Teaching concepts have been changing rapidly over the past decade, asking students to use devices at school and teachers to integrate interactive platforms into lessons. The increased digitalisation of the classroom requires a discussion about a responsible use of technology. Too often we come across children and adults misusing technology due to a lack of guidance. Such behaviour raises questions such as how should children act when they are online or how to prepare them for a world full of technology?

Digital Citizenship as a Teaching Tool

The concept of digital citizenship tries to support parents, teachers and technology innovators to understand what information and guidance students require in order to use devices and software appropriately as well as responsibly. Many organisations and individuals concentrate on this topic for two reasons. Firstly, they are interested in the perception of what is considered as appropriate technology use. Secondly, they want to come up with structures and topics which are deemed necessary to be taught to the next generations by parents and teachers. In this process, digital citizenship becomes a teaching tool providing teachers with a platform for grading assignments, facilitating discussions, messaging and resource sharing.

Copyright: Goran Bogicevic

The Importance of Being a Digital Citizen

However, having a closer look at the concept, it becomes obvious that digital citizenship is far more than a teaching tool, it is a skill that supports students to understand the norms of technology and prepares them for a future in a world which invests heavily in technology. Students will be able to know about the benefits and risks of the Internet and how to stay safer in the online world. It also helps them to make ethical decisions and be more confident technology users. Therefore, courses on digital citizenship are just as important as courses on health, sexual education or driver’s education.  A starting point to teach online best practices is to use closed social media platforms such as discussion boards.  Many organisations also provide learning management systems which are more advanced platforms offering further activities such as assignment grading or resource sharing.

The Skyward Course Learning Centre Experience

There are many learning management systems out there. One of them is the Skyward Course Learning Centre that provides teachers with a single platform to distribute information including videos, encourage discussions and manage the submission of assignments of all students. As pointed out by Skyward, there are two major benefits that management systems provide to teachers and students.

Firstly, learning management systems offer teachers a space to keep all assignments, hand-outs and reading materials in one secure place. This way, students learn to use the Internet for day-to-day activities such as reading through and searching for lesson resources, and submitting assignments.

Secondly, these systems promote a collaborative and student-driven space where students can get feedback from their teachers on coursework more easily and participate in online discussions. Parents are also able to engage with teachers in a less time-consuming way by accessing an area that shows grades and assignment statuses.

Copyright: Syda Productions

Social Media Training through School-orientated Platforms

Besides the administrative benefits, platforms such as the Skyward Course Learning Centre offer a school-orientated and age-appropriate environment in which students learn how to use and connect with others through social media.

When students use strictly social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter first, there is an increased risk that students see online platforms as a tool for social interactions only. They are then more likely to disconnect social interaction from learning interaction. Students are also at a high risk to fail to understand that their online and offline personality are inseparable and that they should act the same way online as they would in reality.

However, if teachers introduce learning management systems at school, students have the opportunity to learn social interaction through learning interactions first. These learning platforms offer first hand experience. Students learn why it is important to protect their private and personal information when sharing information with their classmates. Discussion boards can support students to understand what information of others they are allowed to share and ask for permission before uploading any materials. Finally, the platforms offer a possibility to integrate a student’s online and offline personality as students interact with the same people they see at school. This process helps them to respect other students’ opinions and to think about the impact their online response has in the classroom in the real world.

When students are old enough to fully engage with the online world, they will be much better prepared and will see that their online and offline lives are interconnected in many different ways.

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When observing public places and playgrounds, it has become common to recognize more and more children holding tablets and mobile phones in their hands. It seems that technological devices are finding growing acceptance in the everyday life of children. This development is not only true for entertaining purposes but also for learning and skill development. Unsurprisingly, many companies have started exploring the field designing apps specifically for children. Here are some key trends worth exploring over the next months.

Digital Storytelling

Digital book apps are a very popular choice to keep toddlers entertained and educated. Using all the advantages that come with an exciting story in an actual book, storytelling apps try to let children interact more closely with the story. Rather than just being able to turn pages digitally, kids can tap on the screen and decide to interact with scenery or characters.

A very popular app is called Dino Dog – a digging adventure created by StoryToys. Children travel the world with Dino Dog and his friend Bonnie the Bear to dig for bones and explore fossils.

Copyright: Yuganov Konstantin

Children Becoming the Storytellers

Do you remember the books back in the days that included a page with different statements at the end of each chapter allowing you to make a decision for the character and then leaving you at a different page of the book to read on? Some designers developed this own storytelling idea further and started to create apps around it allowing children to have a say rather than sticking to a story that remains decidedly linear. Children can select from pre-packed collections of sceneries, characters and situations. The British art gallery TATE created the ‘Noisy Neighbours’ app where children can even create their own characters.

Computer-coding Apps

Many app developers try to engage children to take their first steps in programming-like thinking and helping them to have an advantage in the classroom when pupils are introduced to the world of coding. Although the apps have sparked a debate, good apps can strengthen children’s critical-thinking and problem-solving skills which are both needed to excel the skills of computer programming.

A potential app that exposes children from the age of 5 to the logic of programming is called The Foos: Code for an Hour FREE girls and boys educational app. The app features monsters as characters and is built around drag-and-drop coding puzzles which need to be solved.

Copyright: Nednapa Sopasuntorn

Robots and 3D Printing

Roberts and modern 3D printing are two other areas many app designers work on even though the products are very expensive and can take up quite some space as well. Nonetheless, there have been developments going on in the field. The robot package Dash and Dot is one of the examples where robots can be integrated in the learning and playing life of children. The pack comes with two robots and apps can be downloaded online. The apps mainly focus on teaching children to program one of the robots and chase each other.  However, given the price of the package, it is more a long-term investment than a game.

3D printing is another expensive niche requiring a 3D printer at hand. The idea is that children can create anything they can think of through an app and then get their ideas printed.

Minecraft

Having been around for a long time now, Minecraft is more an established game in the technological scene rather than a new trend. But it is new that there is an increasing focus on the educational purpose of the game. The game itself is based on the idea to place as many blocks as you like in an area in order to build anything that comes into your mind. There are many YouTube channels that try to make educational use of Minecraft or to teach creativity skills. More and more children are also coming up with their own mods which they can share with a wider group on the platform.

Copyright: wavebreakmedia

YouTube Filters and Other Video Apps

Children’s videos on YouTube have been a trend for a long time. There are many channels on the platform focusing on entertaining and educating content. In order to ensure that children only watch child-friendly videos, YouTube launched an app called YouTube Kids. The app can be downloaded online and filters inappropriate content. For a list of recommended channels and a guide on the app read our blog post on 31 YouTube channels for kids to watch.

Musical Apps

Although these apps are not a replacement for an actual instrument they can help children to explore rhythm and melody, and allow them to creating their own music from scratch. The app called Sago Mini Music Box is a musical adventure journey. Children can explore sounds by taping on the screen and moving their animal friends.

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Web-based open courses are leading a change in disseminating the knowledge and transforming society at large. The SocialEDU is a new education initiative led by EdX and Facebook that aims to provide students in Rwanda with free access to a collaborative online learning experience.

There has never been a better time to get an education. Years ago, looking at the American college options from a war-torn Serbia, it was difficult to access any learning materials online. Courses reviewing the GRE, GMAT and TOEFL tests were not available even in traditional classrooms in Belgrade. For many, the doors of the world class universities remained forever closed.

With the development of online technologies, quality education is getting more available to a global audience. From various test preparation courses to poetry, finance and entrepreneurship classes, it seems the whole world now is going online to get an education.

These days, I am at the Yale Broadcast & Media Center filming an online lecture series in The  Moral Foundations  of Politics for Coursera with legendary political theorist, Dr. Ian Shapiro. It will produce a wonderful opportunity for students around the world with nothing but a wifi connection to get a sense of what it’s like to be in a Yale classroom. Exposure to the ideas and teaching methods of the most influential thinkers will be a mind opening experience Online learning is driving educational mobility to a global level.

Open Education: Democratization via Coursera and EdX

The world of educational technology continues to develop rapidly. Web-based open courses are leading an innovative change in disseminating knowledge around the world. Over the past few years, several Ivy League universities have started with Open courses. Yale, Stanford and MIT have all used technology to produce video recordings of their most prominent faculty members lectures. A step in a new direction was a creation of unified online learning platforms such as Coursera and EdX.

Coursera was founded by two Stanford University professors, Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng who united around a shared vision for utilizing technology to expand educational opportunities worldwide. The other online learning platform, EdX was founded by Harvard and MIT. Recently, EdX partnered with Facebook to create the SocialEDU that aims to provide students in Rwanda with free access to a collaborative online education experiences. Facebook and EdX want to use the power of online social tools to help students reach their educational goals. This has all served to illustrate how new technologies and educational initiatives can potentially tackle inequalities and transform societies.

Low cost access to knowledge

While the costs of traditional education are increasing, the expansion of online learning is simultaneously taking place. Online education provides opportunities to people who may not otherwise have access to a university-level education to enhance their skills. For example, Open Learning Initiative offers online courses to anyone who wants to learn and teach. One of their goals is to provide tangible credit bearing opportunities to students in order to reduce the burden of college debt and make it more feasible for people to complete their degrees or go back to school.

Whether one seeks to go deeper into a particular subject or learn something entirely new, technology allows for an immediate access to knowledge at any place and time. I am talking to Sean Lip, one of the developers of Oppia-a newly released tool for creating interactive online activities that enable students to learn by doing- about how the whole platform came to be.

“From previous teaching experience, I’ve found that students learn better when they have opportunities to demonstrate their understanding. However, when I tried to create some interactive learning material online some time ago, I could not find a tool that made it easy for me to do this. This is how Oppia came about: it’s an open-source project that allows people to create interactive educational activities that allow others to learn by doing. I think one of the ways technology can help most in education is by making it possible for students to access educational experiences which otherwise wouldn’t be available to them. The oppia.org  exists to make it easy for people to construct interactive educational activities and share them with the world, and to allow these activities to be collaboratively improved so that they can become increasingly useful for learners over time,” says Sean Lip.

Look into the Future: is Technology the Answer?

New developments in online learning, interactive textbooks, and open educational resources have significant strategic implications for educational enterprise. The question many are raising is whether or not online learning can replace face-to-face campus experience. However, the purpose of technologies is not to replace the traditional education but to enhance it. Communications tools such as e-mail and online discussion forums, allow students to post their reading responses. Synchronous technologies such as webcasting, interactive video content, and chat rooms help approximate face-to-face learning experiences while allowing students to learn at their own pace.

Through experimentation and measurement of educational online platforms, better ways of teaching could be developed over time. As technology develops, we can expect to see a growing trend in the translation of online lectures into more and more world languages.

Ours is the digital age. We date online, read online, shop online, and make friends online. Why then would innovation in teaching, learning and research be an exception to that? Meet me in the worldwide classroom.

Photos (CC)

1. NYC #3  by Thomas Leuthard
2. ï £ ¿/  by Thomas Leuthard
3. Clever Girl  by liquene

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