Just to remind you all I was to read at least a chapter of “Rethinking Learning in an Age of Digital Fluency” and reflect on it.
So I decided to just start at the beginning of the book and I’ve read chapter 1 and half of chapter 2. Right at the start it said that chapter one was going to lay out all the arguments which would be considered in more detail later in the book, so I was glad to have started here to get a good overview.
I’m going to give a brief reflection on chapter one and then suggest what I felt were the key messages before moving on to relate this to my current project. I will finish by discussing how I think the ideas of this book relate to the future of education, especially medical education.
The book started with explaining the terminology “digitally tethered” which I now know means to be constantly switched on and involved in the digital world. The idea of this is something I think we can all probably relate to: “I feel naked without my phone” is becoming more common. The book discusses whether being digitally tethered is damaging to the learning process and explores what research has actually been done on this. Again I think we can all relate to this knowing how often we are told to put away our phones in classes. I feel the majority of teachers within the medical school do feel technology hinders our learning and sometimes they are right, we are all just sitting on Facebook. But quite often I find myself googling something that’s been said that I didn’t quite understand and it is this instant access to knowledge that I believe can help the learning process.
From the small part of the book I read it seems to me that this book was written to be unbiased and present both sides equally but I would need to continue reading it to see if this was the case. However, it is mentioned several times that there does not seem to be that much research into technology harming education more that the research focuses on what technology is used and how often it is used.
So I’ve chosen a few quotes from the book which I think are the key messages and I’ll mention why I think they relate to my project and the future of medical education.
“Learning is seen as involving the whole person, not just the intellect, so humanistic educators aim to liberate learners and allow them the freedom to learn.” (Savin-Baden, M. Rethinking Learning in an Age of Digital Fluency. 2015).
This is a direct quote from the book and I think it is very much what we are all trying to achieve with our learning resources. Over the past couple of weeks we have discussed how we all learn best and what makes a good and bad teacher. I feel a lot of what we are trying to do fits with the phrase “freedom to learn”. We know lectures aren’t always the best method of teaching so we are creating a new resource to back up the teaching we have received.
“It has become clear that one-size-fits all teaching methods are neither effective nor acceptable for today’s diverse students; indeed they never were.” (Savin-Baden, M. Rethinking Learning in an Age of Digital Fluency. 2015).
This quote which I picked out as a key message is very similar to the previous one but I like the fact that it considers if students were ever taught the best way possible. As we are all using different kinds of media for our projects I think this key message is something I had already considered before reading the book.
“… bringing with it the suggestion that young people are not only central to the digital age, but key players in its formulation and (re)creation .” (Savin-Baden, M. Rethinking Learning in an Age of Digital Fluency. 2015).
When I read this it actually reminded me of us. Learning how to teach and how to teach in an enthusiastic an effective way through the use of digital media. I think this is probably one of the most powerful ideas within the book because regardless of whether or not technology negatively affects our education, we are still learning lots of skills. I reckon those who use technology within the learning environment and get a negative response from this are probably the people who will create new ways of learning in the future.
“… the ratio of ‘textisms’ to total words used was positively associated with word reading, vocabulary and phonological awareness measures and that the children’s textism use predicted word-reading ability .”
I just wanted to include this note about a study that was carried out in 2009. It involved 88 British 10-12 year olds and the aim was to explore the childrens knowledge of ‘textisms’ and how that related to their school literacy. I found this really quite interesting because I personally can no longer stand to see poor grammar or literacy anywhere. I guess I had assumed it must be due to not having the best educational attainment but I think I might go and read more about this study and be less judgmental in future!
So to summarise then I would that from what I’ve read about this book it does raise a lot of interesting points and makes you question things. I would definitely class myself as being digitally tethered and I think this may be the way forward for teaching and learning. Not through the use of social media because I think it’s important to keep your social and educational lives fairy separate, but through the use of online digital learning resources!
Sorry but I’m pretty busy this weekend so don’t expect an update until Monday.
Hope you all have a great Friday and a fab weekend!
Laura
digitalmeded 