Week 2 blog – The role of technology in education.

I think that the role of technology has a huge part within the education sector and teachers are expected to keep up with the times. However, I believe there is a  misjudgement on how technology is used within education as there is often a lot of confusion on what learners are learning and how. One concern is assuming that all young people of today are good and confident at using technology. As the new generation of learners are usually the children of millenniums or generation Z who are ‘digital natives’ that have grown up with technology and are drawn to the use of technology (Gallardo-Echenique, et,al. 2015).This generation of learners is growing up with many aspects of life and work being related to digital technologies. This also includes learning in the school setting as learning is supported by the use of technology. However, in contrast to that most schools and classrooms are still reliant on a teacher to  teach lessons explicitly as they have done so in the past. With the introduction and use of technology learning games and apps can offer a new way of thinking which supporting our learners. For example, instead of doing whole class practices, groups of learners can be self-managers to their own learning by practicing the assigned tasks set by teachers. This is shown at the school I am at, as online learning is only introduced to the learner after the learner has an understanding of the task. As learning is repetitive especially at primary school level, this cements the learnt knowledge by learners participating in learning games and learning apps.

In contrast with online learning in schools the notion of digital distribution and offering new ways of thinking within schools and being more technology-driven, schools have an obligation to teach cyber safety.   Netsafe (2018) states that being a digital citizen is having the skills and strategies to access technology to communicate, connect, collaborate and create, and  combined with theses digital skills, comes knowledge and attitudes in order to participate in society as an active, connected, lifelong learner. Furthermore, being a confident digital citizen is critical for many aspects of everyday life, such as online learning, work and socialising (Brown 2017). As overall digital technologies are associated with getting tasks done faster, more efficiently and exciting I thinking learning digitally within the school setting is here to stay as long as the safety for our young learners are upheld.

Refrences;

Brown, M. (2017a). A critical review of frameworks for digital literacy: Beyond the flashy, flimsy and faddish – part 1.  http://blog.ascilite.org/a-critical-review-of-frameworks-for-digital-literacy-beyond-the-flashy-flimsy-and-faddish-part-1/(http://blog.ascilite.org/a-critical-review-of-frameworks-for-digital-literacy-beyond-the-flashy-flimsy-and-faddish-part-1/)

Gallardo-Echenique, E., Marqués-Molías, L., Bullen, M., & Strijbos, J. (2015). Let’s talk about digital learners in the digital era. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v16i3.2196

Netsafe. (2018). From literacy to fluency to citizenship: Digital citizenship in education. New Zealand. Retrieved from https://netsafe.org.nz/the-kit/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/From-literacy-to-fluency-to-citizenship_July-2018.pdf

Selwyn, Neil. Is Technology Good for Education?, Polity Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/massey/detail.action?docID=4547494. Created from Massey on 2021-02-28 20:22:38.