Digital Futures
Digital futures encompasses how technology is shaping the future of education. Technology has a large role to play in student learning and teacher practice in both physical and virtual classrooms. Digital resources, educational games, cloud-based computing, online textbooks are key components of digital futures. Reading, writing and arithmetic as the primary means of education has developed to reading comprehension, information literacy skills and develop critical thinking skills to challenge crowdsourcing.

Technological advancements has lead to the evolution of mobile learning. Mobile handheld devices that are connected to the internet through a wireless connection to Web 2.0. Devices now have GPS tracking, the ability to immediately share informaiton on Web 2.0 through social media and create videos and annotate photos. These affordances have changed how actors within the education field learn and teach (Wright & Pachoma, 2011).

To prepare students for the future, students need learning opportunities that foster collaboration, active learning through participation, developing their online identity through networking, social media and digital citizenship. According to Siemens (2005), chaos is a new reality it is then necessary for actors to recognize patterns, make meaning and connections between data sets and networks.

New learning structures where students design their own learning path through self-organized learning environments. The teacher becomes a facilitator, prompting students and supporting students’ inquiry. Wegner (2011) has termed this learning environment peerology. Students practicing petrology create their own knowledge, complete missions rather than assessments, ask each other questions and are self-motivated.

Web 2.0 has amplified how students learn, access resources, tools and participate through the learning medium. The internet offers educators and students the ability to learn in ways that in past were not possible. The expanded learning community removes geographic barriers, to allow interaction and collaboration beyond the physical classroom or school walls. The internet holds and retains information for learners, actors are not required to memorize content, we just Google it. This frees up brain space or higher-order thinking, creativity and innovation.

Teacher practice influences the learning culture within the classroom. It is essential for teachers to co-learn with students. They are no longer the knowledge holder, keeper and disseminator. According to John Seeley Brown, teachers must foster curiosity to motivate students to pull information for Web 2.0, rather than stuff students with knowledge.

The ability for educators to participate in creating content and share it online is through a posture of openness. Sharing within a community of practice or through creative commons licencing, educators have the power to be innovative creators. Through communities of practice, educators solve problems and share resources through social media, blogs, wikis within their network. Power is disseminated to educators who have a different perspective than those who work for large proprietary businesses.

For educators to move from traditional practices to the digital future, educators need to consciously and intentionally decide to commit to sharing in a connected and open environment. Establishing an online identity to connect to professional learning networks and develop a community of practice through digital tools. Educators can then confidently model to students how to create their own online identity (Corneli, Danoff, Pierce, Ricurate & MacDonald, 2016).

Digital Scholarship
Educators and students can deepen and share learning blogging online. Blog links can be commented on and shared through social media platforms. Learners can challenge each other’s thinking through commenting and questioning other’s posts. The learning and collaboration are expanded through a wider community having access to learning and sharing. Digital networks are open and democratize learning and study. Rather than sharing knowledge through the formal traditional publishing process, scholars can immediately “publish their thinking”.

Digital scholarship can be viewed through Boyer’s four core components – discovery, integration, application and teaching. Through these ideas, scholars can enhance their learning and knowledge creation using digital platforms. Digital scholars are active participants and shift to a model of open practice. New policy developments have lead institutions to open up learning environments through open education resources and massive open online courses. Digital scholars develop a network identity that supports sharing and collaboration. Finally, teaching through online blended platforms that support digital and face to face learning (Weller, 2018).

References

Corneli, J., Danoff, C. J., Pierce, C., Ricuarte, P., & Snow MacDonald, L., Eds. (2016). The Peeragogy Handbook (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL./Somerville, MA.: PubDomEd/Pierce Press. Retrieved from http://peeragogy.org

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(10), 3-10. Retrieved from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm

Weller, M. (2011). The digital scholar: How technology is transforming scholarly practice. A&C Black. Available under Creative Commons through Bloomsbury Open Access, as well as print and Kindle https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/the-digital-scholar-how-technology-is-transforming-scholarly-practice/ch1-digital-networked-and-open

Weller, M. (2018). The Digital Scholar Revisited. The Digital Scholar: Philosopher’s Lab, 1(2), 52-71. Retrieved from https://www.pdcnet.org/dspl/content/dspl_2018_0001_0002_0052_0071

Wenger, E. (2011). Communities of practice: A brief introduction. Retrieved from https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/11736

Wright, S., Parchoma, G. (2011). Technologies for learning? An actor-network theory critique of ‘affordances’ in research on mobile learning. Research In Learning Technology, 19(3), 247-258. doi:10.1080/21567069.2011.624168