How technology has changed the way we learn

Technology has had no impact whatsoever on learning. 

Nonsense, right? 

Perhaps a tad overstated but there is a serious point to make here.

The proliferation of digital technologies - manifesting as both consumer Tech and specialist EdTech - in classrooms, lecture theaters, seminar rooms and student bedrooms is undeniable, but is the perceived positive impact of technology on teaching and learning equally self-evident? 

Absolutely not. 

The factors that make for effective teaching and learning environments, (rather like the factors governing productivity in earning environments) are independent of the Tech itself. Technology is only ever ultimately a tool to support - or thwart - core educational activities.  

So what are the core activities of education and how does Tech and EdTech really impact on them? 

The Sutton Trust  according to Coe, Aloisi, Higgins and Major (2014) sums up the six key factors neatly: content knowledge, quality of instruction, classroom climate, classroom behaviour, educator beliefs, professional values. I’d sum this up as something like, The subject knowledge and pedagogical expertise of educators in the cultural context of the learning environment. 

Technology has a greater or lesser part to play in each of these domains.  

The educational modes that underpin learning are fundamentally unchanged since Plato sat upon Socrates’ metaphorical knee and noted down their dialogic investigations into the nature of truth (Knezic, Wubbels and Hajer, 2010); after all, truths written in vegetable inks on papyrus have the same empirical status as HD video streamed over a 3G network. 

The most important question was always, ‘What is the truth?’ 

The truth is, as William Gibson (1999) famously said, “the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” Technology has a greater or lesser effect on learning depending on how, and whether, it is systematically and effectively applied to each of the learning domains. Sometime it is; often not.  

Take content knowledge. Is it ostensibly, a valuable opportunity to draw on the number-crunching potential of server farms handling petabytes (approximately one thousand terabytes of storage or memory) of enriched data (McKenna, 2014)? 

Perhaps. 

Most educators and students use internet research as their first resort. Google is a verb. However, the vast majority of human knowledge is simply not online, nor ever will be. Also, search engine algorithms are not written, managed and modified for academic use ( McClellan, Jacko, Sainfort and Johnson, 2012); far from it. 

Arguably, the preeminence of the internet search for research - the terms are now effectively coterminous -  has actually narrowed the range and quality of material that educators and students use in building their own content knowledge. Couple that with the disparity in individuals’ digital literacy and you have a method of questionable value.  

Or, consider the learning environment itself. For 10 years, we have seen the growth of VLEs which promote the use of blended learning activities, (these substitute virtual learning environments for real-world ones.) (Henderson, 2014). But how effective are they really? 

Like students, who require expertly differentiated learning experiences for maximum progress, educators are all individuals (Henderson, 2014). The top-down imposition of VLE systems on academic institutions is generally characterised by Gibson’s uneven distribution as individual educators with varying degrees of technological expertise, time and resilience to change struggle to fit their courses into the VLE. 

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Technology has changed the ways we learn though not how we learn. Technology is just as, or more, likely to impact on learning negatively as positively.     

Refs:

Coe, R., Aloisi, C., Higgins, S. and Major, L.E., 2014. What makes great teaching? Review of educational research. [pdf] Sutton Trust. Available at: < http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/What-makes-great-teaching-FINAL-4.11.14.> [Accessed 06 December 2014].

Gibson, W., 1999. The shape of things to come. Interviewed bu Anne Simon [radio] NPR Radio, 30 November 1999, 12:00 AMET

Henderson, B., 2013. What does a petabyte look like? [online] Computerweekly.com. Available at: http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/What-does-a-petabyte-look-like [Accessed 06 December 2014].

Henderson, G., 2014. Learning Platforms: Over 10yrs of VLEs, MLEs, Learning Platforms and still no joy! Thoughts on Education and Technology [blog] 2 November , Available at: < http://educationandtechnology.me/?author=2> [Accessed 06 December 2014].

Knezic, D., Wubbels, T. and Hajer, M., 2010. The Socratic dialogue and teacher education. Teaching and teacher education, 26 (4), pp1104-1111.

McClellan, M.aA., Jacko, J.A., Sainfort, F. and Johnson., 2012. Social networks and social media. In J.A. Jacko, ed. 2012. Human computer interaction handbook: Fundamentals, evolving technologies and emerging applications. Florida: CRC Press. Ch.61