My experiences as a learner on EDUC5264M and the impact on my professional context By Stephen Taylor

Social Constructivism vs Technological Determinism

This module has introduced me to a plethora of new viewpoints that challenged some of my deeply held beliefs of education technology and helped me to understand where people are coming from.

Facer and Selwyn(2021) promote a “‘non-stupid’ optimism” approach to education technology by which they mean don’t believe technology will solve all of educations problems. If it could it already would have. As they say in their article

despite talk of ‘computers blowing up the school’ and mass-scale ‘open’ learning, the main institutional structures of education have remained relatively intact over the past 40 years –even amid the substantial disruption of the pandemic.

When I first read the paper before starting the course it really challenged me. I held a deep seated, technologically deterministic, and incorrect, belief that technology could and would make everything better. However, they conclusively show in their article’s 6 points that digital technology alone does not:

• Transform education;
• Improve learning;
• Fix inequalities;
• Alleviate teachers’ work

and

• It’s use often results in broad consequences that stretch beyond matters of ‘learning’
• Any impacts are context specific and tied with socio-technical factors.

This made me rethink my approach and critically analyse my understanding. From doing this I now believe in a social construction of technology approach. This is where “different interpretations by social groups of the content of artefacts lead via different chains of problems and solutions to different further developments.” (Pinch and Bijker, 1984) or in more layman’s terms the social group that you are part of determines how you see and utilise technology. Which brings us back to the earlier discussion of how people’s habitus towards technology determines how they will, or won’t, utilise it.

My Personal Learning Environments

My learning style being fundamentally social constructivist in nature reflects the work of Vygotskiĭ. In his book he writes:

an essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of proximal development; that is, learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers. (Vygotskiĭ, 1978)

Here he is specifically speaking about children, however I do not believe the fundamental aspects of learning change as we grow older. These zones of proximal developments only become available when working with others, sharing concepts and ideas alongside them.

Another theorist I have been introduced to is Audrey Watters. Whilst I do not agree with the extent to which she sees the inherent behaviourism of educational technology leading to a world where students have no free will and that “the behaviour of the individual is brought under precise control” (Watters, 2020), I do agree with her vision of moving “from individual learning to shared experiences”(Watters, 2022) where instead of being fed a specific curriculum designed for all, our students receive a truly personalised curriculum that builds on their interests and built through social experiences, especially as this reflects my personal learning style.

The Digital Divide

In order to achieve this, we need to reach a point where all our students have equal access to technology. Unfortunately, we are currently nowhere near that.

There are currently three levels to the digital divide. First is a binary lack access to the internet, second is internet skills and use; and third is the tangible outcomes of internet use. (Scheerder, van Deursen and van Dijk, 2017)

First Level

UNESCO (2020) reports “only 12% of households in the least developed countries have internet access at home. even low-technology approaches cannot ensure learning continuity. among the poorest 20% of households, 7% owned a radio in Ethiopia and 8% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo”.

Whilst the figures aren’t quite as bad for the UK there is still a considerable divide. The Office for National Statistics (2019) reported “In 2018, 12% of those aged between 11 and 18 years (700,000) reported having no internet access at home from a computer or tablet, while a further 60,000 reported having no home internet access at all.” They also reported that those most affected by the lack of internet are disabled “For internet non-users aged between 16 and 24 years, 60% were disabled.”

The difference between the worldwide and UK seems large figure wise but the core issues behind them remain the same. Lack of access to technology has a detrimental effect on education.

The pandemic appears to have changed these statistics slightly. In a more recent report by Ofcom (2022) is “confident that the proportion of households in the UK without internet access currently stands at 6%. 2 A further 5% of households rely solely on mobile internet access to connect to the internet, whether via mobile data, a dongle or USB.” Their report also highlights a disparity in device availability. 21% of people only use a smartphone to go online, 24% of which are 16-24 year olds. 29% of those only using smartphones are in C2DE housing areas, which is the majority of housing around my college. Whilst these figures are slightly better than the 2018 ONS ones, the report clearly states “the pandemic has entrenched the digital divide and put others at risk” highlighting the main challenges as being:

• Connection reliability/speed,
• equipment/device availability and age,
• affordability of the equipment and contracts,
• digital skills
• and the impact low English literacy/proficiency can have on being able to use devices effectively.

Second Level

Those final 2 challenges bring us to the second level of digital divide. Lloyds Bank (2022) create an annual report for the Department for Education looking at essential digital skills in the UK. The report has found that “One-fifth of UK adults lack the digital basics In the UK today, c.10.2 million adults (20%) are without the Foundation Level and c.2.4 million (4%) are not able to do any of these core tasks.” And whilst there is a positive change from previous years it is still a large percentage. They also find that “Those with an impairment are 2.5 times more likely to lack the Foundation Level.” This is critical for us to address as education institutions if we are to help our students progress in the modern world of work.

Third Level

For the third level of digital divide the literature says “Differences in Internet out-comes are likely to have profound consequences, not least in the reinforcement of existing social inequalities.” (Scheerder, van Deursen and van Dijk, 2017) This is confirmed by returning to The Prince’s Trust Slipping Through the Net report the authors also state “Digital can be a great enabler. However, it also creates a greater divide between those who are able to obtain tangible outcomes and those who do not.” Those who are more confident digitally “outperform their peers who are not digitally confident, achieving more positive outcomes and fewer negative outcomes.” (Helsper and Smirnova, 2016) The outcomes are necessary for students to thrive. It’s not enough for them to just use the internet and devices, they have to have positive outcomes as well in order to benefit from its use.

Technology and Habitus

The impact of technological habitus on the usage of education technology

Within this module I have been introduced to habitus which is a concept that explains a lot of my anecdotal dealings with staff and students previously. Initially described by Pierre Bourdieu across his works, Habitus helps give explanation of why people act the way they do regarding changes in their lives/experiences.

I knew that a person’s background shaped their views on the adoption and use of technology but I hadn’t the vocabulary to explain it.

Many teachers do not see the relevance of using digital technology. It’s seen by many I have interacted with as a chore or another task that they need to complete and they do not value the pedagogical impact it can have. I have even had a survey response from a Head of Department asking why the digital training had to be done digitally!

This is confirmed when looking through the Will, Skill, Tool model. As Petko (2012) says:

The critical variables for a high level of ICT integration (in teaching) are a positive attitude on the part of the teacher toward the use of computer technology in the classroom, good skills in working with the technology and its fields of application, and finally, sufficient access to the devices.

The positive attitude being the most important. If staff do not have a positive attitude towards technology use, then they are far less likely to utilise it. This has been true of all technology in education so far, as shown in the work of (Cuban, 1992). Film and radio in the 1920s and 30s, TV in the 1950s and 60s, all promised to fundamentally change education and didn’t. Cuban states that

The promise was invariably followed by limited entry of machines into classrooms, growing practitioner disillusionment with the inaccessibility of the machines, academic studies documenting small learning effects from the new technology, to a final round of teacher-bashing

Is this also happening now with computers? My experience infers that there is definitely practitioner disillusionment. In her paper on German Teachers’ Digital Habitus and Their Pandemic Pedagogy Blume (2020) shows that this is a universal issue, through her reflections of key literature on teachers' habitus she writes:

Teachers and school leaders with similar backgrounds, with a habitus that does not value digital teaching and learning, do not necessarily advocate for digital tools in their schools.

There is also further evidence in the Teaching staff digital experience insights surveys for HE and FE 2021/22. When asked about the negative aspects of online learning staff find that online teaching is “more time and labour intensive...complex...and sometimes overwhelming” in HE (Jisc, 2022a) and that staff needed “digital training at various levels to suit all needs without assuming prior knowledge and ensure all staff have chance to contribute” whilst also taking “into consideration different learning styles. Some staff requested face-to-face IT workshops” in FE (Jisc, 2022b). Both of these reflect a lack of confidence in digital skills amongst staff, which will be exacerbated by their habitus and lead to their overall disillusionment with technology.

This study has made it clear that in my work I need to ensure I am breaking down the self imposed barriers staff have towards technology, meeting them on common ground and bringing them to an understanding of what it can do for them positively. The PGCE student who stormed out in my example came to me for 1 to 1 training and has very quickly become the largest proponent for trying new technology in her class. She just needed the right, personalised approach.

What about students? I have noticed students can’t transfer the skills they have at using digital devices for social media into useful skills for studying. They can upload pictures and videos to TikTok and Instagram but not use those exact same skills in the VLE context. Blume (2020) quote continues:

Likewise, many learners have little idea how their leisure pastimes could be trans-formed into institutional, educational capital

Students, as well as teachers, have problems utilising the technology they require for success. Staff being unsure how to use them exacerbates this further. At first glance this seems strange, as students can use the technology for a very similar purpose already. Uploading files to social media isn’t different from uploading files to virtual learning environments. Not only that but most students have grown up surrounded by technology. They haven’t had a time in their lives where a computer and the internet was not readily accessible to them. Prensky (2001) dubbed these students Digital Natives, and those who had grown up without the omnipresence of technology as Digital Immigrants.

The negative impact of the Digital Native/Immigrant discourse

Prensky’s description as I understand it is a lot more nuanced than just ‘Digital Natives have grown up around computers so know how to use them effectively.’ Infact in a later paper Prensky himself concedes that you need to be "Digitally Wise" to benefit from the digital systems you grow up around or immerse yourself with (Prensky, 2009), meaning you have to know how to use those systems effectively. However, the initial description seems to be how many have interpreted it. As Kirschner and De Bruyckere (2017), rather tongue in cheek, say:

Many teachers, educational administrators, and politicians/policy makers believe in the existence of yeti-like creatures populating present day schools namely digital natives… As in the case of many fictional creatures, though there is no credible evidence supporting their existence.

In their article they explain that Prensky’s work is based on anecdotal evidence from his experience with students rather than formal empirical evidence. Whilst there is truth to what he stated, it was a very sweeping statement to make with no in depth studies. From personal experience I can say that yes, teaching modern students by referencing to the games they enjoy as Prensky suggested is a great way for them to gain understanding, it isn’t fundamentally any different from using any popular culture.

Wright and Sandlin (2009) show that popular culture is "a tool to promote learning in the classroom, because it is deemed a way to connect with adult learners." and media can be used "to foster critical classroom learning" and they give many examples in their essay of various media being used in this way.

The fact the students in Prensky (2001, 2003) are playing video games doesn’t mean the ‘digital natives’ as a whole are capable of using educational technology any better than ‘digital immigrants’. Both have to learn how to efficiently utilise the software and hardware. Livingstone et al. (2011) place Digital natives at the number 1 myth about children’s online risks, specifically calling out that “Talk of digital natives obscures children’s need for support in developing digital skills.“

In the UK ICT as a subject was replaced with Computing in the curriculum based partially off this digital native concept. However, since this change student’s understanding of how to use technology appears to have stagnated. I have many conversations with staff and students about the lack of seemingly simple knowledge students don’t have – how to save a word file, how to share documents, how to present a PowerPoint. Things I was taught at school under the ICT curriculum. There is some evidence that this is empirically true as well. Research by Larke (2019) confirms that the new Computing curriculum isn’t being taught the same across schools, and students “cannot be expected to have gleaned or absorbed the attributes necessary to easily use digital devices or learn computing simply from having grown up in the “digital age.”” Which heavily implies many students are being left behind digitally and need far more support at all levels.

In a report for The Prince’s Trust Helsper and Smirnova (2016) make the recommendation that “Schools and ICT learning opportunities for young people focus on computer science…but being digitally literate is not just about computer science and coding. Inequalities in critical literacy, social communicative and more basic content creation skills are related to inequalities in achieving outcomes more so than technical, operational or information searching skills.” Which solidifies the above implication that students need a different approach to digital skills than those they are currently receiving.

I am now addressing this in my practice by remodelling our digital upskilling programme aimed at students and staff with the aim to bring all up to a minimum standard of ICT knowledge – enough to complete their educations sufficiently – then give them opportunities to push their understanding further should they wish to.

Learning Theories in Practice