Digital technologies have largely changed the way students interact and learn. For example, the chalk board is in the past and we have said bye bye to 3-ring binders. Yet the pace of technological change is unprecedented and the expectations for institutions and staff to learn, change and adapt, and be more dynamic are enormous.<\/p>\n
It was only a few weeks back that I was reminded of how quick technology has changed. A group of teenagers referred to Facebook as being like Friends re-united. These teens described Facebook as being something used by parents, which also meant that Facebook was no longer seen as \u201ccool\u201d. Facebook also didn\u2019t support how youth wanted to communicate. While parents post text-based status updates, teens told us that they would rather communicate through video, using apps such as SnapChat to ask a question to their friends. This research is beginning to tell us that what adults perceive as \u201ccool\u201d or \u201crelevant\u201d is different from youth. It also emphasises that the way adults use digital technologies is different to youth, and youth prefer communicating through different mediums, using video and emojis. So what does this mean for the University of Birmingham in 2026, particularly for teaching and learning?<\/p>\n
It is clear that there needs to be a focus on technology. Approaches based solely on adult informed perspectives however are likely to be largely ineffective. Focussing on the technology itself may also not be helpful. Instead, any technology-informed teaching and learning approach should be driven by students and their needs. There is also a need to focus on how technology is used, rather than what technology can do. Such a perspective requires us to work with the youth of today and tomorrow and consider the educational contexts that 8 year olds are currently learning in, within and beyond school.<\/p>\n
Given that it is reported that many young people begin surfing the web at 4, the 8 year olds of today and the freshers of 2026 are likely to have highly advanced technological skill set. We also know that there is a key focus on digital making<\/a> where young people are being encouraged to manipulate technology and create it for themselves. In this sense, there is a shift emerging from young people becoming consumers to producers of technology. Yet there are also key challenges. For example, Jon Tait a deputy head teacher tells us in his blog<\/a> that the \u201cConsole Generation\u201d have \u201camazing collaborative digital skills\u201d\u2026 \u201cbut they are not used to using Microsoft Office\u201d, \u201cthey don\u2019t know how to save a document in word\u201d and \u201cthey don\u2019t know how to produce reports or presentations, in any given subject\u201d. This is a clear challenge for our current modes of assessment at the university, that largely based on reports and presentations. So how do we balance young people\u2019s new and different digital skill set, their diverse uses of digital technologies, with the types of skills that are required for learning at the university? My suggestion is that a collaborative technology focussed network should be established of staff and students. To make provisions for the learners of 2026, we also need to go outside of the institution to understand how the students of tomorrow will want to learn and what the employers of tomorrow will require of graduates.<\/p>\n Dr Victoria Goodyear Digital technologies have largely changed the way students interact and learn. For example, the chalk board is in the past and we have said bye bye to 3-ring binders. Yet the pace of technological change is unprecedented and the expectations for institutions and staff to learn, change and adapt, and be more dynamic are enormous. … Continue reading “Facebook is like friends re-united”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[5,19,20],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-digital","tag-skills","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions\/117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/bigconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSchool of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"