Digital Learning: The Key Concepts

Frank Rennie, Keith Smyth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138353732
• eBook ISBN: 9780429757419
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The new edition of Digital Learning: The Key Concepts is the perfect reference for anyone seeking to navigate the myriad of named concepts, approaches, issues and technologies associated with digital learning.

Key terms are explained succinctly, making this book ideal to dip into for a quick answer, or to read from cover-to-cover, in order to gain a mastery of how digital concepts fit within the world of education. Fully updated to include important developments in digital practice and technology in education over the last ten years, this book takes the reader from A to Z through a range of relevant topics including:

• Course design

• Digital scholarship

• Learning design

• Open education

• Personal learning environments

• Social media and social networking.

Ideal as an introductory guide, or as a reference book for ongoing referral, this quick-to-use and comprehensive guide is fully crossreferenced and complete with suggestions for further reading and exploration, making it an essential resource for anyone looking to extend their understanding of digital practices, techniques and pedagogic concepts.

KEY CONCEPTS

ACCESSIBILITY

In terms of elearning, accessibility generally has two specific meanings. Computer accessibility refers to the usability of a computer system for individual users. This would cover disabilities such as colour blindness, dyslexia, sound impairment and lack of manual dexterity. Web accessibility generally refers to the increasingly common practice of making pages on the internet accessible to all users, regardless of whether they access via a slow modem or a state-of-the-art broadband connection. An example is large files or complex graphics that may be impossible to download without a high-bandwidth connection, resulting in the ‘freezing’ of the system and frustration to the potential user. The key to a consideration of accessibility is to enable users to access information in their own preferred manner, and so this is closely related to the thoughtful design of distributed education. In making computers and the web accessible, careful planning can enhance usability for all users, not just those with specific disabilities. Examples are that some users may prefer text links rather than icons, while the incorporation of sound files to accompany images does not simply benefit users with a visual impairment. The ability for individual users to self-select the level of accessibility required, for example for a colour-blind user to select a particular colour scheme on the screen, is a feature that is increasingly being built into public-access internet sites.

ACTIVE LEARNING

This concept refers to techniques where students do more than simply listen to a lecture. The notion is not new and not a product of elearning. However, it has been given added impetus through elearning, which is strongly associated with many forms of active learning: constructivism, self-directed learning, interaction and those processes which engage the learner in an active rather than passive mode.

Adapting active learning to the online environment usually involves dialogue with the teacher or other learners, observing or taking part in case studies, role plays or simulations. There is often resistance to active learning by students who are accustomed to lectures or students who prefer passive learning. It is important therefore to prepare students by explaining the objectives of active learning and offering support in the initial stages.

ACTIVITY-BASED LEARNING

This is not a precisely defined term and is usually thought of in opposition to passive learning. It marks a shift away from content-based learning which is associated with lectures and some forms of distance education. The underlying theory is that people learn by doing and that experience is the basis of all learning. Allied with the element of activity is the notion of reflection, and together these two components form a cyclic process: action and reflection on action.

AFFORDANCES

The term ‘affordance’ has come to refer to what different technologies offer by way of their specific educational benefits. For example, asynchronous discussion boards allowing learners more time to think and reflect before offering their views, or a visual simulation which allows a learner to study a process or procedure in a more realistic way than static pictures.

However, this general use of the term ‘affordance’ is a problematic one as it assumes the educational benefits that a particular technology might offer are there to be realised by every learner that interacts with that technology. The reality is a more complex one.

The concept of ‘affordances’ was originally conceived by the ecological psychologist James Gibson, in the 1970s. Gibson used the term ‘affordance’ to describe the ‘emergent’ relationship between the individual and the opportunities for action offered by objects in their environment. For example, a pen affording the opportunity to write, but predicated firstly on the individual recognising that the object is indeed a pen and could be used for written communication and, secondly, on the individual having a need to write.

Applying this more nuanced original perspective to educational technologies, we can recognise that an asynchronous discussion board may well offer more time to reflect and debate, leading to deeper learning, and may offer less outgoing learners further time and space to engage with peers. However, this is only so if the learner recognises these features and does not engage with a discussion board for the first time immediately before it closes and when they can, at best, only quickly communicate their own views. Similarly, a visual simulation will offer less to a learner who passively watches or interacts the simulation than to a learner who studies the content of the simulation until they have understood what is depicted.

There is ongoing debate concerning the affordances of educational technologies, and continued variation in whether the term is being used as a general one or being applied more critically in line with Gibson’s original theory (for example, Evans et al., 2017). Arguably, the more useful perspective is of affordances as ‘emergent’ properties, rather than existing simply to be received and experienced. This view also points towards the need to ensure that learners are well supported to understand how to use different technologies effectively for educational purposes, beyond knowing how to operate or interact with them technically.

A more nuanced view of affordances would also acknowledge that learners with specific accessibility requirements are supported, including through assistive technologies, to have a comparable and equitable experience using the same or similar technologies to their peers.

Evans, S. K., Pearce, K. E., Vitak, J. and Treem, J. W. (2017) Explicating Affordances: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Affordances in Communication Research. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 22, pp. 35–52.

AGENT

A particular type of software application designed in such a way that it can take a variety of ‘decisions’ based upon the design constraints of its programmers. Agents have been used to create the appearance of a person with whom the user can have different levels of interaction and carry out a number of basic tasks or enquiries. At least one European university has used a sophisticated agent to create a helpline ‘problem page’ facility by introducing new students to the ‘character’ of their agent who can ‘discuss’ with other students a range of study problems and possible solutions. A measure of the success of this agent is that several students have apparently attempted to date her!

ANDRAGOGY

The theory and practice of helping adults learn (as distinct from pedagogy, which, though widely used in teaching, actually refers specifically to helping children learn). Andragogy explicitly recognises that adults have different skills and experiences than young children, and therefore often require slightly different priorities for learning. The high proportion of adults engaging in online learning frequently encourages a continuum between andragogy and heutagogy, particularly with the growing access to open educational resources on the web.

Leading proponents of andragogy include Malcolm Knowles, who developed a theory of adult learning based on principles such as the need for adult learners to be involved in planning and evaluating their educational activities. Experience and experiential learning as a basis for learning and knowledge development is also important, as is ensuring the relevance of educational activities to the needs and interests of adult learners. In drawing a distinction between andragogy and heutagogy, many theorists and practitioners align andragogy with self-directed learning and heutagogy with self-determined learning.

ANIMATIONS

These are moving drawings that can be used to illustrate sequential stages in a process (e.g. a flow diagram of a project) or give the impression of moving parts (e.g. a schematic diagram of how a car engine operates). Animations can be used in combination with text, sound and hyperlinks to create a rich online learning environment that improves on simple text and/or still photographs on a printed page. Complex or interlinked animations can be used to create a network of special effects that can be used to illustrate events online where video clips are not possible or appropriate. An example of this is the illustration of the geological sequence of the movement of the continents into their present position available at http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0072402466/student_view0/chapter15/animations_and_movies.html#. Animations are created by drawing a series of images of an object and making small changes to each image to simulate movement. The greater the number of individual images to a movement, then the smoother the apparent transition will be. Animations have been used on CDs as a learning resource in distributed education, and as more users gain access to higher bandwidth over the internet (such as broadband) then it becomes easier to incorporate animations in webpages or the managed learning environment (MLE). An obstacle to their use over lower bandwidths is that the large number of images required for very detailed animations produces large, complex files that move very slowly (if at all) on slow data transmission lines. As an example, compare the moving image of Gondwanaland at https://kartoweb.itc.nl/gondwana/gondwana.html. This is a large and complex file, so it will require a fast web access. Animations are ideal for online tuition in subjects such as geology and environmental sciences, where it is impossible to film footage of past events, or for medicine or nuclear science, where it would be dangerous and/or unethical to conduct ‘live’ experiments.

APP

The term ‘app’, an abbreviation of ‘application’, refers to a software programme that is designed to be used on a web enabled device, such as a smartphone or tablet, to perform a specific task or function. The term is also sometimes used to refer to larger, multi-function, end-user software programmes by computer manufacturers. Many apps can be downloaded free, while some need to be purchased from online app stores. There is a vast array of education-related apps freely available to support informal and formal learning or to assist in study-related activities for children, young people and adults. A few illustrative examples of areas of education in which apps are commonly used include: supporting school pupils in learning times-tables, to help college and university students capture and organise reference material, for communications, tracking health and fitness, and for learning new languages.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The ability of a computer system to perform tasks normally associated with a human, such as complicated decision-making, reasoning, and robotics.

ASSESSMENT

A general term for the process used to give a value to a learner’s knowledge and/or progress in attaining relevant skills. We can broadly classify assessments into two types: formative, through which learners can test their understanding of a subject before moving on to other stages; and summative assessments, which will count towards the overall grade or mark obtained by a learner for a particular piece of work. Normally a formative assessment does not count towards a final grade, but rather it gives learners an indication of their progress and level of attainment to allow them to fully form their ideas. Formative assessments may be designated as self-assessment exercises that remain with the learner, or the learner can be required to submit the work to a tutor or perhaps to a discussion board, where it is open to scrutiny by the class. Good practice dictates that assessments should be related to predefined learning outcomes for a module or a particular piece of work. Increasingly, it is common that assessments will also be linked to a pre-agreed marking strategy to enable an audit of the allocation of marks, and this may be shown to learners in advance of attempting the assessment in order to indicate areas of importance.

Due to some of the initial concerns relating to elearning, such as ‘How do we know that the person being assessed is actually doing the assessment?’ it is significant that the standards and controls on elearning assessment have pushed the barriers towards good practice for educational assessments in general. The difficulties of working remotely and with asynchronous access have forced tutors and teachers to be very clear in their instructions to online learners, and to indicate precisely the location of resources, methods of study and expectations of standards. A further concern is that the technology should not become a barrier to learning and should in fact provide additional resources for learners.

It is natural that progressive attempts to develop open learning, and to provide educational resources that allow for more flexible learning, have included a structured re-thinking of assessment techniques to ensure that each assessment actually tests what its designers think that i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of Key concepts
• Preface to the 2019 edition
• Acknowledgements
• INTRODUCTION
• KEY CONCEPTS
• Further resources
• References