Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

Connected Learning is

"socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or political opportunity. Connected learning is realized when a young person is able to pursue a personal interest or passion with the support of friends and caring adults, and is in turn able to link this learning and interest to academic achievement, career success or civic engagement."

(Ito et al., 2013, p.4)

While teachers may strive to design learning opportunities which engage students in ways that meet these goals, the structures of schooling in 2019 are often prohibitive. Far from feeling free to develop learning which enables agility, creativity and flexibility, teachers’ days are packed full as they navigate the demands of standardised testing, and content packed curricula and requirements of competing external and internal stakeholders.

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on what makes a good and accessible digital assignment for faculty and teachers who are not comfortable with digital tools but open to learning and experimenting. An approach I’ve often seen is what I’ve recently started calling the kitchen sink approach to “onboarding.” In this approach, a suite of tools or a single tool that can do “everything you can imagine and more” is shown or given to a faculty member to integrate into their already existing course or assignment. The hesitant but eager faculty member, initially excited to try something new, quickly becomes overwhelmed and frustrated as they attempt to make the tool live up to the promises of “doing everything and more.” Frustrated, the faculty member then abandons integrating the tool because they “tried and it didn’t really work with their style of teaching” or “there is too much stuff in the course already to add digital tools.”