Digital Philosophy

(Version II)

My philosophy regarding the application of digital technologies to adult literacy tuition centres around the premise that, while digital technologies can be highly effectively employed in this field, primary outcomes derive from the structure, content, context and instructional strategies of the lesson itself. In other words, the digital technologies are the medium, not the message.  However, having said that, there can be a nevertheless  tangible element present also of the Marshall McLuhan dictum  that in many situations the medium is the message, too (McLuhan, 1964). Basically I feel that most effective results will be achieved with these technologies through application of appropriate balance and context within a student-centred framework of what the intended primary learning goals actually are. In this respect, it is therefore imperative that appropriate initial assessment determines just what exactly the individual learning goals of the students actually are. From those, the extent to which a programme incorporating online technologies may help achieve those goals (and whether digital learning may achieve those goals any better than more conventional, less resource-intensive learning) may be ascertained. As Jenkins (Martin & Madigan, 2006, p.170) asserts, too, for this reason, if digital learning is to be maximised, it is essential that online elements be incorporated into any learning programme at the initial design phase, and not just be ‘tacked-on’ considerations.

According to Bonk and Reynolds , as cited in  Ally (2009. P.1), ‘online learning must create challenging activities that enable learners to link new information to old, acquire meaningful knowledge, and use their metacognitive abilities.’ Ring and Mathieux , as cited in Ally, (2009, p.1), suggest that online learning should have high authenticity, high interactivity, and high collaboration These precepts can hardly be argued with, but equally, in some circumstances the sheer ‘practice & usage’ element of digital technology utilities (with all the implicit literacy and numeracy that is part of that process) will constitute valid and valuable learning in itself. In many cases, then, several learning goals may comfortably co-exist and together constitute all manner of highly effective embedded literacy and numeracy tuition. Creative and positive engagement with digital learning and social media technologies  can lead to many and varied forms of up-skilling - both intended and intended - that can potentially build marketable skills in terms of future possible workplace and educational situations.

Web 2.0 technologies, with their emphasis on sharing, networking, user production, and the like, then, may serve all manner of useful personal imperatives. But in terms of identified learning goals, their usefulness can only be measured to the extent these media help achieve those goals. Simply being engaged with (and perhaps even spectacularly proficient with) these technologies may be meaningless – given the stated intentions of specific learning aspirations – if engagement with these technologies is not necessarily advancing fulfilment of the explicitly identified learning priorities.

References:

Ally, M. (2009) Foundations of educational theory for online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.) The theory and practice of online learning (2^nd ed., pp. 3 – 31). Edmonton, Canada: AU Press, Athabasca University.

Bonk, C. J., & Reynolds, T. H. (1997). Learner-centered Web instruction for higher-order thinking, teamwork, and apprenticeship. In B. H. Khan (Ed.), Web-based instruction (pp. 167-178). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

Jenkins, M. (2006).  Supporting students in e-learning, in Martin, A., & Madigan, D. (Eds.). Digital Literacies for Learning. London: Facet Publishing.

McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: Mentor.