments earlier in the chat um i can't see that um i'm trying to scroll and find this um was it dumb you said this yourself yes you did okay um uh okay so dumb you sound like you are more uh knowledgeable in this area than i am i i'm interested to read that carbon footprint is predominantly pushed by the um fossil fuel industry and we should be talking about uh climate shadow and um i certainly if that is the conceptualization that would um that would make it broader in terms of being able to address these issues then i would welcome you know a conversation around what that would look like what's you know as opposed to carbon footprint that is the term that that i encountered over and over again when i was going to look for the impacts environmental impacts of the different tools that we use on a day-to-day basis was the carbon footprint emissions um greenhouse gases etc they were the things that were that were coming through so i'd be interested to hear more about that thank you so much for your presentation peter that was fantastic they're really lively debate and lots of interesting questions coming in i have posted the link to our discord channel where anyone who wants to continue to the chat can move over to there and continue speaking about the really interesting presentation you've given so thank you very much and a big virtual round of applause for peter and thanks to you um fiona for facilitating me appreciate and thanks everybody for coming along