The new challenges for educational leaders is in information consumption as literacy is redefined through connected learning experiences and in ways that students access the vast warehouses of digital content. With the availability of digital resource students do not learn the way we learn in a traditional sense; as we would draw a tree together until tree drawing had been mastered. Today students have multiple resources in tree drawing, including videos, online guides, ebooks and iTunes U. Digital learning is established on the premise that learning is ongoing and looks for the provision of web-found knowledge.
According to Henry Jenkins, Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology states, "We are moving away from a world in which some produce and many consume media, toward one in which everyone has a more active stake in the culture that is produced."
If everyone is to have a more active stake in a culture that is produced then educational leaders will need to face these challenges by redefining digital learning. This redefining of digital learning is not about technology or how many mobile devices can be maintained within the school environment. The redefining of digital learning must be in best practices, pedagogical practices, that are designed to teach students how to access, curate and create content. Having a mobile tablet in school and at home is a starting point for improving kids’ educational opportunities but without good instruction in how to use the digital tools available, a mobile learning device can actually have the opposite effect.
Renee Hobbs cites a new study conducted at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy which found that students in grades five through eight, particularly kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, tended to post lower scores on standardized tests once computers and high speed Internet access reached their homes.
While some experts in digital literacy may assume that the these mobile learning devices is a helpful research tool, used for exploring creating content, in many homes, families lack the knowledge and skills to use it for these purposes. In fact according to Hobbs in many homes, these mobile learning devices are becoming an entertainment device, for playing games and social networking. Renee Hobbs findings should provide insight to why education is needed in helping define digital learning as an iatrical part of information literacy. Helping students understand and use digital resources as a means for the expansion of knowledge.
If digital learning is about how people connect, create and collaborate what does this mean for learning? And it is not just about learning but how student learning will occur in the future? Does this mean a change in pedagogy? A pedagogy that is student centered where perhaps the learners are in charge of designing their own learning plans. The types of learning plans that will empower them to follow amend and implement for themselves as they adapt concepts to learning. To support these thoughts are the current findings of Connected Learning, a non-profit research organization that nurtures exploration of—and builds evidence around—the impact of digital media on young people, states that "Connected Learning is "real-world. It’s social. It’s hands-on. It’s active. It’s networked. It’s personal."
When Bernadette Adam Yates was asked the question of what she believes might be obsolete in the year 2020, her response was simply, "Walls around the classroom." Bernadette Adams, a senior research analyst, who works at the Office of Education Technology at the Department of Education states that, “We’re moving towards students being able to create their own learning environments. It would be great for them to be able to put together their own
learning path.”
So what does this mean for the future of teaching? What about education in general? Are schools and classrooms trying to hold on to the past? Is it not recognizable that the world is changing and that education is not adapting to the changing world. How about the classrooms of the future? How do they differ in student centered learning? Maybe it's time to look at and explore what Alvaro González-Alorda has to say in the Slide Share Presentation on "The End of Teaching as we Know it?"
Renee Hobbs cites a new study conducted at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy which found that students in grades five through eight, particularly kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, tended to post lower scores on standardized tests once computers and high speed Internet access reached their homes.
While some experts in digital literacy may assume that the these mobile learning devices is a helpful research tool, used for exploring creating content, in many homes, families lack the knowledge and skills to use it for these purposes. In fact according to Hobbs in many homes, these mobile learning devices are becoming an entertainment device, for playing games and social networking. Renee Hobbs findings should provide insight to why education is needed in helping define digital learning as an iatrical part of information literacy. Helping students understand and use digital resources as a means for the expansion of knowledge.
If digital learning is about how people connect, create and collaborate what does this mean for learning? And it is not just about learning but how student learning will occur in the future? Does this mean a change in pedagogy? A pedagogy that is student centered where perhaps the learners are in charge of designing their own learning plans. The types of learning plans that will empower them to follow amend and implement for themselves as they adapt concepts to learning. To support these thoughts are the current findings of Connected Learning, a non-profit research organization that nurtures exploration of—and builds evidence around—the impact of digital media on young people, states that "Connected Learning is "real-world. It’s social. It’s hands-on. It’s active. It’s networked. It’s personal."
When Bernadette Adam Yates was asked the question of what she believes might be obsolete in the year 2020, her response was simply, "Walls around the classroom." Bernadette Adams, a senior research analyst, who works at the Office of Education Technology at the Department of Education states that, “We’re moving towards students being able to create their own learning environments. It would be great for them to be able to put together their own
learning path.”
So what does this mean for the future of teaching? What about education in general? Are schools and classrooms trying to hold on to the past? Is it not recognizable that the world is changing and that education is not adapting to the changing world. How about the classrooms of the future? How do they differ in student centered learning? Maybe it's time to look at and explore what Alvaro González-Alorda has to say in the Slide Share Presentation on "The End of Teaching as we Know it?"
| All of the above questions illustrate other aspects of experience in which a student is immersed in student centered classrooms. They are examples of “Classrooms without Walls” where digital learning is facilitated. In these connected classrooms, students are given an opportunity to grasp larger patterns. To understand that knowledge is composed of parts that are always found in wholes. To explore how facts are always embedded in multiple contexts, and a subject is always related to many other issues and content. These are the classrooms without walls. Places where knowledge is connected to multiple content. These are the unique classrooms where digital learning resources of web-found knowledge are blended into social networks of shared co-collaborative learning experiences. |
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