Module EDUC59330: 21st Century Technology: Implications for Teaching and Learning

Department: Education

EDUC59330: 21st Century Technology: Implications for Teaching and Learning

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• This module offers a theoretical and research-based perspective on the pedagogic and educational implications of 21st Century technologies.It does so by focusing on four main themes with their indicative context in relation to the sessions in the schedule:
• Theme One: Understanding the Educational Use of Technology: The past and the future
• Theme Two: Understanding Users of the Educational Technology: Pedagogy and the Personal in Learning and Education
• Theme Three: Teachers, Teaching and Technology: Beliefs & Practices
• Theme Four: The Curriculum & Assessment: Disrupting Practices or Disrupting Assumptions?

Content

• It is perhaps unsurprising that the development of sophisticated and powerful forms of computer-mediated communication particularly over the last decade has been viewed with a mixture of both alarm and excitement in education. To some it holds out the promise of a more democratic and liberated way of life serving the development and interests of the individual above those of political and economic systems. Others anticipate that educational improvements and associated economic advantage will flow naturally from its use. Some express anxieties that it will provide the state with enhanced means of surveillance and control. Yet others fear that it threatens the destruction of established national cultures by exposing them to external, possibly uncontrollable, conflicting value systems. Some anticipate that the technology will digitally divide even further the haves and the have-nots of the world. Parents often feel under pressure to acquire this technology in the interests of their children's education, as if the technology were a proxy for their child’s prospects in general, a failure to invest implying that either they are somehow neglectful, or their child’s education will be irrevocably damaged, much as a train leaving the station and children forever running to keep up and board.
• Governments and commercial enterprises in many countries have embraced existing and new technology for educational purposes, have invested in it very significantly and therefore expect 'results'. Educators – teachers, teacher educators, learning assistants and developers - have often felt coerced into applying the technology within their institutions either by moral or direct pressure to do so. Modern digital technology, therefore, is both a product and a (re) producer of its time. Knowledge of its development is important in understanding the reasons for its enthusiastic take-up in some areas and for the way it is resisted or absent in others. Moreover, it is not enough to argue that educators should or should not embrace this technology since this is likely to be influenced by the expectations of their employers, the culture or climate of their organisation, department or school and by wider historical, political and cultural factors as well as by their own previous experience, training and personal history.

Learning Outcomes

• To understand the historical trajectory of technology in society and employ critical perspectives on the possible arcs of learning technology in the future;
• To have a critical understanding of the justifications of investment in technology in society, for reasons of economic development, equity, educational achievement, social progress and inclusion;
• To understand critically the contexts and circumstances in which learners use, fashion and shape technology within learning environments;
• To have an understanding of the impediments and affordances concerning adoption of technology in educational settings;
• To have a critical understanding of pedagogical and technical tensions inherent in educators’ technology adoption and use;
• To have a critical understanding of cognitive and practical skills related to modes of learning in technology-rich environments.

• By the end of the module students will be able to:
• To question models conceptions of learner attributes, abilities and behaviours in relation to technology use in society and education;
• Critically evaluate the potential for and the barriers to deploying innovative and interactive technologies in learning, teaching and assessment.

• Demonstrate the ability to research literature, including for example: searching, synthesising, summarising and critiquing literatures;
• Demonstrate the ability to evaluate educational research;
• Use ICT effectively, meaningfully and purposefully when presenting assignments;
• Organise and plan;
• Formulate, analyse and solve problems;
• Learn independently.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• This module will be taught through lectures, seminars, discussions, student presentations and supplemented with online digital video materials and resources. Educational Technology, its applications and uses in schools and beyond, is such a vast and complex area that it is almost impossible to recommend one book or one journal that would adequately cover the content of the module. As a result, significant reports that are milestones in technology use in education will be put on DUO, as will particular readings and other papers. But throughout the module and your assignment work, you will also be expected to read and research your own particular areas of interest that you will develop. A detailed list of literature and research sources is given later in this module, under two headings: ‘Required Reading’ and ‘Recommended Reading’. You should also aim to survey and read papers from the following journals as much as possible: these will be central to the scholarship and the quality of analysis and criticality that you will be expected to demonstrate in all aspects of the module and its assessment. Journal include those with a specific focus on technology such as the British Journal of Educational Technology; Technology, Pedagogy and Education; Computers and Education; Journal of Computer Assisted Learning; ALT-J; International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL); as well as those with a broader teaching and learning focus where articles relate to the use of digital technologies such as Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice; Teaching and Teacher Education; Cambridge Journal of Education; Oxford Review of Education; British Educational Research Journal.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Verbal feedback is given to students' contribution during class teaching sessions. Staff can be contacted for individual help. Written formative feedback is provided for the academic outline of the assignment (as appropriate).

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University