Frances Di Lauro

• PhD
• Associate Professor at The University of Sydney

Like all disciplines in higher education, the teaching of digital writing was profoundly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic as faculty and students moved to emergency remote teaching (ERT). Rapid shifts to synchronous and asynchronous online delivery modes reshaped classrooms built upon frequent peer review and student collaboration in writing, forc...

This article focuses on art created from the two latter forms: those artefacts and materials that fell out of use through redundancy or retirement, or those that were willfully or accidentally discarded. It argues that rhetoric can be non-verbal and that visual texts and art objects have the same rhetorical components of ethos, logos and pathos to...

This paper brings to light the notable contributions of Wikipedian Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) who enlisted her peers and students to help reduce the gender imbalance by participating in mass collaborative initiatives like edit-a-thons to increase the stock of knowledge about and of interest to women. Such projects, and the edit-a-thons that cont...

This paper reports on studies involving students in an interdisciplinary, senior undergraduate course at the University of Sydney. Mobile devices become the only necessary tool for students as they carry out field research in this innovative, open learning environment. During the field trip students analyse cultural material, and most use a smartph...

In his chronicles Giovanni Villani praised Brunetto Latini (c1220-1293) as “the man who refined and polished the minds of the Florentines, both in the arts of speech and writing and in the art of governing their city.” This praise speaks in part to Latini’s most significant service to his commune as scribe, notary, consul and prior, but to his invo...

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here! So warns the inscription on the gates of the inferno, the first realm of Dante Alighieri’s celebrated work, now known as the Divine Comedy. “La Commedia”, as Dante originally named it, is an imaginary journey through the three realms of the afterlife: inferno (hell), purgatorio (purgatory) and paradiso (heaven)...

Student perceptions of writing with Wikipedia in Australian higher education by Robert Cummings and Frances DiLauro. First Monday, Volume 22, Number 6 - 5 June 2017 http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/7488/6306 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v22i16.7488

The Sum of Human Knowledge? Whose Knowledge? Using Wikipedia as a Teaching Platform to Preserve Traditional Cultural Knowledge Frances Di Lauro, The University of Sydney, Australia Since Jimmy Wales challenged his audience to "imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge" Wikipe...

Digital tools and mobile technologies have become integral to teaching digital literacy, and more broadly information literacy, both essential to deciphering and producing effective communicative texts. From these multimodal platforms, students can simultaneously observe, interrogate, research, record and report their findings on Wikipedia. As the...

The benefits of teaching with Wikipedia in higher education have been investigated for more than a decade and practitioners have claimed a fairly uniform set of outcomes. Although Wikipedia is a global knowledge platform, many studies of the benefits of teaching with Wikipedia have been conducted in U.S. higher education institutions. The authors t...

Teaching in flipped or “reversed” classroom mode builds on established student-centric teaching practices that have been in use for decades. Next Generation Learning Spaces (NGLS) further transform the way collaborative learning can enrich students' learning experiences. This chapter discusses expectations, perceptions, and experiences of teaching...

Wikipedia is an open educational resource that connects writers and editors to diverse discourse communities around the world. Unwarranted stigma is attached to the use of Wikipedia in higher education due to fears that students will not pursue rigorous research practices because of the easy access to information that Wikipedia facilitates. In stud...

For all the possible rewards of using Wikipedia as an educational resource, it is an innovative practice that can pose significant risks for teachers. In some teaching contexts, the online encyclopedia is still regarded with disdain and, due to the ease with which information can be accessed, accused of promoting laziness in students, and of facili...

Teaching in flipped or "reversed" classroom mode builds on established student-centric teaching practices that have been in use for decades. Next Generation Learning Spaces (NGLS) further transform the way collaborative learning can enrich students' learning experiences. This chapter discusses expectations, perceptions, and experiences of teaching...

Faculty in higher education have been exploring teaching with Wikipedia for nearly a decade, often claiming that such projects boost student writing abilities by allowing them to write for an audience beyond the academy as faculty help them meet the demands of a public writing environment on a global stage. Throughout its decade of experimentation...