Making Learning a Part of Life in the Digital Age

With the advent technological advancements, many of our old ways of learning and working are being replaced. This is happening outside and inside the classroom. It is obvious that a new learning paradigm must be developed. How can this be accomplished? It will not only require creating digital infrastructure to support learning but it will also require addressing the fundamental questions of what education and learning will be for in the near future.

This article explores ways to make learning a part of life in the digital age, based on contributions of teachers and researchers from around the globe. This article is intended for learners (including students and parents) educators and curriculum designers, as well as technology experts and researchers in learning sciences.

While there are many different opinions about what learning in the digital age should look like, there is an overwhelming consensus that we need to help support the co-evolution of learning and the latest technologies for communication. This should include exploring new opportunities for radically different conceptualizations of education and for the creation of new ways of teaching that are supported by modern technology for communication.

One of the biggest challenges is that the most current applications of new technologies in learning are a type of „gift wrapping“ (Fischer, 1998). These technologies are used as an addition to existing frameworks, such as instructionism, memorization, fixed curriculum and decontextualized learning. This is evident in many studies in which a face-to-face setting can be used as a benchmark and is used to study tasks that require functions only accessible in digital settings.

https://lifelongdigital.org/2021/12/29/digital-life-and-the-long-awaited-digital-innovations/