Digital technology can be used in all learning areas and curriculum within education, making it a key aspect in learning and education. It can have a huge impact on education – determining the difference between learning through people, and self-learning as digital technology allows students to branch out and learn on their own accord and learn independently.
Digital technology and education are inevitably and continuously changing and growing, and ‘how we use technology’ is different to ‘what technology can do for us’ (Laurillard, 2008, p.8). This means that, the way in which we use digital technology within education, and the way in which we allow it to aid us determines the role that digital technologies will and can play in the future. However, digital technology and education need to go hand in hand in order to achieve appropriate success – education plays a crucial role in achieving digital technology which poses an important question: ‘is education preparing today’s young people for tomorrow’s jobs using yesterday’s tools?’ (Devaux, et al. 2017. p.2).
‘In today’s digital world, knowing how to read, write, and participate online is a foundational skill next to reading, writing, and arithmetic’ is a statement taken from Mozilla which conveys that digital technologies are already playing a large and highly important role in education today, and will continue to do so even more in the future. Selwyn (2913, vii) states that ‘Digital technology is now a prominent feature of education provision and practice in many countries and contexts’, which also shows that digital technology is vastly growing globally and in many ways, making it even more relevant and appropriate within education as digital technology continues to grow. It can also be said that new technologies are challenging existing methods of communications, which in turn, affects education. This means that digital technology is causing education to change and adapt constantly in order for education to be appropriate to the time and to be constantly improving.
According to Devaux, et al. (2017), ‘the use of digital technologies in educational establishments does not necessarily translate into better learning’ with the evidence being that there is ‘no positive association between the extent to which learners use computers at school and their performance in maths, print literacy, or even digital literacy’. This suggests that strictly using digital technology in its basic form does not have a beneficial impact within education and it could mean that there is not much of a future for digital technology within education.
One statement that counteracts this by conveying that digital technologies have the ability to aid education for the better is (Laurillard 2008, p.1) ‘Education is on the brink of being transformed through learning technologies… never before has there been such a clear link between the needs and requirements of education, and the capability of technology to meet them.’ This statement implies that technology has the ability to transform education into a better form than it is today, if it were to be used appropriately. This suggests that, if technology is used as a learning aid towards education, it would better education as a whole. Furthermore, Laurillard (2008, p.8) claims ‘now we can ask ‘So what can the technology do for us?’ – rather than the more typical question ‘What can we use the technology for?’ – because we know what we want from it’, which implies that, in the future, digital technology can help to improve education for the better if it is used appropriately and as a tool, rather than a toy.
The Scottish Government (2016, p.9) claims that digital technology enhances learning and teaching in many ways, such as it provides quality educational content, tailors to deliver personalised learning, and engages and motivates learners. The Scottish Government (2016, p.8) also states that ‘digital technology can enrich the learning experience for all children and young people…learners already have a strong exposure to digital technology and they would support its increased use as part of their own education’. This shows huge support in digital technology playing an even bigger part in education in the future as they see many beneficial impacts from digital technology being used within education today, and expect even more in the future.
Furthermore, Jewit (2003) claims that there is a political question of ‘the roles of representation and communication in shaping the environment in which learning will happen’ which suggests that politics plays a large part in incorporating digital technology into education, and therefore, enhancing and improving education.
Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006, p.3) argue that although digital technology is often viewed in a negative light due to the fact that it is thought to stand in the way of creativity, the truth is quite the opposite. They state that ‘visual literacy will begin to be a matter of survival’ and that ‘teaching visual skills will not spell the end of the arts’ which means that using digital technology within education actually broadens creativity.
To conclude, it is expected that digital technology will continue to grow and to play an even bigger, foundational role within education in the future and politics has a big role to play in this. This is because the two are seen to go hand-in-hand for bettering both education and digital technology. Through using digital technology within education, students and young people are able to use a wider oray of learning platforms and techniques and study using their preferred methods. It also enables students and young people to broaden their educational ideas to a more global spectrum and learn via other people online, rather than being limited to only people that they know in person. Digital technology already plays a large role in education today, and as digital technology expands, as does education – this makes for a better and broader education with the help of digital technology in the future.
References:
Devaux, et al. (2017) Education: Digital technology’s role in enabling skills development for a connected world.
Jewit, C. (2003) Technology, Literacy and Learning: A Multimodal Approach: London, Routledge.
Kress, G and Van Leeuwen, T (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design: London, Routledge.
Laurillard, D. (2008) Digital technologies and their role in achieving our ambitions for education: London.
Mozilla, Web Literacy Overview. Available at: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/initiatives/web-literacy/ (Accessed: 02/11/20).
Pegrum, M. (2009) From Blogs to Bombs: The Future of Digital Technologies in Education: Crawley, Western Australia.
Scottish Government (2016) Enhancing Learning and Teaching through the use of Digital Technology.
Selwyn, N. (2013) Education in a Digital World: Global Perspectives on Technology and Education: London, Routledge.
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