Dr Renee Morrison is a passionate educator and researcher with over 20 years of experience in secondary and tertiary education in Australia, Canada, and the UK. She is a Senior Lecturer and a core member of UniSC's Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre (ITRC), where her work aligns with the centre’s mission by investigating how digital technologies can promote equity, inclusion, and continuous learning in diverse educational contexts.
Renee's research explores the indispensable digital literacies of the 21st century and the evolving role of educators, particularly in flexible and remote learning environments. Her work critically examines the intersection of digital and discursive practices, focusing on how online technologies, such as search engines, shape societal notions of truth and knowledge. Through methodologies like Critical Discourse Analysis and semiotics, she challenges outdated ideologies and asymmetries in power and knowledge to foster more just and inclusive educational practices.
Renee has extensive experience supervising HDR students and delivering innovative, reflexive learning experiences in curriculum design, assessment, digital technologies in education, and inclusive pedagogy. She is committed to empowering educators and learners by connecting contemporary theory with practical, constructivist teaching methods across face-to-face, online, and blended learning environments.
Professional memberships
- Australian Literacy Educators’ Association
- Australian Association for Research in Education
- Tasmanian Society for Information Technology in Education
- ACARA's Technologies Education Masters and PhD group
- Australian Home Education research group
Awards
- State head commendation for excellence in teaching, Australian Catholic University, 2022
- Best Paper for SIG: The Application, Risks, and Impact of Artificial Intelligence in Education. 6th International Conference on Advances in Education and Information Technology (AEIT 2025)
Professional Social Media
- LinkedIn *
- ResearchGate *
* This is an external website and the University of the Sunshine Coast is not responsible for the content.
RESEARCH:
|
Project name |
Investigators |
Funding body |
Year/s |
|
The affordances and constraints of the Turn to Teaching (TTT) program: Strategies to strengthen the effectives of mid-career change teacher preparation |
Dr Loraine McKay; Eunjae Park; Frances Press; Senka Henderson; Mallihai Tambyah; Susan Irvine; Dr Alison Willis; Dr Renee Morrison; Lana McCarthy; Wendy Boyd |
Education Horizon Grant |
2024-2025 |
|
Choosing animations for science teaching: teacher search and selection strategies |
Dr Renee Morrison Dr Yaegan Doran Dr Yufei He |
SETA seed grant |
2023-2025 |
|
First Nation academics’ perspectives on misappropriating generative AI outputs |
Dr Renee Morrison Dr Natalie McMaster Dr Ree JOrdan (UQ) Dr Hope O-Chin |
ITRC seed grant |
2024-2025 |
Research areas
- digital literacy
- search engines (Google)
- information retrieval and information behaviours
- internet literacy
- technology in education
- digital pedagogies
- discourse analysis, conversation analysis and linguistics
- critical theory
- alternate education (including home-education / home-schooling/ unschooling)
Teaching areas
- Digital literacies
- Assessment in education
- Curriculum and pedagogy
- English curriculum
- Critical literacy
- Postgraduate research skills (education coursework)
Program coordinator
Publications
- Morrison, R. (2022). ‘Google Speak': The discursive practices of search in home-education. Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, 10, DT82-DT106. https://doi.org/ 10.5195/dpj.2022.387
- Beasy, K., Morrison, R., Coleman, B. & Mainsbridge, C. (2022). Reflections of a student engagement program designed and delivered by academics. Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching, 5(1), 1-12.
- Coleman, B., Beasy, K., Morrison, R., & Mainsbridge, C. (2021). Academics’ Perspectives on a Student Engagement and Retention Program: Dilemmas and Deficit Discourses. Teaching in Higher Education, Article 2000387. ISSN 3562517 DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2021.2000387
- Morrison R. (2021). Internet Use in Home-Education: Enablers and Barriers. In R. English (Ed.), Global Perspectives on Home Education in the 21st Century, (pp. 200-228). IGI Global.
- Morrison, R., & Barton, G. (2018). Search engine use as a literacy in the middle years: The need for explicit instruction and active learners [online]. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 26 (3), 37-47.
- Morrison, R. (2018, November). Faith in the ‘Digital Native’ during online search in Australian home-schools. Yang, J. C. et al. (Eds.) (2018). Proceedings of the 26th International Conference on Computers in Education. Philippines: Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education, 169-174.
- Morrison, R. (2017). Not a school in site: Search engine use in Australian home-schools and the influence of a generational digital divide. Paper presented at the 19th DiscourseNet conference. July, Bucharest, Romania.
- Morrison, R. (2016, July 27). [Review of the book Misunderstanding the internet, by J Curran, N Fenton & D Freedman]. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 11(3), 270. ISBN 978-1-138-90622-8.
- Morrison, R. (2016). Surfing Blind: A study into the effects of exposing young adolescents to explicit search engine skills. Paper presented at the conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education. December, Melbourne, Australia.
- Morrison, R. (2015). Silver Surfers Search for Gold: a study into the online information-seeking skills of those over fifty. Ageing International, 40(3),300-310. doi: 10.1007/s12126-015-9224-4
Public engagement outputs
- Morrison, R. (2022). Search Engine Use in Australian Home-Schools: An Exploration Framed by the Generational Digital Divide Construct [Doctoral thesis synopsis]. British Journal of Sociology of Education, DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2022.2142136
- Angel, C., Morrison, R., Prudente Osorio-Stevens, R., & Schmidt, M. (2022, November 11). Going Glocal: Towards a pedagogy of place-based education for Tasmania’s Cradle Coast [Poster presentation]. Celebrating the impact of regional research and education, Tasmania, Australia.
- Morrison, R. (2021). Drowning in information while starving for wisdom'. Helping students to maximise their online searching. Scan: the Journal for Educators, 40(1) pp. 22-38. ISSN 2202-4557
- Morrison, R. (2021, August 26). Learning from home is testing students' online search skills. Here are 3 ways to improve them. The Conversation, The Conversation Media Group Ltd, Australia.
- Morrison, R. (2020, February 12). Don’t ‘just Google it’: 3 ways students can get the most from searching online. The Conversation. theconversation.com/dont-just-google-it-3-ways-students-can-get-the-most-from-searching-online-116519
- Morrison, R. (2020, February 25 ). Devoirs scolaires : comment mieux tirer profit des moteurs de recherche, The Conversation, France.
Dr Renee Morrison's specialist areas of knowledge include digital literacy, internet (particularly search) literacy, information retrieval and information behaviours, search-engines (Google), technology in education, digital pedagogies, critical discourse analysis, alternate education (including home-education / home-schooling/ unschooling and COVID-related remote emergency learning).