The Topic:
Digital Pedagogy
An Investigation into digital literacy and its significance for improving teaching and learning outcomes.
The tools and spaces to be used:
Weebly – a web building site will be the host for embedding a range of tools enabling the essay to be presented in a manner that can be read traditionally in a long-form style, or through a multimedia offering that would be a connected series of offerings on the various aspects of this topic. Each offering would equate to a paragraph within the long-form option.
Rationale:
Contemporary educators should embrace C21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn (Bellanca & Brandt, 2010), and the 21st Century Fluency Project (Crockett, Jukes, & Churches, 2011) in order to create the best learning outcomes for their students.
Information and Communication Technology skills and devices supporting them have been available long enough to be moving long the slope of enlightenment in Gartner’s Hype Cycle (Sharples, et al., 2013). However, the spread of teaching practices considered in the light of the Revised Technology Adoption Life Cycle (Moore, 2002, p. 17) is increasing, and the chasm between Innovators, Early Adopters and Early Majority teachers and the rest of their peers shows no sign of being reduced. This ‘Great Divide’ is a critical pedagogical concern raised in http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/msimkin/2014/03/20/knowledge-searching-and-understanding-a-starting-point/ .
Today, access to quality free and open access resources to support Australian classrooms is easy. Such resources are a pressing reason to get more teachers on board with C21st skills. The work of Conole (Conole, 2012) highlights the importance of the design process for improved learning outcomes, and offers suggestions for how this can be achieved.
The worth of investing in redesigned curriculum to incorporate these skills will be outlined. Links will be prvided to examples, suggestions and evidence of improved learning to support the contention that digital pedagogy is vital, vibrant and able to be implemented now. Literacy is Not Enough (Crockett, Jukes, & Churches, 2011) highlights the dimensions added by utilising the power of interconnections afforded by the Internet for life long learning.
References
Will be based on such titles as:
Bellanca, J., & Brandt, R. (Eds.). (2010). 21st Century Skills: rethinking How Students Learn. Bloomington, United States. Retrieved April 2014
Brabazon, T., Dear, Z., Greene, G., & Purdy, A. (2009). Why the Google Generation Will Not Speak: The Invention of Digital Natives. Nebula, 163-181. Retrieved April 16, 2014, from http://www.iiav.nl/ezines/IAV_607294/IAV_607294_2010_3/BDGP.pdf
Conole, G. (2012). Designing for Learning in an Open World. New York, United States of America: Springer. Retrieved April 2014
Crockett, L., Jukes, I., & Churches, A. (2011). Literacy is Not Enough, 21st-Century Fluencies for the Digital Age. Corwin. Retrieved from http://www.fluency21.com
M. (2014, January 5). Digital Literacy, Social Networking, Blogs, Wikis, Social Bookmarking. Retrieved March 23, 2014, from M’s Multimedia Blog: http://cbltmultimedia.wordpress.com/2014/01/05/digital-literacy-communities-of-practice-and-social-media/
Moore, G. A. (2002). Crossing the Chasm; Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers (Revised ed.). New York, United States: Harper Collins. Retrieved May 2, 2014
Pang, A. (2008). Knowledge Tools for the Future. Retrieved March 2014, 2014, from Institute For The Future: http://www.iftf.org/our-work/people-technology/technology-horizons/knowledge-tools-of-the-future
Sharples, M., McAndrew, P., Weller, M., Ferguson, R., Fitzgerald, E., Histr, T., & Gaved, M. (2013). Innovating Pedagogy Report 2013; Open University Innovation Report 2. Retrieved March 15, 2014, from Open Access UK: http://www.open.ac.uk/personalpages/mike.sharples/Reports/Innovating_Pedagogy_report_2013.pdf
Weinberger, D. (2011). Too Big To Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That The Facts Aren’t Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, And The Smartest Person In The Room Is The Room. New York, New York, United States Of America: Basic Books.
Margaret Simkin 