How strange - when I read the initial article that we were to read for #ds106 assignment two, I was reminded of an essay I wrote during my Masters degree on a module about the digital economy. Amongst other things, we were to demonstrate how digital developments are contributed to transforming aspects of education and the ways in which students learn - and this was I ended up picking as one of my topics.
It's a bit late tonight to start preparing a response to the assignment (and I've been writing all day as part of PhD chapter draft) but I thought I would share the original essay (originally submitted in May 2008) with the wider world. It's never been shared in public before - and I hope to revisit it very shortly through some of the work I am preparing in this section of my thesis. I'm definitely finding that I'm way more critical now, but it's nice to see how my original ideas were starting to form prior to starting the PhD and working in higher ed. Must revisit it with that in mind!
Hopefully have a crack the proper submission tomorrow night - it's totally in line with the thinking I iz thinking right now.
Demonstrate how digital developments are contributing to transforming aspects of education and the ways in which student learn:
The enthusiasm for developing information communications technologies (ICTs) has generated much discussion in relation to higher education, and in particular, the ways in which these developments can and are transforming the methods that students learn and how they are being taught. Dutton and Loader (2004) state that, “ICTS are central to shaping the future of education, research and the sciences by changing how we get access to information, people, services and technologies themselves.” (Dutton and Loader, 2002: 4) They expand on these interrelating roles and suggest four methods in which ICTs can play with a learning environment: “Access to people” – the ability to network with, not only other students, but with teachers, researchers and experts; “Information access” – the ability to search, synthesis and attain multimedia information; “Access to services” – the ability to make accessing information more “horizontal, where the boundaries between producer and consumer is less distinguished; and “Access to technology” – the ability to learn about ICTs through frequent use and routine exposure. (Adapted from Dutton, 1999: 205: in Dutton and Loader, 2002: 4).
