I sure find myself as a teacher and as
individual to be in a digital age. Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube and other
IT-tools are a common in my private life, while learning management systems and
communication tools as Canvas and Zoom are common in the part of my life as a
teacher. However, I’m more a visitor than a resident, using the concepts discussed
in the videos by David White.
As a teacher and educator, I’m interesting
of the process of learning, which in a simplified way can be expressed as
change in mindset or behavior. I believe that many in their role as educators
still focus more on teaching, i.e. being an educator, than focusing on how students
learn (and what principles, methods and tools promoting that). Hence, in this
digital era, I’m curious how digital literacy can support learning.
Therefore,
I’ve enrolled in a course in Open Network Learning (ONL 201), to get the possibility
to apply and reflect upon different aspects of “digital possibilities” in an online
course. Even if the course recently started, and one
out of five topics been discussed, I already see new ways of promote learning
by means of the digital possibilities.
For example, using webinars as a way of
managing courses with students on distance (i.e. students abroad doing their
master theses). Another example is making seminars more interactive via a digital
padlet, used in the introduction lecture (topic 2) by Alastair Creelman and
Kiruthika Raupathi, making the participants to reflect and indirectly create the
design for coming seminars.
However, in parallel to the experiences
mentioned above, I also have a feeling that the digital era/trend is driven by “digital
enthusiasts”, i.e. that focus somewhat more on being digital than how digital
tools support learning. Here a comparison can be made with teaching versus
learning. For example, in one of the webinars several different tools were used,
which to some extent created confusion among the participants. Internal
discussions between the educators were to some part not focused on the
participants’ learning, and simultaneously chatting while having the lecture,
was from my perspective decreasing learning capabilities. Hence, the webinar,
from my perspective, was rather an expression for promoting different IT-tools,
but with no or little connection to learning.
This course is one step of my journey to
more in-depth explore the digital world as an educator. It will be interesting
to know more, and get more experiences during the course, concerning digital tools
and possibilities. However, for me, the core in all type of education is learning, and it will be interesting to learn more
about learning-aspects in the digital era.
