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Avoiding 'digital dualism'?

LG Lesley Gourlay Public Seen by 321
LG

Lesley Gourlay Thu 14 Apr 2016 3:19PM

Hi All,

Thanks for the invitation, looking forward to tomorrow. I'm based at UCL IOE and focus an area of my research work on higher education, technology and textual practices. Have been reading the various threads with interest, lots of very thought-provoking points. One thing that has occurred to me throughout though, is that there is a possible danger - through a laudable desire for innovation - that we can find ourselves collapsing into a form of 'digital dualism' which assumes a clear binary between digital and analogue / print-based practices (?)

I would argue there are two problems with this. First, that it suggests educational and social practice can be unproblematically categorised as one or the other of these, where from a sociomaterial perspective I would contend that the material / embodied, the print-based / verbal and the digital are in constant and complex interplay. Secondly, there perhaps is a related risk of falling into a 'digital = student-centred, inherently better for all purposes', versus 'non-digital = retrograde, teacher-centred, indicative of resistance, in need of remediation'. I think any case being made for change (whether directly to senior leadership in the form of personal advocacy or more formally through the governance structure) needs to remain nuanced in terms of this and also should be grounded in the research.

Interested in hearing the thoughts of the group.

Lesley

CS

Colin simpson Thu 14 Apr 2016 10:54PM

I see your point Lesley and I personally try to bring things back to the teaching/learning practice rather than the tools used. If we frame our conversations with lecturers in terms of assessment or collaboration or reflection (etc) and then advise them on the most effective means of implementing the strategy, we can keep both the digital and print based material in our toolkit.