By Tanya Elias, Manager, Projects and Learning Design, Vancouver Community College

In recent years, the post-secondary education landscape has undergone significant transformation. Moreover, interest in micro-credentials, future skills development, and flexible learning are challenging post-secondary educators to adopt tools and practices that can enable meaningful digitally-mediated teaching and learning. B.C.’s Post-Secondary Digital Literacy Framework was developed in response to this shift, and it highlights the importance of developing digital learning capabilities across the sector. One component of the framework involves a new micro-credential to foster the development, implementation, and uptake of professional development opportunities for B.C. post-secondary educators to address contemporary issues.

Vancouver Community College (VCC) undertook the development of this micro-credential starting in 2024. Our design team* was tasked to create a program that would: (1) meet the needs of a broad audience of educators, (2) be highly current and forward thinking, (3) consider recognition pathways, and (4) have a connection to the existing Provincial Instructors Diploma Program (PIDP).

Building the resulting Digital Learning for Innovative Teaching (DLIT) short certificate offered our design team a tremendous opportunity to explore the concept of digital literacy. It also forced us to ask key questions including: what do we want our educators to be able to doat the end of this micro-credential?

In this article, I describe how we sought to answer this question, starting by developing four learner personas to explore the concepts of digital learning and literacy. I also describe the collaborative practice we adopted to refine a series of 21 digital learning competencies and how we applied these competencies to both our micro-credential and openly licensed activity collections to teach essential digital learning mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets (Belshaw, 2016). Finally, I consider further opportunities to leverage these competencies to support the uptake of professional development among educators in B.C. and beyond.

*Our design team included Jacquie Harrison, Karen Brooke, Emily Simpson, Tanya O’Neil, Todd Biffard, and Tanya Elias, all from from VCC, and an external Design Advisory Committee comprised of Tracy Roberts, Dereck Murray, Melanie Meyers, and Taruna Goel. Preliminary consultation was done with the Sector Advisory Committee (SAC).

Background

B.C.’s Digital Learning Strategy outlines strategic priorities, recommended actions, guidance, and resources to advance digital learning for post-secondary institutions across the province. The strategy identifies advancing digital literacy among adult educators as a priority.

Digital literacy is an individual’s ability to find, evaluate, and communicate information using typing or digital media platforms. Digital literacy combines both technical and cognitive abilities; it consists of using information and communication technologies to create, evaluate, and share information. (Wikipedia Digital literacy, n.d.)

Both the Canadian government and UNESCO further identified these digital literacies as essential for civic, economic, and social participation (UNESCO, 2021; Government of Canada, 2021). As a result, digital literacies are vital competencies that are increasing in importance over time.

The B.C. Post-Secondary Digital Literacy Framework was developed to enhance vital digital literacy knowledge, skills, and abilities among adult educators. It was designed to be responsive to future shifts in technology, pedagogy, and culture. It includes eight thematic competencies:

• Creation and curation: presenting accessible digital materials to specific audiences in meaningful ways
• Communication and collaboration: using online tools to make valuable contributions and intentionally craft messages
• Ethical and legal considerations: abiding by principles of privacy protection, inclusion, and accessibility with awareness of potential inequalities
• Community-based learning: working with individuals, communities, and industries to produce mutually beneficial outcomes
• Information literacy: critically assessing for whom information is produced, prioritized and presented online
• Technology supports: exploring new technologies with curiosity and intentionally selecting appropriate tools
• Digital scholarship: intentionally and purposefully using digital technologies to develop effective research, critical thinking, problem solving, analysis, and decision-making skills
• Digital well-being: establishing healthy digital boundaries and practices while engaging in ongoing learning opportunities

These thematic competencies provided a good starting point for the DLIT micro-credential. Alongside the design team, we continued to ask two questions:

• Who do we expect to enroll in this program?
• What do we want them to be able to do when they complete it?

As a result, we felt there was a need to contextualize and extend the digital literacy framework’s themes for adult educators working across a variety of contexts.

Exploring Digital Literacies Using Learner Personas

We sought to “get to know” our prospective learners using four learner personas: Jordan, Alex, Samir, and Morgan. Each of them was working in a different context and brought with them different digital experiences and learning needs. These types of personas can be powerful tools when making decisions about learning design, course content, and messages that resonate with learners (Nguyen, 2022). They offer insights into learning contexts that can help develop innovative and transformative experiences (Baaki, Maddrell, & Stauffer, 2017).

To build our personas, we started by using GenAI, which generated the following outlines.

	New Post-Secondary Educator ​	Trades Instructor ​	Industry Trainer ​	Learning and Design Professional
Name	Alex ​	Samir ​	Jordan ​	Morgan ​
Age	30	40 ​	38 ​	35 ​
Education	Master’s Degree ​	Diploma, Red Seal Certificate ​	Bachelor’s Degree ​	Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree ​
Experience	1-2 years ​	5-10 years in trades, 2-3 years as an instructor ​	10 years in industry, 3 years as a trainer ​	7-10 years in industry, specializing in learning and design ​
Goals	Integrate digital tools into the classroom, engage students effectively ​	Incorporate digital tools into practical training, enhance student engagement ​	Develop comprehensive digital training programs, improve learner outcomes ​	Create effective digital learning experiences, stay updated with the latest tools ​
Pain Points	Overwhelmed by the variety of digital tools, lack of time for professional development	Limited digital literacy, balancing hands-on training with digital tools ​	Adapting industry knowledge to educational contexts, limited access to educational resources ​	Keeping up with rapid technological changes, ensuring accessibility and inclusivity ​
Motivations	Passion for teaching, desire to innovate​	Improving student outcomes, staying relevant in the field ​	Career advancement, passion for training	Passion for innovative learning solutions, professional growth ​

We then leveraged the deep experience and insight of our design team to more add evidence-based, engaging, and person-level data to our personas (van Rooij, 2012). The result was four robust, prospective students working in different learning contexts.  As an example, see Morgan’s full persona below.

Through this process we were able to center our prospective learners in our planning processes, and explore their needs, contexts, and perspectives.

See Digital Pedagogy Toolbox: Designing for Care with Personas – BCcampus​ to learn more about learner personas.

Refining Competencies Using Collaborative Practice

Using our four learner personas as a starting point, we took a collaborative and iterative approach to shape and refine our digital learning competencies.

In the initial iteration, the members of our design team were given a list of 56 skills and competencies derived from nine sources (B.C. Post-Secondary Digital Literacy Framework, B.C. K-12 Digital Literacy Framework, Learning Equip, EdCan Network, EU DigiHub, Association for Learning Technologies, Foundations for Humane Learning, Keyano College, and Digital Learning Institute). They then identified the competencies that they felt were the most relevant for Jordan, Samir, Morgan, and Alex (see below).

Drafts of the competencies were circulated among the design team and other learning designers, technologists, and digital learning leaders. As a part of this process, our competencies were also aligned with North Island College’s Instructor Essential Teaching Competencies. This iterative process enabled the development of 21 interconnected competencies organized into three categories and seven themes (see below):

Mindsets

Mindsets shape how one approaches digital teaching and learning—with care, curiosity, and a commitment to ethics. Mindsets encompass two themes and six competencies:

• 1. Ethical and legal considerations: abiding by principles of privacy protection, inclusion, and accessibility with awareness of potential inequalities
  • 1.1 Apply laws, regulations, and guidelines that safeguard learning information and data
  • 1.2 Connect Indigenous digital literacies to reconciliation journeys
  • 1.3 Adopt strategies that enable agency and choice
• 2. Digital well-being and growth: establishing healthy digital boundaries and practices while engaging in ongoing learning opportunities
  • 2.1 Express my beliefs and assumptions about the use of digital tools and practices for teaching and learning
  • 2.2 Enact accountable, evidence-informed digital learning practices2.3 Sustain ongoing professional development by developing new digital skills and participating in professional networks

Skillsets

Skillsets are made up of the strategies, routines, and habits you use to create effective digital learning experiences. There are four themes and 11 competencies included in this category.

• 3. Community based learning: working with individuals, communities, and industries to produce mutually beneficial outcomes
  • 3.1 Define needs and constraints associated with different learning contexts
  • 3.2 Incorporate diverse sources of Indigenous knowledge into digital learning in a good way
  • 3.3 Create flexible learning paths and programs that are aligned with learner and community needs
• 4. Creation and curation: presenting accessible digital materials to specific audiences in meaningful ways
  • 4.1 Curate engaging learning materials in alignment with learner needs and licensing requirements
  • 4.2 Create digital learning activities and assessments that support quality student learning
  • 4.3 Foster curiosity, applied learning, and authentic assessment using digital tools and practices
  • 4.4 Address diverse needs and overcome barriers by mobilizing digital tools and practices
• 5. Communication and collaboration: using online tools to make valuable contributions and intentionally craft messages
  • 5.1 Facilitate active collaborative and individual digital learning
  • 5.2 Give constructive feedback in digital learning environments
• 6. Information literacy: critically assessing for whom information is produced, prioritized, and presented online
  • 6.1 Adopt effective search strategies that mobilize available resources including content experts and information specialists
  • 6.2 Gauge the reliability and relevance of information from digital sources using evidence-informed practices

Toolsets

Toolsets include the digital tools and practices that are selected and used with purpose. They encompass one theme and four competencies.

• 7. Technology supports: exploring new technologies with curiosity and intentionally selecting appropriate tools
  • 7.1 Confidently and properly integrate digital learning tools and practices into learning in purposeful ways
  • 7.2 Navigate the ambiguity associated with rapid technological changes and uncertain futures
  • 7.3 Solve issues and devise backup plans for when technologies change or fail
  • 7.4 Grasp the core components of GenAI including neural networks, training data, and common learning-related errors

The above competencies describe the essential mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets that adult instructors and other learning practitioners need. Different instructors and learning practitioners can possess or seek to acquire different levels of proficiency. The proficiency levels are designed to offer meaningful and applied learning paths through the competencies, regardless of starting point. The design teams defined three proficiency levels:

• Foundation: Building digital learning mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets to strengthen your teaching and learning practice. You can adhere to applicable laws and guidelines, have strategies to keep you and your students safer, and know where to go for more help
• Proficient: A skilled and experienced digital learning practitioner. You are very good at using digital learning tools and practices and you model these behaviours for others.
• Enhanced: If there is one certainty in digital learning, it is that there is always something new to learn (or unlearn or relearn). The work often involves continuing to question and lean into the uncertainties and ambiguities of digital learning.

You can learn more about the digital learning competencies and explore the detailed competencies at Digital Competencies – Digital Learning for Innovative Teaching.

Applying and Advancing Digital Learning

Adopting a competency-based approach for the DLIT program helped us to better define essential digital learning mindsets, skillsets, and toolsets. We used these competencies to develop program learning outcomes and streamline the design process. We were also able to map these competencies to a series of openly accessible and licensed activity collections built by reusing and remixing BCcampus challenge banks. Within the DLIT program, the competencies also set a foundation for digital learning pathways, with multiple entry and exit points, and opportunities for prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) as originally envisioned in the B.C. Post-Secondary Digital Literacy Framework.

The digital learning competencies also suggest additional opportunities to adopt a coherent, scalable approach to professional development across the sector. These competencies are a natural extension of the B.C. Digital Literacy Framework, which is designed to elevate the professional practice of educators. By situating digital literacy at the heart of digital learning, these competencies can help educators thrive in a digital world.

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References

Baaki, J., Maddrell, J., & Stauffer, E. (2017). Designing authentic personas for open education resources designers. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 8(2), 110–122. 

Belshaw, D. (2016). Types of EdTech Baggage: Toolsets, Mindsets, Skillsets [DML Central] – Open Thinkering

Government of Canada (2021). Evaluation of the Digital Literacy Exchange Program (DLEP)

Nguyen, G. (2022). Digital Literacy, Digital Pedagogy Toolbox

UNESCO (2021). Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education

S.W. van Rooij, S. W. (2012). Research-based personas: Teaching empathy in professional education. The Journal of Effective Teaching, 12(3), 77–86.