The University of Sheffield
The School of Education

Julia Davies, B.A., PGCE, Ph.D

Photograph of Dr Julia Davies



Senior Lecturer
Tel: (+44) (0)114 222 8144
Fax: (+44) (0)114 279 6236
Email: j.a.davies@Sheffield.ac.uk
Room: 7.03

Research interests

Digital Literacies

Julia researches language and literacy in relation to digital text making practices. She investigates how people use technology to produce texts as part of their everyday-life, such as in social networking sites like facebook.com, flickr.com or Youtube, for example. She looks at how individuals produce texts using a range of modes, such as pictures, emoticons, moving images, different fonts, specialised spelling and vocabulary. Julia considers how this affects the way we live our lives, see ourselves and communicate with each other. She explores how this might affect how we conceptualise literacy and how literacy teaching could embrace `New Literacies´.

Online learning

Julia is investigating ways in which people learn in online spaces. As well as exploring learning within informal web 2.0 spaces, she also has an interest in the ways in which the processes in these spaces can be harnessed to influence learning and teaching in more formal spaces such as schools and universities. She is interested in the cultural and social implications of new literacy practices and the ways in which these impact on individual lives and identities.

Textual Analysis

Julia is developing ways of analysing online interaction, particularly exploring how people are learning through their interactions. Her analytical approach takes account of linguistic and non-linguistic textual features such as emoticons, textual layout, sound and moving image.

Teaching

Julia teaches on the Literacy and Language route of the Education Doctorate programme, on the MA Applied Professional Studies in Education and the MA in Educational Research and contributes to the Initial Teacher Education (subject English) programmes.

Julia usually teaches language and literacy practitioners and researchers, but also with those who are interested in technology enhanced learning. In her teaching, Julia shares findings of her research and encourages students to think about ways in which they have learned about and through new technologies. She uses learning technologies both as an object of study, and also as a medium through which one can teach and learn. She thus encourages students to use new technologies in ways which are relevant and appropriate to their own research, and helps them to think about the ways in which those technologies shape and enhance learning and teaching. Julia has a strong commitment to supporting students in following their own research paths and interests.

Activities

Selected Publications

Davies, J. and Merchant, G. (2009) Web 2.0 for Schools: Learning and Social Participation. New York: Peter Lang.

Davies, J. (2011) ‘Computer Mediated Communication’. In Companion to Discourse Analysis. Paltridge, B. (University of Sydney, Australia) and Hyland, K. (Institute of Education, London) (Eds.). Palgrave: London.

Davies, J. (2009) A space for play: crossing boundaries and learning online´ In Carrington and Robinson (eds.) Contentious Technologies: Digital Literacies, Social Learning and Classroom Practices. London: Sage.

Davies, J. (2009) Online Connections, collaborations, chronicles and crossings´. In Marsh, J. Robinson, M. and Willett, R. (Eds.) Play, Creativity and Digital Cultures. London: Routledge. (Pp 108 - 124).

Davies, J. (2009) `Keeping connected: textual selves, textual cohesion and online support networks´. In Thomas, N. (Ed). Children, Politics and Communication. London: Palgrave. (Pp 167 - 184).

Davies, J. (2008) ‘Talking ‘bout a (digital) Revolution: New Literacies, New Practices for New Times’. Journal of Education and Development in the Caribbean. Vol. 10 No 1.

Davies, J. (2008) `Pay and Display: The Digital Literacies of Online Shoppers´. In Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (Eds.) Digital Literacies: Concepts, Policies and Practices. New York: Peter Lang.

Davies, J (2007) `Display; Identity and the Everyday: self-presentation through digital image sharing.´ In: Discourse, Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 28:4

Davies, J. and Pahl, K. (2007) `Blending Voices, Blending learning: Lessons in pedagogy from a post-16 classroom´. In Literacy and Social Inclusion: Closing The Gap. In Bearne, E. and Marsh, J. (Eds.) London: Trentham.

Davies, J. and Merchant, G. (2007) `Looking from the inside out: academic blogging as new literacy´. In Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (Eds.) A New Literacies Sampler. New York: Peter Lang. (10,000 words).

Davies, J. (2006) `Affinities and beyond!! Developing ways of seeing in online spaces´. In e-learning- Special Issue: Digital Interfaces. Vol.3 issue 2. Pages 217-234. Accessed online here.

Davies, J. (2006b) `"Hello newbie! **big welcome hugs** hope u like it here as much as i do! " An exploration of teenagers´ informal on-line learning´. In Buckingham, D. and Willett, R. (Eds.) Digital Generations. New York: Lawrence Ehrlbaum. (Pp 211 – 228). (Reproduced in Mackey, M. (2007) Media Literacies: Major Themes in Education. London: Routledge.)

Davies, J. (2005) Nomads and Tribes: On line meaning-making and the Development of New Literacies. In J. Marsh and E. Millard (eds.) Popular Literacies, Childhood and Schooling. London: Routledge/Falmer. (Pp 160 – 175).

Davies, J. (2004) Negotiating Femininities On-Line. In Gender and Education. Vol.16 Issue 1. Pages 35 – 49.

View a full list of Julia Davies’ publications

Recent Funded Projects

Evaluation of the Sheffield College English GCSE Online and Blended learning Courses; funded by the DfES. September 2005 – June 2007.

Evaluation of the Sheffield College/ Sheffield LEA `Literacy through Technology´ Project ; funded by
Sheffield LEA. February 2005 – July 2005.

Pathways to Success/ re-engagement through Work-related learning; (with Anne-Marie Bathmaker and Pam Cole); funded by European Objective One through Doncaster Local Authority. September 2004 – December 2006.

New ways of engaging new learners: lessons from round one of the practitioner-led research initiative; (with Kate Pahl); funded by the NRDC. March 2004 – October 2004.

Investigating gendered attitudes to school and learning; (with Training School Practitioners); funded by DfES/TDA. September 2003 – July 2007.

Current Doctoral Students

Salwa AlHarthi – An investigation into the teaching styles of EFL in the Saudi Arabian Context

Ridvan Ata - Researching 3D Multiple User Virtual Environments-Second Life- in Higher Education

Tamsin Bowers-Brown - Educational choices: girls' achievement and their post-16 expectations

Owen Barden – An examination of the literacy practices of dyslexic students’ uses of social networking sites

Sara Hannam – The Role of English as Lingua Franca in the Balkans

Becky Parry – Children and Children´s Films: What do children learn about narrative from their experiences of film?

Dylan Yamada-Rice - A comparative study of young children´s visual literacy practices in Japan and the UK

Eve Stirling – Why waste your time on Facebook? The use of Facebook by HE students and its relationship to studentlife.

Alumni

Dian McCallum - Investigating the first year of teaching in the Jamaican secondary system : a case study of the 'induction' experiences of three newly qualified teachers of history.

Patrick Camilleri - A Study in the Interpretive Schemes of the Social Perception of Internet in the Maltese Information Society.

Johan Jowallah – Critical Literacy in Secondary School English

Josephine Milton - Investigations into the impact of Primary School student teachers' language biographies on their use of English as L2 in the classroom

Roberta Taylor – Multimodal Analysis of Children´s Communication

Albin Wallace - A comparison of children´s in school and out of school use of the internet: the coherence of the inchoate (EdD awarded 2009)