Dr Renee Morrison is a passionate educator and researcher with over 20 years of experience in secondary education in Australia, Canada, and the UK. She is a Lecturer in Pedagogy and Curriculum, a core member of UniSC's Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre (ITRC), and a Senior Fellow with the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
Renee uses both empirical and critical methods to investigate the changing digital literacies required in education today with a particular focus on the relationship between digital practices and discursive practices. Specifically (but not exclusively) her work considers how online technologies are being used in education and how they may be better used to enhance pedagogy, promote continuous learning, and a more just society. A focus on technology’s capacity for shaping societal notions of truth and knowledge is also present in Renee’s research. She is interested in problematizing asymmetries in power and knowledge, in ensuring discourse is a resource, not an obstacle for digital learning, and in contributing understandings which challenge outdated ideologies. Renee is on the editorial board for the Humanities and Social Sciences Communications journal and continues to disseminate her work widely. She has experience in both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, particularly Critical Discourse Analysis, and has a growing research profile including several international collaborations.
Renee successfully supervises multiple HDR students and delivers innovative, reflexive learning experiences in curriculum design, assessment, digital technologies, 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
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Morrison, R.<https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=Renee%20Morrison> (2024), Learning to search and learning to slow down or “The quick and the dead”, Journal of Documentation<https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0022-0418>, 80(6). https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2024-0067
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Morrison, R. (2023). Making the invisible visible: Critical discourse analysis as a tool for search engine research. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/asi.24859
- 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).