Effective Practice in a Digital Age: a guide to technology-enhanced learning and teaching
From the UK, a publication designed for those in further and higher education who aim to enhance the student learning experience through apt and imaginative uses of technology. It outlines key aspects of designing learning in a technology-rich context and is structured to address the needs of experienced practitioners as well as those new to technology-based learning and teaching.
It includes ten newly researched case studies offer a choice of pathways reflecting the diversity of approaches taken by practitioners in current UK practice,
Publisher: JISC
Date: June 2009
Link: www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/effectivepracticedigitalage.aspx
This report is supported by the Effective Practice Resource Exchange which provides a supplementary suite of online recourses that can be updated and added to over time. These resources explore through different themes and viewpoints the elements that underpin effective designing for learning.
Introduction
Effective Practice in a Digital Age is designed for those in further and higher education whose focus is on designing and supporting learning: academic staff, lecturers, tutors and learning support staff, facilitators, learning technologists and staff developers. What unites this diverse group is their interest in enhancing the quality of learning and teaching, and a curiosity about how technology can assist them.
Much has changed since the publication of Effective Practice with e-Learning (JISC, 2004) – the first edition of this guide. National strategies for e-learning have now formally recognised the importance of technology in learning, teaching and assessment in all sectors of education in the UK, and in response many institutions have embedded the enhancement of learning and teaching through technology into their strategic missions.
As revealed by JISC research, the social context in which learning takes place has also changed, and in ways that were not foreseen in the early part of the 21st century. Learners are increasingly dependent on technology to help them fit learning into their complex, demanding lives. Ownership of personal technologies – from computers to mobile devices – is now pervasive, and use of the internet, including Web 2.0 technologies, is commonplace.
Many learners expect to be able to access their personal technologies in institutional environments, and to personalise technologies provided for them by institutions. Flexible access to resources with opportunities for formative assessment and feedback are considered essential to support learning. Equally important is the ability to extend communicative and collaborative activity beyond the classroom.
For practitioners, the rapid adoption of technology presents many challenges but, by the same token, rich opportunities for enhancing their practice. Rather than replacing the teacher, technology has in many ways increased the focus on pedagogic skills. The art of the practitioner as instigator, designer and animateur remains key to the process of learning.
Effective Practice in a Digital Age, like its predecessor, is a guide for those who seek to understand better how to integrate technology into their teaching. The focus is primarily on institutionally based blended practice, while recognising that in some cases learners may be studying partially or wholly at a distance and/or engaged in self-directed collaborative learning as part of a taught curriculum.