Digital learning is a shorthand term for the revolution in digital media that can be used in the classroom to enhance learning. It does not mean an end to handwriting or traditional work methods and subjects; however it does mean the introduction of easily accessible electronic resources for learning and a better development of pupils’ enquiry skills.
These devices can be tablets, iPads, Kindles, e-readers, laptops or netbooks which are brought into the classroom beside the books and the pens and paper to offer an extra media for creative teaching and the development of understanding. In the past schools have been quick to adapt to the technologies on offer, such as interactive whiteboards, projectors and visualizers, and children have become accustomed to watching the teachers present and operate these to show video clips, interactive programs and 3D interactive books and materials. These have been a fantastic addition to the teachers’ armoury of tools, but are only able to deliver to all at the same time, reducing the potential for the children to engage independently in enquiry, for groups to work on different questions within the room to present back, or for faster and slower workers to manage the pace of their own engagement. Similarly, once the lesson ended there was no real opportunity beyond written homework for the pupils to continue to engage with the subject; to watch again, to check understanding or to follow up areas of interest by finding out a bit more using the same resources. These devices are not simply glorified browsers: the range of 3D material, interactive information, apps to watch or to write is seemingly endless. Teachers too are collaborating on finding the best quality resources and school librarians are fast becoming champions of a proper education in research and information management.
Digital learning therefore allows children to have a level of independence, to work and collaborate as teams and to carry on individually later. The transferrable skills that are developed can be used for life as the route to enquiry never really changes and is becoming more and more important for senior study, for university and for the world of twenty-first century work.
The resources available are easy to manage beside the paper and pen, and can be activated or perhaps more importantly deactivated, very quickly so that they become a resource to be used rather than the focus of the lesson. This change has happened quickly. When schools first embraced computers and set up computer rooms, as we did at Notre Dame Preparatory School in the late 1990s, the computers were a greater focus than the skills. Ten years on the skills and abilities of the pupils have outgrown even the notion of ICT (computer skills) lessons so that using a computer is embedded in subject lessons. This makes a nonsense of confining computer use to short sessions in bookable computer rooms as pupils will need to utilise the resources at different times, for different amounts of time and in a variety of ways.
In my own science teaching with Year 6 recently I have made use of DVD, search facilities and an app that is able to demonstrate the working of lungs under different conditions. These three small tools, just a tiny part of my lessons, have enabled me to communicate more fully with my pupils, and affords them an experience rich not only in my words (!) but also enhanced by visually attractive and clear interactive diagrams, easy to access from the classroom (and at home later if they wish) and engages them in a ‘what happens if?’ activity afforded by changing the variables on the easy to manage app. However the children also used paper and pen, group discussion, presentation with questioning and skills in communicating their hypotheses. For me, the digital revolution is a very exciting way of harnessing the children’s natural curiosity and their intuitive digital skills to create a buzz of excitement in the classroom that leads to real happy, exciting, memorable, meaningful learning. That, after all, is what classrooms are meant to be about!
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