Stokes, K. (2012). Decoding learning: the proof, promise and potential of digital education. Education Journal, (149), 8-12.
This article, Decoding Learning: the proof, promise and potential of digital education, proposes a plan for rethinking how technology can be used for learning via eight themes, or approaches to learning. These include the following:
Learning from experts - This theme emphasizes the opportunities available for students to communicate with experts via online discussions or tutorials.
Learning with others: - Accentuates the need for collaboration, networking, participation and performance with other learners.
Learning through making - The importance of creating and sharing through technology. This could include engineering, robotics, design, etc.
Learning through exploring - Creating the opportunities to explore information through spontaneous yet guided learning.
Learning through Inquiry - Helps learners gain new understanding by learning to ask questions, make discoveries, and test them.
Learning through practicing - Designing games to integrate knowledge, skills and learning outcomes.
Learning from Assessment - Making assessment faster, easier and more accessible to teachers and learners create significant implications for learner achievement.
Learning in and across Settings - Technology can help teachers and learners capture, store, compare and integrate material from and across different settings – whether at school, on a field trip or at home.
The article concludes with the assertion that best practice would include learning across these themes and linking them together. It goes on to warn, however, against the dangers of using technology for technology's sake and remembering the importance of context when choosing how technology is used.
I certainly recognize the themes identified in this report and appreciate the need for identifying best practice when it comes to the use of technology in the classroom. Like so many others, I often question the purpose of new technology initiatives and wonder at their effectiveness. Are we doing what's best for student achievement, or have we just discovered a new way of delivering the same material? Building an instructional technology plan that recognizes and addresses the points raised in this study could prove the basis for a more successful technology initiative. Furthermore, it could provide a foundation that will insure the success for all involved, students and teachers alike, for years to come.
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The article concludes with the assertion that best practice would include learning across these themes and linking them together. It goes on to warn, however, against the dangers of using technology for technology's sake and remembering the importance of context when choosing how technology is used.
I certainly recognize the themes identified in this report and appreciate the need for identifying best practice when it comes to the use of technology in the classroom. Like so many others, I often question the purpose of new technology initiatives and wonder at their effectiveness. Are we doing what's best for student achievement, or have we just discovered a new way of delivering the same material? Building an instructional technology plan that recognizes and addresses the points raised in this study could prove the basis for a more successful technology initiative. Furthermore, it could provide a foundation that will insure the success for all involved, students and teachers alike, for years to come.
http://library.aurora.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=tfh&AN=84295104&site=ehost-live&scope=site
