About this Project
The Digital Writing Lab is a key component of the Australian national Teaching Digital Writing project, which runs from 2022-2025.
This stage of the broader project involves academic and secondary English teacher collaboration to explore how teachers are conceptualising the teaching of digital writing and what further supports they may need.
Previous stages of the project included archival research reviewing materials related to digital writing in Australia’s National Textbook Collection, and a national survey of secondary English teachers. You can find out more about the whole project via the project blog.
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A digital writing lab is a space for curating and sharing pedagogical resources, merging home and school literacies and connecting academics, teachers, schools and industry mentors. Labs provide opportunities for dialogue around pedagogies and facilitate collegial practice and intergenerational transfer.
Through developing a digital writing lab, the study supports teachers to envisage, address and empower student digital writers as citizens and workers of the future.
This digital writing lab is developing English curriculum materials for teaching in Terms 3 and 4, 2024. Details about these materials will eventually be shared via the project blog.
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The project aims to discover new knowledge about how digital writing is currently being conceptualised and taught in Australian schools.
It also aims to enhance teachers' capacity to teach digital writing as they negotiate requirements of standardised testing, imperatives for 21st century literacies and their own professional identities and commitments.
The findings will be shared in journal articles, conference presentations, professional learning sessions with teachers and a national Digital Writing Symposium, to be held in 2025. Please contact us if you are interested in attending.
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The project is funded by the Australian government, through the Australian Research Council (DECRA grant no. DE220100515) and Deakin University.
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Three Victorian secondary schools and twelve English teachers are involved in the Digital Writing Lab. This stage of the project has passed ethical review by Deakin University (approval code: HAE-23-116).
Each school has its own version of a Digital Writing Lab, with a unique focus.
The privacy of participating schools and teachers is ensured through password access. The three schools involved were selected on the basis of diversity, so that the contexts of three very different sites could inform the research.
There is also an Australian National Relevance Group with members from all states and territories which includes a First Nations Adviser, Welsh/Wiradjuri English teacher Cara Shipp, and an International Reference Group.
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You can find publications from the project via the lead researcher Associate Professor Lucinda McKnight’s Deakin University page.
Who runs the project?
Project Lead Lucinda McKnight is an Associate Professor and Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA Fellow researching how English teachers can connect the teaching of writing to contemporary media and students’ lifeworlds.
She is working with Leon Furze, who holds the doctoral scholarship attached to this project, and Chris Zomer, the project Research Fellow. The project is located in the Research for Educational Impact (REDI) centre at Deakin University, Melbourne.
Associate Professor Lucinda McKnight
Leon Furze
Dr Chris Zomer
What is the focus for each Digital Writing Lab?
Three labs have been developed for this project, each exploring a different aspect of digital writing. The three participating schools have chosen the themes Protest, Poetry and Presentation. You can get an overview of each lab below (hover on each screenshot to scroll down).
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Digital Writing Lab: Protest
This school has chosen to focus on the concept of young people coming to voice in digital environments and writing to create social change. Students are learning to design online petition platforms and write strategic content for these sites. As digital writers, students are aiming to advance social causes and influence audiences.
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Digital Writing Lab: Poetry
Working collaboratively, teachers and researchers have chosen to focus on writing, performing and videoing spoken word poetry for social media platforms. Students act as poets, performers, videographers, editors and publishers. As digital writers, students are aiming to engage and move audiences through multimodal literacies.
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Digital Writing Lab: Presentation
In this lab, students are exploring the ethical use of generative AI in the presentation of self, in career and workplace related documents. Students are working dialogically with generative AI as a career coach and idea-generation partner, to enhance documents such as resumés, for an audience of future employers. As digital writers, students are aiming to fully exploit the potentials and evaluate the risks of new technologies for composition.
