Digital natives and digital media in the college classroom: assignment design and impacts on student learning

The use of multimodal learning techniques is becoming more widespread, however, the pedagogical discourse surrounding its implementation into classroom and course design is complicated as these technologies are either demonized or viewed as the panacea for curriculum ills. Educators are faced with unique challenges when investigating how to experiment with the best ways to produce classroom experiences that use digital media. This case study examines the implementation challenges and learning outcomes related to such an experiment by reviewing and assessing the use of digital media in a health communication course, specifically through the development of documentaries. Creating an effective assignment requires addressing the development of technical skills along with course content and providing guidance and feedback throughout a semester-long project. Creating an effective assignment is pointless without sufficient learning outcomes. Because this assignment engaged students with both the course content and digital media, their learning experiences were enhanced and improved their group collaboration, critical thinking and media literacy skills.     

Mobilizing learning resources in a transnational classroom: translocal and digital resources in a community technology center

Drawing from transnational and activity theory frameworks, this study analyzes the ways translocal flows shape learning in a community technology center serving adult immigrants in the US Southwest. It also explores students' constructions of the transnational nature of the courses they took, where they had access to both online and face-to-face instruction. Findings describe the ways transnational flows shaped relationships between elements in the classroom activity system – in particular, the framing of the online platform as a mediating tool and object of instruction, the roles in the division of labor for local tutors, and the students' construction of remote and local support. Pedagogical implications for adult immigrant education supported by translocal online resources are discussed.     

The building blocks of digital media literacy: socio-material participation and the production of media knowledge

This article outlines the knowledge and skills students develop when they engage in digital media production and analysis in school settings. The metaphor of ‘digital building blocks’ is used to describe the material practices, conceptual understandings and production of knowledge that lead to the development of digital media literacy. The article argues that the two established approaches to media literacy education, critical reading and media production, do not adequately explain how students develop media knowledge. It suggests there has been too little focus on material practices and how these relate to the development of conceptual understanding in media learning. The article explores empirical evidence from a four-year investigation in a primary school in Queensland, Australia using actor–network theory to explore ‘moments of translation’ as students deploy technologies and concepts to materially participate in digital culture. A generative model of media learning is presented with four categories of building blocks that isolate the specific skills and knowledge that can be taught and learnt to promote participation in digital media contexts: digital materials, conceptual understandings, media production and media analysis. The final section of the article makes initial comments on how the model might become the basis for curriculum development in schools and argues that further empirical research needs to occur to confirm the model’s utility.     

Improvization and strategic risk-taking in informal learning with digital media literacy

The city provides a rich array of learning opportunities for young children. However, in many urban schools, often it can be logistically difficult to get young children out of the building. But when elementary children are encouraged to view the city as a classroom and use digital media to explore and represent their neighborhoods, they can be inspired by the unpredictable events of daily life to ask naïve, critical and sometimes troubling questions. This paper presents a case study of a teacher in an informal media literacy learning environment who worked with a group of 9-year olds in Philadelphia. It documents the experience of a novice teacher who, flummoxed by an accidental encounter between her students and a homeless person, transformed an uncomfortable experience into a teachable moment. Children's questions about homelessness became the organizing frame for learning experience, as the instructor helped children make sense of the information on the Internet, analyze popular culture films and news media, and conduct interviews with community leaders and advocates for the homeless. The inquiry process resulted in a collaboratively produced multimedia project, created by children. The case study has implications for pre- and in-service teacher education for digital and media literacy. This paper suggests that improvization and strategic risk-taking must be conceptualized as a set of socio-emotional and experiential competencies that teachers need when using digital media in an urban community as a tool for learning.     

ICT tools in environmental education: reviewing two newcomers to schools

United Nations of Education Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO’s) founding statements about environmental education (EE) in the 1970s positioned it as a multidisciplinary field of inquiry. When enacted as such, it challenges traditional ways of organising secondary school education by academic subject areas. Equally, according to UNESCO, EE requires various forms of integrated and project-based teaching and learning approaches. These can involve hands-on experimentation alongside the retrieval and critical analysis of information from diverse sources and perspectives, and with different qualities and statuses. Multidisciplinary and knowledge engagement challenges are key considerations for an EE curriculum designed to harness information and communication technologies (ICT) to support and enhance student learning, which also challenge traditional instructional priorities that for example are largely based on textbooks. This review summarises research that has sought to integrate ICT and digital tools in EE. A key finding is that while there is a rich variety of such tools and applications available, there is far less research on their fit with and implications for student learning. The review calls for further studies that will provide models of productive forms of teaching and learning that harness ICT resources, particularly in developing the goals and methodologies of EE in the twenty-first century.     

In defence of writing: a social semiotic perspective on digital media,literacy and learning

From a learning perspective, social semiotics researchers tend to focus on the liberation latent in the multimedia options available through the new media. It is true that digital media democratise the possibilities open to the general public of a more varied and comprehensive text production than ever before, both in and outside school. Participating in this text production naturally implies a richer potential for learning. But digital technology also allows us to opt out of, and thus avoid, semiotic work. With this as the starting point, the present article sets out to highlight the pedagogical benefits associated with the written mode, precisely in an age when the digital media are making multimodal forms of expression increasingly available to us all.     

Using online technologies to extend a classroom to learners at a distance

The authors studied a course in which an instructor allowed individuals at a distance to participate. Although these students were not formally enrolled in the university where the class took place, the instructor gave them full access to all course materials and encouraged them to complete course assignments. The authors examined the time and technical proficiency required to involve learners at a distance. We surveyed these learners to determine their perceptions of the course and examined their work. Learners at a distance reported receiving some benefit from the course, particularly in terms of learner–content interaction. We surveyed students in the face‐to‐face classroom to determine whether having students participating at a distance in the same class affected their perception of the course. They reported no impact. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed.     

自我决定学习教育学与数字媒体网络:引领学生踏上终身学习之旅

以学习者为中心的教学和泛在技术在课堂上的使用相结合,这种趋势给教师提供了支持学生掌握终身学习技能的独一无二机会。自我决定学习教育学(也称为"自我决定学习")则为如何利用这些发展趋势提供了一个很有应用前景的框架,因为它是建立在非常强调学习者自主的公认教育理论基础上的。自我决定学习教育学的主要原则包括学习者能动性、自我效能感和才能、反思和元认知,以及非线性学习。这些原则是设计和发展学习生态的基础,而数字媒体的使用则能够进一步使学习生态潜能得到最大限度发挥。本文介绍了自我决定学习教育学理论和这个理论赖以建立的以学习者为中心的各种教育理论,阐述普通教育学-成人教育学-自我决定学习教育学(PAH)这个渐变过程以及如何利用其培养学生技能。文章还探讨了社交媒体在支持培养这些技能上的作用。     

Double-edged sword: social media use in the classroom

The purpose of this research is to identify the students’ perceptions of social media use in a classroom setting. Knowing students’ perceptions of social media can help the instructor build a course that both student and teacher can find effective. Using focus groups this study found a model to determine if social media is an appropriate or inappropriate tool to incorporate into the classroom. The findings showed that social media can be a double-edged sword. Students are willing to accept social media use for class purposes under circumstances they perceive as appropriate. Students deem social media use as appropriate if it can be used without providing personal information, is the most effective tool available, can be engaged in voluntarily, is used for the purpose of announcements, and is perceived by the students as a convenience.     

项目化教学在数字媒体技术专业课程中的应用

项目化教学方式是在数字媒体技术作为一门新兴学科越来越受到各大院校的重视后,为了使学生能够更好地掌握这门注重应用性和实际操作能力的学科,应运而生的一种先进的教学方式。     

数字媒体技术专业课程体系的改革与实践

数字媒体技术专业是以数字媒体、网络技术相融合的一个新兴的学科领域。针对数字媒体专业建设中课程设置存在的问题,结合目前国内部分高校数字媒体专业课程体系结构,以及在数字媒体教学上的实践,从数字媒体技术专业建设目标的确定、课程体系的建设、专业实验室的建设、教材体系的建设等方面进行了探讨,并取得了阶段性的成果。     

Creativity through a rhetorical lens: implications for schooling,literacy and media education

This article, which is speculative in outlook and emerges from an extended literature review on this subject, takes as its basic premise the notion that the idea of ‘creativity’– whether in relation to literacy, schooling or the economy, is constructed as a series of rhetorical claims. These rhetorics of creativity emerge from the contexts of research, theory, policy and practice. Initially, we distinguish 10 rhetorics, which are described in relation to the philosophical or political traditions from which they spring. The discussion then focuses on four rhetorics – play, technology, politics/democracy and the creative classroom – which have most relevance for understandings of literacies and the way in which these are nurtured, encouraged and expressed in different social settings. This article aims to summarise the rhetorics and their major concerns, while considering how selected ones might apply to an instance of media literacy. Key questions addressed in this article ask whether creativity is more usefully understood as an internal cognitive function or an external cultural phenomenon; whether it is a ubiquitous human activity or a special faculty; whether it is necessarily ‘pro‐social’ or should be dissident; and what the implications of a culturalist social psychological approach to creativity might be for analyses of the media literacy of children and young people.     

Socioscientific issues via controversy mapping: bringing actor-network theory into the science classroom with digital technology

ABSTRACT

What are the current challenges and opportunities for bringing actor-network theory (ANT) into issues-based science education? This article discusses experiences gained from introducing an educational version of ANT deploying digital technology into an upper secondary school science class. This teaching innovation, called controversy mapping, has been pioneered in different contexts of higher education before being adapted to school education. Experimenting with controversy mapping in a Swedish science class raised both conceptual and practical issues. These centre on: (1) how ANT-inspired controversy mapping redesigns the citizenship training enacted by institutionalized approaches to issues-based education as socioscientific issues (SSI); (2) how controversy mapping reconfigures the interdisciplinarity of issues-based science education; and (3) how controversy mapping displaces scientific literacy and knowledge of the nature of science as guiding concerns for teaching in favour of new preoccupations with digital literacy and digital tools and methods as contemporary infrastructures of free and open inquiry.     

Flipped anatomy classroom integrating multimodal digital resources shows positive influence upon students' experience and learning performance

Anatomy is shifting toward a greater focus on adopting digital delivery. To advance digital and authentic learning in anatomy, a flipped classroom model integrating multimodal digital resources and a multimedia group assignment was designed and implemented for first-year neuroanatomy and third-year regional anatomy curricula. A five-point Likert scale learning and teaching survey was conducted for a total of 145 undergraduate health science students to evaluate students' perception of the flipped classroom model and digital resources. This study revealed that over two-thirds of participants strongly agreed or agreed that the flipped classroom model helped their independent learning and understanding of difficult anatomy concepts. The response showed students consistently enjoyed their experience of using multimodal digital anatomy resources. Both first-year (75%) and third-year (88%) students strongly agreed or agreed that digital tools are very valuable and interactive for studying anatomy. Most students strongly agreed or agreed that digital anatomy tools increased their learning experience (~80%) and confidence (> 70%). The third-year students rated the value of digital anatomy tools significantly higher than the first-year students (p = 0.0038). A taxonomy-based assessment strategy revealed that the third-year students, but not the first-year, demonstrated improved performance in assessments relating to clinical application (p = 0.045). In summary, a flipped anatomy classroom integrating multimodal digital approaches exerted positive impact upon learning experience of both junior and senior students, the latter of whom demonstrated improved learning performance. This study extends the pedagogy innovation of flipped classroom teaching, which will advance future anatomy curriculum development, pertinent to post-pandemic education.     

The physical placement of classroom technology and its influences on educational practices

The purpose of this study was to gain deeper insights into how technology restructures the classroom as a spatial setting and how the positioning of these technologies can be associated with educational practices. The research includes a photographic and schematic representation of 115 classrooms in 12 primary schools in Belgium, resulting in a typology based on structural features of the classrooms. Based on the typology derived and the specific positioning of technology, nine teachers were purposefully selected and interviewed regarding their perceptions concerning the link between the use of technology and the classroom layout. The results indicate that (1) the positioning of technology can be related to specific types of technology use; (2) the classroom layout is in transition from one central display to multiple screens; and (3) because of physical access to technology, the educational practice of individual classes is spatially dispersed over different locations within the school.     

The effects of room design on computer-supported collaborative learning in a multi-touch classroom

While research indicates that technology can be useful for supporting learning and collaboration, there is still relatively little uptake or widespread implementation of these technologies in classrooms. In this paper, we explore one aspect of the development of a multi-touch classroom, looking at two different designs of the classroom environment to explore how classroom layout may influence group interaction and learning. Three classes of students working in groups of four were taught in the traditional forward-facing room condition, while three classes worked in a centered room condition. Our results indicate that while the outcomes on tasks were similar across conditions, groups engaged in more talk (but not more off-task talk) in a centered room layout, than in a traditional forward-facing room. These results suggest that the use of technology in the classroom may be influenced by the location of the technology, both in terms of the learning outcomes and the interaction behaviors of students. The findings highlight the importance of considering the learning environment when designing technology to support learning, and ensuring that integration of technology into formal learning environments is done with attention to how the technology may disrupt, or contribute to, the classroom interaction practices.     

‘Baddies’ in the classroom: media education and narrative writing

When teachers allow students to write stories that include elements of popular media, we must ask what to do with these media elements once they have entered the classroom. This article relates findings from a classroom study focusing on children's media‐based story writing. The study looks at children as producers of new media texts and describes their activities as a form of ‘media education’. The data show that through their production of media‐based stories, the children are reflecting on their consumption of media. Furthermore, the children's media‐based stories make explicit some of their implicit knowledge of new media forms. Lastly, the children's stories provide ample opportunities for teachers to engage in important discussions about media within the framework of existing writing programmes.     

Pedagogy in the multimodal classroom: an analysis of the challenges and opportunities for teachers

Contemporary commentary notes that students are frequently ahead of their teachers in their ability to manipulate and be creative with the internet, digital programs, and mobile technology. In this context it is important to ask, ‘What knowledge do teachers need to teach in the contemporary context where texts are elaborately multimodal, constructed not just of print but of image, sound, and movement?’ This paper proposes some signposts to assist teachers with navigating in this environment. Using teachers’ and researchers’ reflections on practices in a diverse range of settings, both primary and secondary, the analysis explicates the challenges that teachers face in this multimodal context and elucidates some ways they can effectively operate within it. In particular, it argues that it is teachers’ expertise as analysts and critics of texts that needs to guide their planning and teaching in this ‘new’ text world.     

Exploring strategies of teaching and classroom practices in response to challenges of inclusion in a Thai school: a case study

The shift from special schools towards inclusive education is becoming increasingly prevalent across education systems around the world. However, the challenges this shift brings remain critical for developing nations where there is a huge chasm between policies and practices. This study used instrumental case study design to examine how a general education teacher strategised her teaching and classroom practices while accommodating a student with complex learning and behavioural disabilities within a regular classroom. Data collected through observations, in depth interviews and reflective journals suggested that the teacher made conscious efforts within limited resources to create strategies to help the student fit in the mainstream classroom. The strategies are discussed under socio-emotional, cognitive and physical categories. Implications for teachers' professional development are discussed.     

Teacher facilitating of group learning in science with digital technology and insights into students’ agency in learning to learn

ABSTRACT

The study provides an insight into how teachers may facilitate students’ group learning in science with digital technology, which was examined when Norwegian lower secondary school students engaged in learning concepts of mitosis and meiosis. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of the teacher’s assistance draw on Galperin’s conceptualisation of learning.

Findings reveal patterns in the teacher’s guidance: the teacher fulfilled the orienting, executive and controlling functions while assisting students in identifying the key features of mitosis and meiosis and solving the compare and contrast task. The teacher relied on and interplayed with the available mediational resources: compare and contrast task, digital animations, and collaborating peers. However, it was the compare and contrast task that demonstrated an approach to study scientific concepts which may have contributed to the development of learners’ understanding about to engage in learning in science. By adopting such an approach, learning activity has the potential to not only help students to achieve learning outcomes but it acquires a functional significance, becoming a tool in the learning process aimed at the development of students’ as learners. The digital animations, in turn, demonstrated scientific processes that were otherwise invisible for students and triggered group discussions. The study, therefore, raises questions about the need for practitioners’ awareness of the type of support the technology and other resources provide to assist both conceptual learning and enhancing students’ agency in learning to learn.