INTRODUCTION
This chapter starts from the premise that any teaching, be it enhanced by digital technologies or not, in order to be effective, i.e. maximise student learning, needs to be based on a principled understanding of learning and on insights from (educational) psychology and learning theory. The aim of this chapter, therefore, is to explore the potential of digital technologies in relation to some of what is known about how we learn as a basis for informed decisions about whether, when and how best to use digital technologies for pedagogical purposes.
In view of the quick pace of change in the world of technologies, their use in educational settings is often predicated on a certain degree of faith in the potential of a particular tool, application or service by âearly adoptersâ, at times with little or no empirical evidence being available and often with too little thought being given to a proper conceptualisation of their affordances in relation to intended learning outcomes. The introduction of interactive whiteboards in recent years in UK schools is a case in point. And there exists a danger that the new wave of mobile technologies will suffer a similar fate. Only after enough schools had purchased and installed interactive whiteboards, often with the expectation that they would increase standards in teaching and learning and improve, develop and enhance effective pedagogy, was and could research aiming to identify and disseminate leading practice in their use be carried out.
The history of technology-enhanced learning is littered with unfulfilled, unrealistic promises and technological fetishisation, a trend Larry Cuban (2001) memorably termed âoversold and underusedâ. There are many reasons for this: the allure of technology as panacea coupled with a persuasive business and industry lobby is one; the level of confidence in using digital technologies on the part of teachers is another, as are access to hardware and the lack of availability of professional development focusing on pedagogical issues. For a detailed discussion of possible barriers, see e.g. Jones, 2004.
Another reason affecting the effectiveness of digital technologies in teaching and learning relates to the limitations of available research. Frequently, given the complexity of variables governing technology use in education, research and evaluation paradigms tend to be âmacrostructuralâ (Cox and Marshall, 2007, p. 60) rather than large-scale and longitudinal.
Cuban, rightly, makes the point that frequently new technologies are introduced into schools without giving enough thought to how best to use them. This is also borne out by research in the UK. Cox and Marshall (2007, p. 65), for example, note that a lack of knowledge of technologies and a lack of confidence are important factors impacting on the effectiveness of technology use in teaching and learning. As a result, technology use often does not bring about significant pedagogical innovation and improvement in the learning experience and outcomes of students. The presence of technology does not in and of itself empower learners; schools and teachers have a crucial role to play. Arguably, use of digital technologies as productivity tools, as opposed to creativity tools, for example the use of interactive whiteboards simply as display technology, is missing the point. Instead of doing new things, it promotes doing old things in new ways (see Noss and Pachler, 1999).
Reflecting on what is known about how pupils learn, coupled with acquiring an in-depth understanding of the affordances of different technologies, are useful strategies when introducing the variable âdigital technologiesâ into already complex processes of teaching and learning, in order to maximise positive impact:
While a study may be able to demonstrate an improvement in a pupil over time, it is very difficult (and sometimes impossible) to determine whether the use of ICT was critical, or played a role in improved attainment because so many other factors will have played a part.... Additionally, ICT provision and use is likely to be very closely related to factors like quality of teaching and learning more generally, pupil characteristics, and quality of school leadership. For these reasons, isolating âICTâ as a separate factor is often not meaningful or desirable, and understanding its links with other factors is a key facet of studying its impact.
(Pittard et al., 2003, p. 4)
As its title suggests, this chapter focuses on a discussion of theories of and perspectives on learning; the affordances of technology can only be sketched out here in an indicative manner due to a lack of space.
Conole and Dyke (2004), for example, list the following features: accessibility; speed of change; diversity; communication and collaboration; reflection; multimodality and nonlinearity; risk, fragility and uncertainty; immediacy; monopolisation; surveillance â all of which, they argue, can help to inform practitioners in their use of specific technologies. Fisher, Higgins and Loveless (2006, pp. 20â1) articulate the affordances of technology in the context of teacher learning as clusters of purposeful activities (see Table 1.1), which appear to have great transfer value to student learning.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this chapter you should have an awareness of:
- some of the claims made about the potential of digital technologies for learning;
- dominant theories and conceptualisations of learning and their implications for the use of digital technologies;
- criteria for the selection and effective use of technological tools and services in teaching and learning.
WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES FOR LEARNING?
Technology can be seen to possess potential, for example, to liberate users from routine tasks and empower them to focus on creative and cognitive, rather than procedural, aspects of tasks such as writing. It also makes available vast amounts of information, the ability to produce and disseminate such information and not just use and consume it. It enables networking and immersion in virtual worlds and much more.
These and other possibilities are, however, not unproblematic, as they can be seen, potentially at least, to deprive learners of real, first-hand (multi-sensory) experiences at the cost of simulations and models. Also, the quality of an artefact can easily become more important than the processes involved in creating it or the quantity of information can easily be misconstrued for quality of experience (see Bonnett, 1997).
In short, the potential of digital technologies and their affordances for learning in formal contexts frequently need to be harnessed by teachers, as often, and the work of Charles Crook (2012) exemplifies this clearly, tensions exist between the cultural and media practices of young people in everyday life and those valorised by the socio-cultural settings of schools.
Angela McFarlane (2001, p. 230) provides a number of reasons why a systematic engagement with technology is valuable and important. She abstracts the following generic traits and specific educational benefits of technologies from research such as:
- learner enthusiasm;
- learner confidence;
- cognitive processing speed;
- concentration;
- range of writing forms used;
- quality of revisions to writing;
- spelling, and presentation in writing;
- speed of learning;
- information handling skill;
- critical thinking;
- ability to organise and classify information;
- improved reading and comprehension;
- learner autonomy, leading to improved motivation and improved learning;
- transformed power relationships in learning, leading to benefits for the learner.
One of the key claims normally made in similar lists is that of technology promoting âinteractivityâ. Beauchamp and Kennewell (2010, p. 760) define interactivity as âthe ability to respond contingently to the learnerâs actionsâ and view it in terms of âthe orchestration of features of the classroom to provide potential and structure for action towards learning goalsâ. Interestingly, in their research they found that the nature of interactivity in whole-class teaching, i.e. the types of studentâteacher interactions (e.g. exposition, types of questioning [funnelling, probing, uptake], collective reflection, etc.), appeared to be more important in bringing about learning than the use of technology. They ascribe this to a lack of dialogic interaction, which â with reference to Robin Alexander (2004) â they characterise as collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative, purposeful and as developing meaning through voicing multiple perspectives around educational uses of technologies, which â for them â leads to greater understanding of ideas. They focused in particular on interactive whiteboards in their work and conclude that expertise in the orchestration of resources such as digital technologies is key. Specifically, they argue for a shift from educational uses of technologies as âobjects of participationâ to âtools for conducting interactionâ.
Task 1.1 Using technology to foster interactivity
With reference to an aspect of your subject specialism, how can digital technologies be used as a âtool for conducting interactionâ? Then, consider some of the tools you have used in your own learning or in your teaching and evaluate them in terms of their potential for fostering interaction.
However, a tendency to perceive the value of digital technologies in terms of a transmission and delivery model still prevails rather widely. The fields of e-learning and mobile learning are cases in point. E-learning discourses can be dominated by discussions about often static learning resources as an embodiment of content to be taught and learnt, of the storage of, and access to content in online repositories; in relatively emancipated perspectives on e-learning such content is user-generated but the focus is still on content. For a critical discussion of e-learning, see Pachler and Daly, ...
