scholarly journals Let’s talk about digital learners in the digital era

Author(s):  
Eliana Esther Gallardo-Echenique ◽  
Luis Marqués-Molías ◽  
Mark Bullen ◽  
Jan-Willem Strijbos

<p>This paper reports on a literature review of the concept of “Digital Natives” and related terms. More specifically, it reports on the idea of a homogeneous generation of prolific and skilled users of digital technology born between 1980 and 1994. In all, 127 articles published between 1991 and 2014 were reviewed. On the basis of the findings, there appears to be no commonly-accepted definition of a “Digital Native”. The concept varies among individuals, societies, regions and nations, and also over time. Moreover, there are a number of variables other than age that may help us understand the nature of students’ use of digital technologies. The so-called “Digital Native” literature demonstrates that despite students’ high digital confidence and digital skills, their digital competence may be much lower than those of their “digital teachers”. Given the confusion surrounding “Digital Native” and its affiliates, we propose to unify them under the concept “digital learners”.</p>

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hye Kim ◽  
Ah Hong ◽  
Hae-Deok Song

College students are often assumed to be digitally fluent as they are “digital natives”, owing to their exposure to digital technologies from an early age. Furthermore, it is assumed that this digital competence is likely to prepare them for learning in college. However, it has been observed that current college students who are “digital natives” may or may not effectively apply digital technologies during their college education. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of college students’ prior digital experiences, particularly their families’ influence, on their in-college digital competence and attitude, and by extension, on student engagement. A total of 381 university students were surveyed in this study. Data was obtained from a self-administered, online survey and analyzed using partial least squares, which also evaluated the research model. According to the findings of this study, students’ positive prior digital experience significantly influences their perceived digital competence and their attitude toward digital technologies. In addition, our research also indicates that college students’ perceived digital competence and attitudes are mediated by their learning agility, which is the ability to continuously learn and the willingness to apply acquired knowledge. This article may thus act as a springboard for further empirical research, as well as for examining the nature of students’ prior and positive experiences and learning agility in digital competencies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Hiller A. Spires

This thematic issue of <em>Media and Communication</em> features a range of critical perspectives on digital literacies with the aim of shedding light on a path forward with respect to theory, research and practice. The issue hosts fourteen articles divided into four themes that address digital literacies in varying ways. The four themes are (a) defining digital literacies, (b) socio-cultural theories of digital literacies, (c) digital literacies in practice, and (d) digital skills and efficacy. The articles make a strong case for the continued exploration of the significance and (re)definition of digital literacies within our global communicative landscape. The authors have inspired new dialogue, research directions, innovative practices, and policy on digital literacies. As digital technologies continue to evolve so too will intellectual frameworks—generating nuance and scope for and by researchers as well as practitioners.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 176
Author(s):  
Maira Mukhtarovna Pernekulova ◽  
Ayazhan Sagikyzy ◽  
Zhamal Bazilovna Ashirbekova ◽  
Dinara Mukhtarovna Zhanabayeva ◽  
Gaukhar Abdikarimovna Abdurazakova

Currently there are many attempts to determine virtual reality which is created by digital technologies. The present article discusses this phenomenon in the creative act. This approach gives an opportunity for the full consideration of virtual reality because the category of reality includes not only digital technologies but subjective perceptions which creates problems in its definition. According to our understanding virtual reality is determined by the relation with the person’s virtual world and digital code. The person’s creative potential is defined, in its turn, as the person’s virtual. In the creative act between virtual reality and creative potential besides homogeneous connection there is an ontological connection and then virtual reality is a medium and a tool for the person’s creative potential realization. In this case the creative act is an actualization of images or symbols, by changing the intensities of the virtual image which results in the transition of the creative potential into otherness- the virtual reality of the code. As the tool of creative reality virtual reality plays the role of the digital technology which alienates the person’s time and space.   Received: 19 November 2020 / Accepted: 4 February 2021 / Published: 5 March 2021


Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
pp. 2108
Author(s):  
Celia Moreno-Morilla ◽  
Fernando Guzmán-Simón ◽  
Eduardo García-Jiménez

This research focused on the study of learning ecologies utilizing digital technology. The qualitative methodology used has allowed the analysis of the interactions children establish with digital technologies and the manner in which they construct a learning ecology. A total of 46 12-year-olds, their families, and their teachers participated in this study. The children’s schools and homes were in neighborhoods where structural situations of poverty and social and cultural marginality concurred. The children integrated researchers into their digital community, which allowed access to the events that the community was developing through digital technologies for two years. This information was complemented by the development of systematic observations and interviews with each participant. The participants’ multimodal linguistic and literacy practices were analyzed using a social semiotics approach. The results of the research describe and interpret the interactions that took place between participants and digital technologies. The research has identified the processes of recontextualization, transduction, and transcontextualization of the discourses developed in the frame of the participants’ learning ecologies. Digital ethnography has been revealed as an adequate method for studying learning ecologies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Odundo Paul Amolloh ◽  
Ganira Khavugwi Lilian ◽  
Milimu Gladys Shaji

Dispositions towards use of digital technologies in modern early childhood settings have dramatically transformed aspects in education sector through development and integration of technology into education policy, curriculum and practice. Digital technology as a tool in instruction benefits learner’s fine motor skills, language and communication readiness, mathematical thinking as well as positive attitudes towards learning. Conversely inadequate educational and digital competence hampers teachers in Early Childhood Education (ECE) access to digital technology. This study assessed ways in which teachers in ECE in Kenya access digital technologies. It was designed as a two-phase exploratory mixed methods study. The design allowed collection of data from two groups of ECE educators: case study and survey teachers. Case-studies of two ECE centers (low and high technology) involving 11 ECE teachers were compared in order to examine similarities and differences in access to digital technologies. Similarly, teachers (n=508) in two education zones were surveyed and drawn in terms of similarities and differences in access to digital technologies. Findings indicated that ECE teachers in Kenya have limited access to digital technologies due to non-availability in ECE teaching and learning environments. To address this challenge, the study recommends Ministry of education to put emphasis on funding technology resources in early childhood settings. Furthermore, teachers in ECE should be exposed to a variety of developmentally appropriate digital technologies in order to effectively enhance teaching and learning.


Author(s):  
César González-Rodríguez ◽  
Santos Urbina-Ramírez

La importancia que han cobrado las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación en la sociedad durante los últimos años ha provocado que la competencia digital sea considerada como clave en el diseño de las políticas educativas y, en consecuencia, que desde diversos ámbitos se hayan desarrollado múltiples instrumentos destinados a la evaluación de las habilidades y destrezas digitales de docentes, discentes y población en general. Es por ello que se ha considerado pertinente analizar diversos tipos de herramientas usadas en la última década en España para el diagnóstico de la competencia digital del alumnado de distintas etapas educativas prestando atención, entre otros aspectos, a los ítems utilizados, la estructura de las herramientas o la metodología empleada. Este trabajo profundiza en el análisis de una serie de investigaciones que, pese a compartir, en muchos casos, aspectos metodológicos, difieren en su visión y concepción de la competencia digital, algo que dificulta el establecimiento de pautas comunes de evaluación, ya que resulta complicado acordar cómo medir una variable cuando la definición de la misma se presta a múltiples interpretaciones. Precisamente la definición de un marco común de referencia en el ámbito educativo que sirva para abordar la evaluación de las habilidades digitales es uno de los retos de investigadores e instituciones, si bien no se trata de una tarea sencilla cuando las tecnologías digitales se caracterizan por los continuos y vertiginosos cambios The impact of Information and Communication Technologies on society in recent years has caused digital competence to be considered the key to designing educational policies and, consequently, the development of numerous instruments for the evaluation of the digital skills and abilities of teachers, students and the population, in general, in several fields. Therefore, it has been considered relevant to analyze various types of tools used in the past decade in Spain for the diagnosis of the digital competence of students from different educational stages, paying attention, among others, to the items used, the structure of the tools or the methodology. This work goes in depth in the analysis of a series investigations that, despite sharing some methodological aspects in many ways, differ in their vision and conception of the digital competence. This makes the establishment of some common evaluation guidelines more difficult, since it is complicated to agree on how to measure a variable when its own definition could be interpreted in several ways. The definition of a common frame of reference in the educational field that serves to address the evaluation of digital skills is precisely one of the challenges of researchers and institutions. However, it is not an easy task when digital technologies are characterized by continuous and vertiginous changes.


Author(s):  
Sindhu C. M. ◽  
Binoy K.

Digitalization is the integration of digital technologies in to everyday life by the digitization of everything that can be digitized. Digitalization is sweeping across every aspect of our daily lives. It has totally changed the educational industry and teaching learning process to a great extent. It has lessened the distance between students and their educational needs there by making education stress free. The use of digital information in the educational environment has enabled easy access to many resources. Students must develop knowledge about how to use ICT Technology to construct meaning, but most importantly in ways that are appropriate to their needs. Thus technology is proving a disruptive influence in education. Hence each and every student should be aware about these technological advancements. Today’s students living in digital age called as “digital students” or “digital inmates” or “digital natives” are the pupils those who born after 1980 and those who born before 1980 are called digital immigrants. Through the present paper investigators made an attempt to find out the digital awareness among digital natives hailing from four generation groups.


Author(s):  
Hridayjit Kalita ◽  
Kaushik Kumar

The perception of learning and teaching in the educational universities have been affected by digital technology. With the industrial concern over sustainability of resources and efficiency in operation in a digital environment, the need arises to implement digital technologies in the educational setting so that digital competence of the future workforce can be elevated, and better industrial output-based education is provided. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to describe and discuss the current scenario of digital integration in higher educational disciplines. The issues concerning this integration include teacher inability to incorporate digital thinking into student learning, student non-adaptability to modern technologies, unreliability of digital educational resources, and lack of infrastructure/power supply in most of the educational institutes. An active digital learning approach in students and extensive training sessions for digital utilization excellence in teachers and educators are a few ways to solve issues regarding the above-mentioned integration.


2012 ◽  
pp. 212-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sue Bennett

The term “digital native” was popularized by Prensky (2001) as a means of distinguishing young people who are highly technologically literate and engaged. His central claim was that because of immersion in digital technologies from birth, younger people think and learn differently than older generations. Tapscott (1998) had proposed a similar idea, calling it “The Net Generation,” and there have been numerous labels applied to the same supposed phenomena since. Recent research has revealed that the term is misapplied when used to generalize about an entire generation, and instead indicates that only a small sub-set of the population fits this characterization. This research shows significant diversity in the technology skills, knowledge, and interests of young people, and suggests that there are important “digital divides,” which are ignored by the digital native concept. This chapter synthesizes key findings from Europe, North America, and Australia and predicts future directions for research in this area.


First Monday ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hildegunn Støle

This article is concerned with children’s reading development in the important years from when they begin learning to read to the age when the child reaches adequate reading comprehension to read to learn from a variety of texts on diverse subjects. Like any skill, reading skill requires relevant and extensive training. We have tended to think that children growing up in the digital era get plenty reading training from digital devices and that this is as efficient as reading books was for earlier generations. Due to this optimism, we have paid too little attention to whether extensive use of digital devices actually provide children with relevant reading training during the important years that efficient reading is developed. The author holds that book reading still has its place in education.


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