Teaching and Learning in a Digital World

 Digital Fluency

Written summation: Digital Fluency

The concept of digital fluency is a combination of digital proficiency, literacy and social competence. It involves being able to comprehensively use technologies, construct and assess technical skills and have the ability to have effective communication skills and relate to others (Spencer, 2017). It is often thought of as displaying a great deal of confidence in using a digital application.

We are all constantly participating in a digitally enabled educational environment, and the way we use technologies reflect on the opportunities it creates for us in many different aspects, particularly in education. An example model by Noel Burch relating to digital fluency is the hierarchy of competence containing four stages; unconscious incompetence – wrong intuition, conscious incompetence – wrong analysis, conscious competence – right analysis and unconscious competence – right intuition (Spencer, 2017). This describes the levels at which an individual can know what they are doing with the tools being selected, explain their working methods of doing things and think further into what techniques they might use if changes were to occur.

Building Technology Fluency

Three strategies for building technology fluency include flipping your lessons, creating scaffolded challenges and future forward learning (Holland, 2017).

Flip your lessons: Teachers get students to study given content at their own pace, in their chosen environment to own their learning progress and take initiative.

Create scaffolded challenges: Providing instructions in parts rather than in full; either by face-to-face contact or through an online platform. This allows the student to have enough content to begin the given task at hand, but work independently to finish it on his or her own.

Future forward learning: Technology fluency exceeds beyond apps, devices and programs. Students can form quick collaboration and communicate effectively amongst a wide range of media platforms. Encouraging students to become digital learners allows them to have more innovative ideas and solve issues in a more creative manner.

References

Spencer, K. (2017). What is digital fluency?. Blog.core-ed.org. Retrieved 28 April 2017, from http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2015/10/what-is-digital-fluency.html

Holland, B. (2017). Building Technology Fluency: Preparing Students to be Digital Learners. Edutopia. Retrieved 28 April 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/building-tech-fluency-digital-learners-beth-holland

Transmedia

Audio summation: Transmedia

Follow the link below to an audio recording of the topic ‘Transmedia’:

Below is the script to my Soundcloud audio recording:

Transmedia is a form of “storytelling” that consists of two main aspects; across a variety of story spaces, it is essential for the key parts of the story to remain consistent, and the reader must engage in active participation. Transmedia in education encourages an influential connection with content being provided from the educator to the student, encouraging them to comprehend content more effectively and perform to their highest potential in their learning experiences.

An example of Transmedia in education is the digital story of Inanimate Alice. This story introduces a girl named Alice who is “born digitally”; conceived, written and created completely digitally (Kopka, & Hobbs, 2014). This combines the use of sounds, images, text and games as the elements that conduct her life story, leading the media platforms to become part of the story itself.

 Transmedia and Interactive Literature

Due to the fast growing rate of new technology and digital devices, it is becoming more difficult for teachers to promote creativity and innovation in how they maintain a high student involvement in the classroom. Transmedia encourages interaction with their teacher and other students to collaborate in a dynamic learning environment; promoting diversity, a variety of learning styles and bringing more value to each individual‘s learning experience (Kopka, & Hobbs, 2014). Through Transmedia, students and educators gain a greater knowledge of different technological platforms to improve the overall educational experience.

Students can use Transmedia through a variation of digital platforms including interactive websites, software, applications and games (Kopka, & Hobbs, 2014). Being involved in interactive learning is beneficial not only to widen their brainpower for the current task at hand, but also to gain more knowledge to prepare for their future pathways in education.

7 Principles of Transmedia Education

There are seven principles in which Transmedia education is lead by including spread ability vs drill ability, continuity vs multiplicity, immersion vs extraction, world building, seriality, subjectivity and performance (Jenkins, 2017).

More information on the 7 Transmedia principles: http://henryjenkins.org/2010/06/transmedia_education_the_7_pri.html

References

Kopka, S., & Hobbs, R. (2014). Transmedia & Education: Using Transmedia in the Classroom with a Focus on Interactive Literature. sekopka. Retrieved 1 May 2017, from https://sekopka.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/transmedia-education-using-transmedia-in-the-classroom-with-a-focus-on-interactive-literature/

Jenkins, H. (2017). Transmedia Education: the 7 Principles Revisited. Henryjenkins.org. Retrieved 1 May 2017, from http://henryjenkins.org/2010/06/transmedia_education_the_7_pri.html

What is a Digital World?

Visual summation: What is a Digital World?

Check out my Sway link below on ‘What is a Digital World’:

https://sway.com/s/YPZRsriH46oPd2cv/embed

References

IGI Global. (2017). What is Digital World | IGI Global. Igi-global.com. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from http://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/digital-world/42218

The ACMAA. (2017). Our role in your digital world | ACMA. Acma.gov.au. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from http://www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/our-role-in-your-digital-world

Thomson, S. (2015). “Australian Students in a Digital World” by Sue Thomson. Research.acer.edu.au. Retrieved 2 May 2017, from http://research.acer.edu.au/policyinsights/3/

Final reflection

We live in a digital world where technology is advancing at a constant growth rate, making it challenging for education to keep up and create innovative ways to keep students engagement levels high. Throughout the process of my summations I have come to the conclusion that the use of WordPress, Sway and Sound cloud has helped me to gain a deeper understanding of how technological platforms play a significant role in educational purposes; both in the classroom and at home. Teaching and learning in the digital world involves a healthy balance of human interaction and skill sets, combined with the use of technological platforms/devices to help enhance the overall learning experience.

In my opinion, I believe blogging programs, WordPress in particular, would be an effective learning tool for students as it allows them to express themselves and their opinions in a natural and artistic manner, boosting their creativity and encouraging sharing their content with others to increase collaboration. Throughout my website experience, I learned to use programs I have used before in a different way and new programs that I were unfamiliar with.

For my audio summation using Sound cloud for a different purpose other than music was new to me, but I was impressed by the impact it had adding creativity to a simple blog just by using my voice. The most challenging part was learning how to use Sway for my visual summation. I had never used this program previously, therefore I found it time consuming yet interesting to learn and found that it is an effective presentation tool, especially to be used in a teaching environment. Overall, I found this experience enjoyable and challenging as I was faced with using new software/programs, promoting my creativity and learning new things about teaching and learning in the digital world.