Digital in Teaching and Learning

Gaining groundCarla Aerts

Cambridge University Press

How it started

• Digital technologies took some time to be adopted in Education

• Publishers started by including CD-ROM with additional teacher or student resources with books

• CD-ROMs were often added for use with whiteboards in the classroom

• The teaching and learning resources were developed to assist teachers in bringing interactive demonstrations

How it is evolving

• More powerful computers, tablets and mobile phones enter the market

• This brings a whole new dimension to teaching and learning

• Teachers can rely on additional teacher support resources to bring lessons to the classroom

• Students can interact with digital learning content such as: animations, sound files and quizes, etc

Technology is becoming more important

• It took some time for the Education space to engage with technology and its benefits

• The past 3 years have seen huge growth in edTec or Education Technology start-up companies

• These start-ups aim to bring digital learning tools to support teaching and learning

A key trend amongst education publishing

• Publishers are developing Digital and Interactive textbooks

• They can include tools to ‘annotate’ or make notes on their books, bookmark pages, highlight content

• Interactive 'assets' can be included such as: simple images, interactive 3D simulations e.g. a science lab, quizzes, videos etc.

• More advanced versions of such textbooks allow teachers to share notes and messages with students within the textbook

• Some of them can be used on desktop, laptop and tablets

What does this mean to creating learning

content?• Digital content development requires different

commissioning processes

• Technical and ‘user interface’ or screen design are needed

• The digital and print need to be thought about in parallel

• Print and digital content development has to happen in parallel by specialist teams

• Content on screen requires special development and formats e.g. image formats, sound file formats, ePub formats…

What benefits can it bring to teachers and students

• Difficult learning concepts can be supported by interactive, visual or audio materials

• Teachers can make use of interactive learning materials to support their teaching

• Students can interact with learning materials and test their knowledge as much as they need to

• Teachers can recommend additional practice using digital learning and practice resources

It takes getting used to

• Technology staff and support will b required to help schools use the digital products or resources

• Teachers will need to get some additional training to familiarise themselves with the learning materials and the technology to bring it into the classroom

• Students will probably find it easier to use the technology than most of their teachers, so teachers need to be very well prepared

Technology is starting to personalise learning

• New technologies are bringing new digital or ‘e-learning’ approaches

• They are called ‘Adaptive’ or ‘Personalised’ Learning

• They support different ‘learning paths’ for each student

• Teachers have to teach in a different way and become more of a mentor, using these technologies

• They are more used in Higher Education, but will come to schools too

• Content has to be developed in a different way to work

A good place to start

• To develop and realise your digital vision

• As you develop new print content, you could look at planning a digital textbook too

• These textbooks work best when they have an associated lesson plans, digital resources, quizzes and tools to support teachers and learners alike

A good place to start a discussion