The Digital Education Research Network [1] demonstrates the importance of highlighting and disseminating quality research into the use of digital technologies and media in schools, training, higher education and life-long learning.
Since the early 1980s, when computers were first introduced into schools, there has been a paucity of quality research into the effect on teaching and learning of using digital technologies as distinct from reviews and evaluations about using digital devices. Then in the early 2000s, when the internet became widespread through the use of browsers, education authorities funded a range of programs to build online networks in education but the questions about the effect on teaching and learning remained uninvestigated. The Digital Education Research Network seeks to support education by addressing some of the issues that have a bearing on the use of digital technologies in teaching and learning, so that educators can plan on the basis of research and evaluation experience, as opposed to the many media myths, such as digital natives, about technology use and the corporate promotion of technological devices that shifted the focus away from pedagogy.
When considering the use of digital technologies in teaching and learning, an important point to note is the convergence of formal and informal learning. In fact, the Australian Communications and Media Authority noted that for young Australian people, the use of educational activities on the internet was the most frequent although this use of digital technologies occurred more so in the home than in a formal education setting. Furthermore, learners who used computers and the internet at home have been noted in the research to have improved learning performance. The point that is being made here is that the distinction between formal and informal learning has become artificial in a networked world. The Digital Education Research Network is focussed on research into teaching and learning using digital technologies across the spectrum.
Digital Education Research Network
The Digital Education Research Network was initiated by the Australian Council for Educational Research which is a pre-eminent research body based in Melbourne, Australia, that operates globally. The Australian Council for Educational Research has a very strong and valued presence in educational research, testing and publishing, and prior to implementing the Digital Education Research Network, it had been monitoring the increasing impact that online services were having in education, testing and research. In 2008, a decision was made to explore the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education and the elements for a service such as the Digital Education Research Network emerged from discussions.
Every week the Digital Education Research Network publishes and weekly notifies registered users about a new review of quality research where digital technologies have been deployed or where trials of new methods have been reported that advance knowledge into teaching and learning. At the time of writing, the Digital Education Research Network had over 65,000 registered users spread globally, and it had published and disseminated over 80 reviewed items that have included research works, reviews of literature or trials seeking to understand effective teaching and learning pedagogies using ICTs.
Management
The Digital Education Research Network is managed by the Australian Council for Educational Research through a Digital Research Group (DRG) of high level experts in the use of online services and educational research. A Digital Education Research Network Reference Group, drawn from international experts in the field, provided valuable advice and comment on the development of the service in its early stages. When the Digital Education Research Network commenced, early in 2010, as a trial beta version, it was regarded as an innovation in promoting research, in an area where there appeared to be significant knowledge gaps.
Initiation
The Digital Education Research Network was initiated in Melbourne and since 2011 has been managed from Adelaide in South Australia. This has been possible through the use of electronic systems for messaging, arranging meetings, online consultation, online document sharing, online collaboration and most importantly of all, through access to open journals, research and reports of trials, surveys and reviews on open access services, and national and international government reports published openly online. In fact, it is noteworthy today that the critical mass of quality research and reviews in the field of educational technology are mostly accessible through open online services.
City of Adelaide
South Australia is largely a desert state, centrally located in the South of the country and administered from the coastal city of Adelaide. Adelaide, as a city based on the Fleurieu Peninsula, spans approximately 20 kms from sea to hills (East to West) and 90 kms along the coast, with a population slightly over 1.2 million people (2006). The remainder of the state has another 300,000 people concentrated mostly in two oases (Barossa Valley & Clare Valley), two man-made city regions (Iron Triangle & Riverland) and a lush south-eastern region. The Adelaide Hills, surrounding the city and beyond, are well known for their beautiful landscapes and production of Australian wines.
Although Adelaide boasts a range of industries and services, it is notably an education city with three major universities and also campuses for another four (soon to be five) international universities. Primary and secondary education (~600,000 students) is divided between state education (~70%), Catholic Education (~20%) and Independent education (~10%) although the three sectors work closely together. School and higher education are supplemented by a number of large colleges for technical and further education spread throughout Adelaide and the state, and a number of local government councils have developed community programs. The Australian Council for Educational Research has an office in Adelaide from which the Digital Education Research Network service is operated and managed.
Success factors
The Digital Education Research Network has been successful for two main reasons. The first is that there is a need for educators to be able to access quality research about the use of ICTs in education especially because of its transformative nature. In addition, the use of ICTs in education has increased the costs of education significantly, so that decisions about change and improvement that include the use of ICTs have considerable impact for future planning. Secondly, the Digital Education Research Network has built on two fundamental principles for successful online services. They are the development of online trust (reliable, regular, predictable) with the users and a quality of service. The Digital Education Research Network publishes quality research reviews, written by experienced educational leaders who understand education and research. The research report/article reviews are posted on a regular basis and on the same regular day, so that users can rely on weekly posts. Furthermore, the quality of the reviews is acknowledged by the users through online comments. Research reviews can address areas of concern such as 21st century skills, assessment, connectivity, collaboration, engagement and performance, equity, eportfolios, effects on teaching and learning, information, innovation, personal networking, learning spaces, mobile learning, pedagogy, safety and education trends. These are all areas of concern for educators in a research field where the quantum of quality research is relatively small but can now be easily located through the Digital Education Research Network.
Further development
The success of the Digital Education Research Network over the preceding 18 months has encouraged the Australian Council for Educational Research to expand the Digital Education Research Network’s online presence and to develop further innovative services for registered users. The Digital Education Research Network’s vision is that educators will become familiar with the accumulation of research evidence provided by the Digital Education Research Network and use it to inform plans for improvements in education and generate transformative plans for new methods of engaging students in education.
A new Research Advisory Group will be formed to extend the current network within the technology in education research field in order to promote the Digital Education Research Network and to provide advice about quality research for review and dissemination. The Research Advisory Group will operate through online collaborative services and members will be drawn from a range of international education and research bodies. In summary, global access to the Digital Education Research Network and the international spread of its users to date are testimony to the need for knowledge in the use of digital technologies in education, as opposed to the promotion and exploration of electronic devices.
The Digital Education Research Network demonstrates the capacity of online services to enable a community of educational researchers to promote and disseminate quality research and reviews about the use of digital technologies and media in education on a global scale. In this way, the Digital Education Research Network community supports education by providing a foundational reference point for educators looking for evidence about the use of digital technologies and media, in order to plan for educational transformation and improvement.
For discussion
- What do you see as the strengths of the Digital Education Research Network?
- What do you think could be done to improve the usefulness of the Digital Education Research Network research service for the community of educators?
- How could the Digital Education Research Network further improve the online engagement of educators in educational research?
- What additional services could the Digital Education Research Network include to further support the community of educators seeking to implement digital technologies or change its use?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of online education research services such as the Digital Education Research Network?
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Comments
ICT and rethinking learning
Several years ago Mitch Resnick from the MIT Media Lab in Boston wrote these clever words:
"First, the good news: in the years ahead, the declining cost of computation will make digital technologies accessible to nearly everyone in all parts of the world, from inner-city neighborhoods in the United States to rural villages in developing nations. These new technologies have the potential to fundamentally transform how and what people learn throughout their lives. Just as advances in biotechnologies made possible the “green revolution” in agriculture, new digital technologies make possible a “learning revolution” in education.
Now, the bad news: while new digital technologies make a learning revolution possible, they certainly do not guarantee it. Early results are not encouraging. In most places where new technologies are being used in education today, the technologies are used simply to reinforce outmoded approaches to learning. Even as scientific and technological advances are transforming agriculture, medicine, and industry, ideas about and approaches to teaching and learning remain largely unchanged.
To take full advantage of new technologies, we need to fundamentally rethink our approaches to learning and education - and our ideas of how new technologies can support them."
So, Resnick's advice is clear: without the proper learning approach, ICT and media will accomplish little in education, and I would add: espacially as to non-academic learners.
ICT and media has tremendous potentials to help changing the industrial educational paradigms, but the potentials cannot unfold in the old classroom approach, or, for that matters, in many new e-elarning environments.
Therefore the success of ICT and media in learning is depending on another question: what does it mean to learn? How do we learn? What are the optimal circumstances for deep and engaged learning?
These questions lead to new questions: what is the difference between teaching, education and learning? Are we talking about simple "point of view", or is more at stake? And: what if "education" and "learning" changes in time, what if "education" in the 20th century is not at all the same as "learning" in the 21st century?
And more: why are we, then, still talking about "teachers", as though such a thing as a "teacher" is some kind of eternal or non-historic entity?
In fact, using ICT and media in "education" might simply offer a big illusion of change. But at the same time it might cover up the fact that very little has changed...
Most of the communication technology in Denmark is used to make it difficult for elderly to talk to their familly doctor, not to help elderly express themselves creatively, support their interests or participation in the community.
And many of our teachers are still struggling with the fact that it can be difficult to use a video embedded in a Power Point presentation.
And, most of our young people are not using their technology fluency to learn, but to socialize and have fun (which is ok, by the way).
I would like, briefly, to list a few things that might "explain" this technological disappointment, simply for discussion purposes:
A part of the problem, then, might also be the phenomena "school". Schools have for decades and more been closed communities, lining their own lives. We need the learning processes to interact with the life of work and culture, to offer learning by working with real life problems, to include other resources in the learning processes than teachers, - and we need to be brave enough to allow learners free space to create their own learning processes...
All this is not new - Resnick and many others discussed this years and decades ago, as did Socrates, Freud and Piaget and Papert.
But to what extend is society, the system and the policy-makers ready to take such steps?
Will the steps, if at all, be taken as new top-down approaches, or will the system allow a wide range of learning experiments, laboratories, through which we can learn from experience?
Thanks, by the way, for initiating these dialogues - these, might one say, urgent dialogues...
Best regards,
Jan Gejel
Denmark
Giving space for creative ideas
Gerry, Aune, and Jan have opened up very well both the issues to be addressed and some of the ways forward in realising the enormous potential of technologies for learning throughout life and building an inclusive learning society. The main points I have derived from the exchanges so far are:
The latter point offers a way to add value in the PIE exchanges on the ICT role. I agree with the priorites Aune has suggested in such a problem focussed approach - the ICT role in addressing early school leaving (disengaged youth?), and using ICT to boost creativity and talents.
There would be value for a start if examples of good practice in addressing these issues could be identified from existing research resources including DERN.
However, I would not wish to limit a problem focussed exchange of ideas to these subjects, and I would like to suggest two further problem areas from my experience I regard as important.
I regard the ICT potential in (2) as very significance in fostering links, schools exchanges etc. Regional and national schemes such as the European Schoolnet have been adopted, but what can be done internationally, and for adults as well.
Provision for isolated seniors illustrates a good practice example of what can be achieved. During the International Year of Older Persons in 1998, a small group of Australians involved in U3A (University of the Third Age) pooled their ideas on what might be done to extend the U3A approach to people in isolated situations. The outcome was an initiative called U3A Online which harnessed technology for thius purpose. I examined this initiative in a case study in 2004. I am unaware of what has happened since. It illustrates, however, when individuals act in such an entrepreneurial way.
Are there ways, then, for us to give space for creative ideas in PIE exchanges in reflecting on the ICT role in providing lifelong learning opportunities for all?
Learning and ICT
Many thanks to Peter, Jan and Auge for stimulating and thought provoking posts which I have been mulling over for some time.
Two pieces of research about learning and ICT have influenced my thinking in the last few years. The first by the US Education Department suggested that there were marginal gains in using technology by itself and had about the same effect on learning as face to face instruction. However, hybrid or blended learning had a significant effect on learning. That is, a combination by the teacher of face to face learning and also using technology.
That sent me to think about the relationships between the actors (teachers and students), the emotions that were being engaged and a learning environment that utilised current socio-political infrastructure eg devices, databases, software, ....
The second influential piece of research was a second-order meta-analysis by Tamim et al. ( 2011) called What Forty Years of Research says About the Impact of Technology on Learning: A Second-Order.Meta-Analysis and Validation Study. In that study they found that, 'the average student in a classroom where technology is used will perform 12 percentile points higher than the average student in the traditional setting that does not use technology tpo enhance learning' (p. 17).
That set me thinking about how best to approach learning, so I turned to John Hattie's (2009) meta-analysis of learning performance. He demonstrated that a 50% effect comes to learning with the child (intellect, home environment, SES, emotions, ...), 30% effect is due to the teacher, 15% effect from school leadership and a number of other effects including techology that share about a 10% effect.
However, thinking about learning in a traditional manner is not particularly helpful. Let me explain. The home environment often uses technology. And we know that children who use technology at home usually perform better in learning. The barriers between formal and informal learning have become very blurred and informal learning using ICT has become more influential than ever.
Then when we think about the effect on learning of teachers and the work of Koehler and Mishra (2005) comes to the fore. They introduced the notion of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge building on the work of Shulman (1987). The addition in Koehler and Misgra's work was the technological knowledge.
That leads me to think that for teachers to be successful, then they need to have solid technological, pedagogical and content skills. Generally, education has been consistent with the last two but not so good with the technological skills which are relatively new and depend on reliable, accessible and robust infrastructure and reception devices eg tables, smartphones, computers .... However, education has not invested sufficiently in regulation, teaching standards or professional learning and professional development to accommodate these new teaching skills and an understanding of learning and knowledge building. In fact, I agree with Jan and Auge that it has been piecemeal and non-systemic and non-systematic although there have been some wonderful efforts eg European Schoolnet, Twinning of Schools, and many more (Danish education department). However, these efforts have not transferred to whole school or system changes and benefits.
Finally, school and other educational institutional leadership needs to be clear about whole school transformation to build a learning environment that values learning and the use of technology for learning. There is a need here for the development of whole school strategies to develop pedagogical success and technological reliability.
Recently, I have finished a chapter for a new book in which I have argued that we now need a new school subject called 'Digital fluency', a term coined by Mitch Resnick (1998). Topics such as searching, collaborating, interacting, copyright, cultural media-mixing, safety, multi-modal learning and more need to be included at varying levels of depth depending on the age of the learners. The reason for this is that Kennedy et al. (2007) clearly demonstrated that entry level university students were not good users of technology and did not understand how to use ICT for research, collaborating, projects, .... contrary to the popular media. Young people need to learn how best to use ICT and it does need to be taught because it is so complex as well as underpins learning today.
There does not seem to be an understanding within educational systems that collaboration (a process for knowledge building), interactivity and creativity are major new affordances of ICT and bring with them a number of new skills that can be harnessed successfully for learning.
That is where DERN sees that research may be able to assist. DERN tries to highlight and review quality research that is about teaching and learning so that a compendium of good research is available for educators.
Auge's point about research briefs in specific areas to assist educators to develop strategies bears some careful thinking. I am sure that would be a very useful strategy in presenting a collective of research on a specific problem area about learning and teaching using ICT. However, I am not sure that ICT is solving problems but rather allowing new methods for gaining information and communicating that we need to harness. There are new affordances of ICT that could be utilised to improve learning and teaching that may also change the way that education occurs.
In writing for a book about schools that have successfully adopted and utilised ICT, there is a new conception of education that goes beyond traditional teaching and replicating traditional classroom methods. However, those occurences seem to be rare eg Maine in the US.
Where does that ramble leave my thinking. Firstly, ICT can help to improve learning. Secondly, teachers, Principals and the home are essential elements that need to be coordinated and harnessed for learning by educators. Thirdly, society needs to elevate the importance of learning, knowledge building and invest significantly in ICT infrastructure. And finally, it is about the relationships between people and their emotions/motivation to engage in knowledge building and community building both of which can happen at any age.
Cheers
Gerry White
Construction of a New Learning Media market in China
There is an interesting chapter in the report of the Joint UNESCO/Chinese National Commission for UNESCO Forum on Lifelong Learning in Shanghai in May 2010 on the construction of a new loearning media market in China. The chapter by Kang Ning, President of the Central Radio and TV University of China explores ways in which the new media learning media supermarket is impacting on the ways we learn. The paper srgues that a new paragigm for lifelong learning is emerging and that the time of lifelong learning has finally arrived. The chapter is worth reading in gaining a sense of the impact of technology and media on learning.
The report of the Shanghai Conference ("Conceptual Evolution and Policy Developments in LIfelong Learning") may be downloaded from the web site of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (http://unesco.unesco.org [4])
elearning in China
Many thanks Peter. I will have a look at that report with great interest because elearning in China is moving at such a rapid pace.
I found the URL to be http://uil.unesco.org [5] which is slightly different from the one that was posted.
Cheers
Gerry WHite
Harnessing ICT and radio for lifelong learning
A good example of a multimedia approach to fostering lifelong learning and addressing environmental concerns is provided by the Park Friends initiative in delaide. This initiative connects a web site with a network of community radio stations that support the initiative, and demonstrates how a collaborative multimedia initiative such as this can use used in addressing environmental issues.
This innovative initiative adds to the example already given by Angelica Ospina of her work in Africa in a project that links cultural identity, climate change resilience, and the role of ICTs. A similar example is provided by the e-Arik initiative in North-East India which uses ICTs to facilitate "Climate -smart Agriculture" among tribal farmers in this region. The e-Arik project connects 500 farmers from 12 villages with a Village Knowledge Centre which includes computer instructor, the vrole of four facilitators, and an e-Arik Laboratory where agricultural experts are asvailable. Both the African and Indian examples illustrate the potential of usiong ICT in blended strategies where tutorial assistance is available, and with access to expert advice, in promoting lifelong learning in a range of contexts. While both projects have a vocational objective, there would seem to be no reason why the same methodology could not be used in providing general education and learning throughout life. The Adelaide initiative illustrates such a broader non-vocational initiative. Can we have more examples, please.