A “Learning Revolution”? Investigating Pedagogic Practices around Interactive Whiteboards in British Primary Classrooms

Interactive whiteboards have been rapidly introduced into all primary schools under UK Government initiatives. These large, touch-sensitive screens, which control a computer connected to a digital projector, seem to be the first type of educational technology particularly suited for whole-class teaching and learning. Strong claims are made for their value by manufacturers and policy makers, but there has been little research on how, if at all, they influence established pedagogic practices, communicative processes and educational goals. This study has been designed to examine this issue, using observations in primary (elementary) school classrooms. It is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council and builds on the authors’ previous research on ICT in educational dialogues and collaborative activities

Computers in Europe's Classrooms: An Introduction

As new information technology became more prevalent in more sectors of society and industry during the 1970s and 1980s, people were confronted with new skill requirements in their professional as well as their personal lives. The concept of computer literacy as the basic skills and knowledge needed by everyone to participate fully in society and the economy became increasingly relevant to governments, educational policy makers and educators across Europe. However, historical sources point to a plethora of different understandings and wordings of computer education and computer literacy, as well as an abundance of different pedagogical approaches to the introduction of computers into the classroom. Similarly, existing literature highlights the involvement of various interest groups in the introduction of computers in schools, including students, parents, teachers, educators and policy makers, as well as manufacturers and vendors of computer technology. Exploring the history of how computers have entered the classroom in Europe through national and transnational case studies can shed light on the different facets and dynamics of the introduction of computer technology in education and, in particular, how different stakeholders and coalitions have negotiated and shaped this process+repphzhbib2023

Towards digital disconnection in Danish educational policy

When talking about the introduction of digital media into childhood and education, it has been common to talk about technology’s positive potential for personalized learning, for increased access to knowledge, for the acquisition of important future competences, media literacy etc. These arguments are situated in a broader societal discourse about the potential of digital technologies as such. There is how-ever a significant amount of evaluation reports that problematize the evidential basis of those claims. The emergence of the field of digital disconnection studies could offer novel approaches to understanding the relationship between education and technology. Our hypothesis is that digital disconnection literature could reveal reasons to argue for disconnecting from digital media in childhood and education. This could e.g., be mandated by findings in domains where warning flags have been raised based on perceptions of heightened health risks, cyberbullying, loneliness, exposure to online porn, distraction, manipulative features in online services etc. The aim of the article is to bring discussions from disconnection studies to the field of information- and communications technology (ICT) in education. It is a novel contribution that aims to relate the literature from digital disconnection studies to dominant literature on the purpose and value of ICT in education

Critical reflections on the benefits of ICT in education

In both schools and homes, information and communication technologies (ICT) are widely seen as enhancing learning, this hope fuelling their rapid diffusion and adoption throughout developed societies. But they are not yet so embedded in the social practices of everyday life as to be taken for granted, with schools proving slower to change their lesson plans than they were to fit computers in the classroom. This article examines two possible explanations - first, that convincing evidence of improved learning outcomes remains surprisingly elusive, and second, the unresolved debate over whether ICT should be conceived of as supporting delivery of a traditional or a radically different vision of pedagogy based on soft skills and new digital literacies. The difficulty in establishing traditional benefits, and the uncertainty over pursuing alternative benefits, raises fundamental questions over whether society really desires a transformed, technologically-mediated relation between teacher and learner

Digital learning: distraction or default for the future

Today it is not easy to think in the society without the impact (and influence) of digital technologies. The relevance of digital devices and associated indicators are used as proxies to measure the development of societies today. In that context, both top-down and/or bottom-up technology in education initiatives seek to promote different forms of incorporating digital technologies in educational contexts. There are many successful experiences around the world to implement digital technologies in school contexts. However, it is critical to analyze the mismatch between the expectations and the reality but also to enquire how to provide better evidence and analysis to deepen and expand the knowledge in the field of education and technology from the Top-Down and Bottom-Up initiatives. Keeping that in mind, an international call for papers was launched that finally 14 contributions from 12 countries were included in this special issue. The articles shed light about two important aspects: (1) how good technical solutions cannot ignore the context in which these digital technologies are being used or adopted. (2) how the access to technologies can simply amplify the existing inequalities within a society (as well as between different societies) if additional (in most cases non-technical) components are not being carefully considered

Gifted techspectations: A report on information and communications technology usage and expectations Of Irish gifted and talented students for The Irish Centre For Talented Youth

Gifted Techspectations is the first of a series of reports based on research by the DCU Leadership, Innovation and Knowledge Research Centre (LInK) based in DCU Business School. With its roots in an Irish business school, it is no surprise that LInK’s mission is to strengthen the competitiveness, productivity, innovation and entrepreneurial capacity of the Irish economy. Ireland’s next generation transformation will be enabled by information and communication technologies (ICT) and digital participation by members of Irish society. As a university research centre we have an important role to play in supporting education, industry and government to accelerate this transformation. With support from DCU Business School, Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation Voucher Programme, DCU’s Learning Innovation Unit, Cambridge University Press and the Nominet Foundation amongst others, LInK has undertaken a wide variety of activities to accelerate digital participation. These include applied research projects, seminar programmes, workshops and occasional research papers. In the last twelve months, 22 seminars, 5 workshops, and two 3-week courses have been held and over 200 Irish businesses and schools have benefited from LInK-related digital participation activities. Influenced by the US ECAR and Pew Internet and American Life projects, these digital participation activities were brought together under the Techspectations initiative in June 2010. The objective of Techspectations is to create both a body of research and analysis on ICT usage and expectations by Irish society and an interface for Irish education, industry and government institutions

Digital Literacy Education in Welsh Primary and Secondary Schools from the 1960s to the Present

Digital technologies are imbued with ideologies that impact culture and society. These technologies are ubiquitous, pervasive, and central to how people communicate, consume information, and orchestrate their lives. Therefore, for people to fully understand the impact and influence of these technologies on their lives and engage with them and the digital environment in a critically informed way - digital literacy is an absolute and necessary requirement. However, we are not seeing digital literacy as standard. This study assesses: (1) Whether students are being sufficiently educated about how digital technologies use and affect them in a social, cultural, and ethical capacity; (2) Whether the programme content of digital literacy education (DLE) is primarily driven by neo-liberal economically driven government policies; and (3) How much influence private neo-liberal capitalistic enterprises have in determining the educational agenda of DLE? Qualitative data was collected via three focus group interviews and twenty-six semi-structured interviews which explored students, educational professionals, and government officials’ views of DLE in Wales. The data was thematically coded using critical discourse analysis, and analysed using theories developed in Herbert Marcuse’s 1964 publication One-Dimensional Man. The results indicated that DLE educational policy has broadened to include knowledge that extends beyond the teaching of purely mechanistic skills. However, a variety of factors were identified that impede their implementation. Additionally, it is argued that students’ mechanistic digital skills have been declining since the introduction of touch screen technologies into primary and secondary schools. Findings also indicated that educators main DLE focus was on preparing students for employment purposes, and the influence private neo-liberal capitalistic enterprises have in determining not only the educational agenda of DLE, but education in general is profound, and has accelerated exponentially since the COVID-19 imposed lockdowns

Education and inequality in digital opportunities : differences in digital engagement among Finnish lower and upper secondary school students

The purpose of this work is to broaden the debate on digital technology in education by emphasising the digital affordances enabled by these technologies instead of focusing on the integration of digital devices and learning materials and digital pedagogy into educational practices. Digital action potentials are not equally open to everyone, requiring the scrutinisation of digital inequality as a relative issue limiting the abilities of individuals to benefit from these opportunities. In the context of education, this dissertation concentrates on the social structures affecting the unequal distribution of digital engagement which determines individual's positioning in relation to digital affordances. These theoretical backgrounds construe the following research questions: To what extent do social structures, specifically gender, age, and educational choices, determine the digital engagement of 12–22-year-old Finns? And, to what extent and in what ways does digital engagement accumulate, as exhibited by certain individuals more than others among Finnish lower and upper secondary school students? An empirical part answering these questions consist of five original articles utilising two samples of Finnish lower and upper secondary school students. In total, the 11,820 students' digital usage habits and digital skills are analysed through multivariate statistical methods. Gender as a social category appears to be producing differences in students’digital engagement. The results indicate that gender differences in digital engagement among Finnish lower and upper secondary school students are largely domain-specific and related to gendered preferences and interests. In other words, tendencies towards the ways of experiencing digital technology and potential digital affordances appear to be gendered. Because the patterns of these preferences appear clearly in the data concerning lower and upper secondary school students, they are likely to develop during the early years of childhood and youth. Age, even among young people, has an impact on both digital skills and usage. The importance of age as an independent variable is explained by the increasing versatility of students’ use of digital technology as they grow older. It is the diversity of digital experiences, in particular, that enriches young people's digital skills. Education appears as the most significant single factor producing differences in young people's digital engagement. Education manifests itself as a categorical social hierarchy as the level of education increases the digital engagement. At the same time, there are significant differences in digital engagement within the same educational level, and digital engagement is generally most likely exhibited by students in the male-dominated fields of education. In particular, genderedness is present in relation to students' views of the ICT as a tempting field of education or profession in the future. As both students’ orientation towards technology and their educational choices are heavily gendered, they reinforce each other and increase gender gaps in relation to digital engagement and potential digital affordances among the future citizens of the information society. Overall, the current study emphasises the need of sociological scrutinisation in order to understand the importance of digital technology and related social activities in the context of education. The results of this dissertation indicate that gender, age and gendered educational choices determine the digital engagement of young Finns. Digital engagement tends be exhibited by certain individuals as skills and usage are intertwined and mutually reinforcing. It is evident that compound and sequential dimensions distinctively describe the digital engagement of Finnish lower and upper secondary school students. Where comboundness characterises the accumulation of digital engagement for certain individuals, sequentiality increases the likelihood that these individuals will also benefit most from the available digital affordances. In extreme circumstances, sequentiality of digital engagement describes the path to either digital prosperity or exclusion making it an important educational policy issue to be acknowledged in the information society

Digital media in primary schools: literacy or technology? Analyzing government and media discourses

This article examines the political and the media discourses concerning the Portuguese governmental program responsible for delivering a laptop named “Magalhães” to all primary school children. The analysis is based on the official documents related to the launch and development of the initiative as well as the press coverage of this topic. The main purpose is to recognize the dominant public discourses and to find out what the media select for the debate in the public sphere. This analysis was done with a particular focus on the critical media literacy framework. The results reveal that the press highlighted the negative aspects of that program and that this framing could have a strong impact on how it was accepted and understood by the public opinion. Analysis also reveals that the governmental initiative was predominantly driven by technological objectives, in particular the access to technology, rather than media literacy objectives.The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This paper is part of a three years project named "Navigating with 'Magalhaes': Study on the Impact of Digital Media in Schoolchildren" funded by FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) and co-funded by FEDER - Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (ERDF: European Regional Development Fund) through COMPETE - Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade (Operational Competitiveness Programme)