Digital literacy has become increasingly significant in tertiary environments, as institutions move towards preparing students for 21st century workplaces and careers that emphasise digital literacy. As such, Academic Language and Learning (ALL) practitioners within these institutions are under pressure to possess familiarity and skills in the digital education space. Despite this need, there is a shortage of evidence that identifies the competencies or gaps in the current knowledge that ALL advisors have in Australian tertiary institutions; there is also a lack of awareness about how to address the gaps in knowledge for technology-enhanced learning and academic support. In light of this lacuna, in late 2018, the Association for Academic Learning and Language (AALL), the professional body for Academic Language and Learning practitioners, established a working group to investigate the knowledge and gaps in digital literacy in the ALL profession. The authors of this paper are all members of this working group and aim to explore the state of digital learning in their field. The long-term aim of the working party is to develop research-led resources and strategies to assist in the professionalisation and upskilling of ALL staff in technology-enhanced academic language development and support. This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a mixed-method participatory action research study of ALL practitioners’ preferences, competencies and confidence in the digital learning space. It is hoped that this study will provide members within the AALL professional body, as well as tertiary educators generally, with strategies required to identify, develop and maintain effective digital literacies across the higher education sector.

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Challenging the embedded mythologies that surround Anzac, especially as the centenary of First World War played out over the 2014 to 2018 commemoration period, can be confronting for tertiary students as well as a difficult space for tutors to navigate. This is especially the case for teacher education students who form the majority cohort taking a first-year course in Australian History as part of their teaching education degree programs at a large New South Wales university outside Sydney. Experiences of student disruptions, confrontations and occasional anger prompted tutors to question whether the topic of Anzac should be covered at all. An alternative was sought, where careful interrogation of teaching practices was undertaken. Three pedagogical approaches were examined; the traditional lecture format, using documentary film to glimpse at deeper historiographical problems within lectures and tutorials that allowed for more intense critical thinking and analysis of historical resources via focused questions. The efficacy of these pedagogical approaches was systematically assessed through surveying students in the Australian History course prior and post teaching about Anzac. This paper examines the background of teaching Anzac in the tertiary space, the use of specific pedagogical approaches and the results of the survey. Students’ main preference for teaching methods about Anzac was through documentaries in both surveys. However, the second most preferred method was the lecture format more generally and this preference increased in the post survey. There was also evidence of less resistance to the contested nature of Anzac mythologies.

There has been much written recently round the “digital revolution” of universities (Nascimento Cunha et al., 2020). Indeed, in 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the need for universities to adapt and adopt new technological tools for teaching and learning, as both the global world we live in changed, and as students adapted to the continually evolving digital landscape. The BA Online is a new interdisciplinary online presence for the humanities and social sciences, and includes a focus on constructive alignment, innovative learning objects, and social learning. The semester-long courses were built as a supported social learning experience that is purposefully constructed with a narrative. This article reveals how the BA Online project was realised through the use of partnerships, particularly that of the university learning designers who worked very closely with both the online learning platform FutureLearn and academic staff in curriculum design and course transformation.