Being literate has traditionally meant being able to read and write using the media of the day. In the 21st century, being literate requires additional skills such as competence with digital media creation. Until recently, those who could afford and use equipment and applications to produce digital media content were typically developers and technicians. With the development of prosumer electronics, in conjunction with the use of mobile devices and tablets, a shift has occurred in the accessibility of these tools, becoming more affordable for the general population. Video sharing services, social software and Web 2.0 applications have made it possible to host a digital media ecosystem on the Internet, and this has led to the proliferation of User-Generated Content. These technological advances have changed how we communicate, socialise and learn. Effective communication using digital media is underpinned by a set of design principles which most students are not likely to be aware. This paper built on two previous papers on the Digital Media Literacy Framework and the Taxonomy of Digital Media types for teaching and learning. It argues the importance of digital media principles to develop effective communication in the digital space. Students now require knowledge of these principles, in conjunction with conceptual and functional skills, for effective communication in the digital space.

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Across a broad range of subjects in higher education institutions, students are required to complete assessment tasks that involve the production of digital artefacts. Examples include podcasts, digital stories, animations, video and blended media. To produce effective digital artefacts, one must be digitally literate. This requires a certain set of technical, audio-visual, behavioural, critical and social skills. In this article, the authors propose a framework that can be used to develop digital media literacies and train students in digital media creation. The framework considers three interdependent domains: conceptual, functional and audio-visual. A series of examples will be provided to illustrate the importance and interdependent nature of these domains. Implications of the framework on student training are discussed.

The notion of students as co-creators of content in higher education is gaining popularity, with an ever-increasing emphasis on the development of digital media assignments. In a separate paper, the authors introduced the Digital Media Literacies Framework, which is composed of three interrelated domains: (1) conceptual, (2) functional, and (3) audiovisual, each of which defines a set of prosumer principles used to create digital artefacts. This framework fills a gap in the literature and is the first step towards the provision of a systematic approach to designing digital media assignments. This paper expands on the Digital Media Literacies Framework through the incorporation of Technological Proxies and proposes a taxonomy of digital media types to help educators and students to visualise the skills needed to complete Learner-Generated Digital Media assignments. A taxonomy of digital media types is presented considering the conceptual, functional, and audiovisual domains of the Digital Media Literacies Framework. The taxonomy spans a range of Learner-Generated Digital Media assignments, from the creation of an audio podcast to the complexity of blended media or game development. Implications of the taxonomy for teaching and learning in higher education are discussed.

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Mobile learning technologies are spreading rapidly in educational institutions throughout the world. Although research findings concerning the efficacy of mobile technologies for improving student outcomes are generally promising, there are still significant gaps in the research literature, particularly data from direct observational studies. This empirical investigation focused on how students made use of tablet devices and digital pens for learning Chemistry in an undergraduate university course. Observational data in the form of videos and static images, as well as, interview responses, were the main sources of data collected for the study. Activity theory was employed as the guiding theoretical framework to analyse and interpret the data. Several themes emerged from the data analyses, including the affordances of digital pen technology for facilitating reflective thinking, flexibility, peer collaboration, emerging learning and focused learning. It was also found that the use of these mobile technologies was contextualized, dependent on individual differences, and had challenges, for example, there was limited synchronicity between the operational design of the mobile devices and natural human movement. One of the main implications of the research is that when higher education institutions consider the potential benefits and challenges associated with mobile technologies they should take account of the interactions that occur between components within a system including, students, technological devices, and emerging learning processes.

The testing effect arises when learners who are tested rather than relearning material obtain superior scores on a final test than those who relearn. Based on cognitive load theory, six experiments examined whether the effect was evident under low or high element interactivity (a measure of complexity) conditions. Students learning to write types of text were participants. In all experiments, effects on a final common test of two presentations were compared with a single presentation followed by a preliminary test. The testing effect on immediate tests was larger and more likely using lower element interactivity materials. A reverse testing effect was likely on immediate tests tapping higher element interactivity material but possibly eliminated by using a delayed test.