There's much debate on whether learning in the 21st Century is about using technology or not. What is you take on the latter? I am very interested to hear your views on this question.
21st century learning cannot run away from using technology, although we may wish it were otherwise. But we may say that although technology is used (as much or as little as we like), 21st century learning is focused on finding solutions to our pressing problems of our environment, our human relationships, as an educated person in a globalized world with its many challenges.
Think technology especially Information Communication Technology (ICT) is still relevant, serves as an enabler & has transformed the way learners are learning. Examples of ICT contributing to learning includes:
use of virtual reality in education / learning.
cloud-based learning management system which can scale up / out elastically & pay per use,
virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) & virtual mobile infrastructure (VMI) deployed in university to improve service support yet reduce risk & cost.
new generation of software tools to perform statistical data analyses, transcribing, qualitative data analyses, plagiarism checking etc.
leverage on Internet of Things (IoT) & big data analytics to provide deeper insight / understanding of students' learning environments, learning trends, learning prediction & better informed decision making in education arena.
21st century learning cannot run away from using technology, although we may wish it were otherwise. But we may say that although technology is used (as much or as little as we like), 21st century learning is focused on finding solutions to our pressing problems of our environment, our human relationships, as an educated person in a globalized world with its many challenges.
I think that throughout the ages, teaching and learning have always made use of whatever technology could offer at the time. And teaching methods have also evolved, even unrelated to "technology" per se. Why should it be any different now?
I wouldn't be surprised if eventually, a more direct transfer method will be developed, to transmit information into the brain.
In this emerging times, it is not possible without educational technologies in a proper way.
"21st century literacy is about reading to learn and developing the capacity and motivation to identify, understand, interpret, create and communicate knowledge...
The knowledge world is no longer divided between specialists and generalists. A new group-let's call them “versatilists”-has emerged. They apply depth of skill to a progressively widening scope of situations and experiences, gaining new competencies, building relationships and assuming new roles. They are capable not only of constantly adapting, but also constantly learning and growing in a fast-changing world. In a flat world, our knowledge becomes a commodity available to everyone else. As columnist and author Thomas Friedman puts it, because technology has enabled us to act on our imaginations in ways that we could never before, the most important competition is no longer between countries or companies but between ourselves and our imagination...."
As Albert already mentioned, learning has always been associated with technology. in Sumerian schools, around 2000 BC, boys learned how to write copying lessons on clay tablets. Some of us learned to make calculations using logarithm tables or slide rules. In 21st Century technology will probable play a bigger role, because our society depends more and more on technology, but learning will still have to focus also on non-technological issues like values and humanities.
Yes to a certain extent. Technology seems to be the preference of students engagement with social media and social gadgets in their social circle. Thus, learning needs to take this aspect into consideration if academics want to stay relevant in today's 21st century era. My research has proven so to a large extent.
I agree. It is not about technology, but rather about the impact that being raised in the information age has on teaching and learning whether the class is using technology or not. In my opinion, being a digital native means that one may be more ready for online learning, but perhaps less prepared for using traditional literacies. Therefore, as a teacher, one needs to consider how children have been conditioned to learn in new ways, to know the differences between traditional literacies and new literacies (sometimes called digital literacies or mobile literacies) and to be prepared to scaffold for those differences, and also to use the motivational aspects of technology (whether they are using a device or not) to tap into a child's intrinsic desire to learn and explore. I believe these are the important changes in teaching and learning for the 21st century.
This study turns attention to teachers, not to technology!
Adventurous Lives: Teacher Qualities for 21st Century Learning!
What kinds of teachers are needed for 21st century learners? While there is recognition that curriculum content, classroom practices and learning environments must alter, there is less attention focussed on the teachers' dispositions for negotiating uncertainty. In this paper, the authors turn their attention to the importance of teachers' lives and mindsets to meet current, emerging and future challenges. Using a narrative inquiry approach, they elicit and examine three of these essential qualities: adventure, resilience and creative problem-solving. These characteristics emerge from interviewing a small group of beginning and experienced teachers who were questioning normative practices and exploring possibilities with more responsive ways to teach...
Article Adventurous Lives: Teacher Qualities for 21st Century Learning
Hi! I think it WILL be a lot about technology, not primarily for new possibilities in organizing teaching and learning, but for the change in selfunderstanding that new digital media forces us to, in all fields of education. When we say "technology", we often mean smething we are struggling with. Books are presently nit thought much of as technology, because we are used to it. Technology is a name for something not yet naturally integrated in our lives-then it is no longer technolog in a sense. But check out this hilarious Norwegian video about the introduction of the codex in monasteries... Norwegian Helpdesk https://youtu.be/pQHX-SjgQvQ . When new pervasive technology is introduced, "the medium is the message" (McLuhan) for quite some time, and people use new technology for doing old things faster or cheaper or similar. Use of digital media in education is still very much of documenting, recording, transmitting, communicating - which was possible also earlier, but at greater cost and effort. Then ""First we shape our tools, and then they shape us" (McLuhan).
What is then characteristic of the digital technology and age? According to Luciano Floridi it is that ICTs can process information, like humans in a sense but more specialised and efficient, but without any understanding "stupid as a toaster") "Humans are the only known semantic engines" according to Floridi, and we must allow them to make human life more human by "enveloping", conciously make work divisions humans/machines and make good interfaces between. In education, "learning analytics", "adaptive learning" are examples of such functions of new digtal technology.
Guess you need Technology, because it is embedded in all our life and usefull. BUT in this case it is also necessary to teach how to use it. Learning is not hunting for Pokemon. It is a real competition with life, science and future.
Learning of technology is 21 st century is move must more faster than earlier period .In this line some time back i have place my presentation under the captioned '' The way to 21 st century which i submit only for your perusal & also for our viewers .I may humbly here that i have merely expressed my views in the respect
I prefer calling it digital learning, and not technology. Every new tool developed can be understood as new technology, so we may take care on generalyzing digital technologies as the only form of technology.
We have seen indeed a growing use of digital media and communication in the 21st Century, but there is still a huge gap between what students use it for outside school and on applying them in a meaningful way for students at schools.
Why the university of the future will have no classrooms, no lectures, and lots of tech!
Imagine a university without classrooms, lectures, disciplinary departments, or majors.
Such is the goal of Dr. Christine Ortiz, former dean for graduate education at MIT, who is using technology to build a new kind of residential research institution from the ground up. At IdeaFestival 2016, Ortiz explained that universities are not keeping up with technology advances, or adequately preparing students for life in the 21st century. ...
So she and her colleagues are building a nonprofit university that:
focuses on the transdisciplinary interface between technology and humanity
emphasizes personalized, holistic and research-based pedagogy
employs dynamic organizational structures and a high quality, low cost, scalable financial model, to serve more underserved and underprivileged students, according to Ortiz...
Technology is important, but should not distract from other ways of communicating our ideas. Technology is becoming less obvious, and this may improve the application, but the development of alternative texting words like (lol) can present a challenge to those of us who are less literate in the use of this messaging language. Omission of grammar can also alter the meaning, and this can and does create confusion in both the mind of the sender and receiver.