Description
Educational institutions are ever-changing due to the recent adoption of technology into current educational practices. The application of digital technology into education has propelled this field significantly, as researchers attempt to keep pace with the vast array of technologically-induced learning methods that are being implemented. As education keeps transforming, it would be highly beneficial for instructors and administrators to have a compilation of research that helps predict where digital education is going.
Digital Learning: Architectures of Participation provides emerging research exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of current distance learning models as well as future methods of digital technology adoption within education. This book analyzes specific cases of digital learning models and works to establish future directions of e-learning adoption in institutions worldwide. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as community development, digital practitioners, and educational policy, this book is ideally designed for researchers, administrators, practitioners, instructors, policymakers, theorists, analysts, academicians, and students seeking current research on the future of digital education.
Reviews and Testimonials
"This book provides evidence for the role teachers can make in transforming education in the age of the technology revolution and the lost potential when what works as new ideas comes up against how those in charge want it to work. The research cited and it’s suggested application is a manifesto for transforming learning, changing how learners manage themselves and the role of teachers."
– Mr. Geoff Rebbeck, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
With the present displacement of the classroom, long a key feature of social learning, physical proximity has transitioned into an almost entirely virtual social presence. With this change we see the fundamental ‘structures’ of learning or, perhaps more precisely, teaching, transforming to the digital model. As all of these institutions arrive en masse at this well prophesied junction, they realise that there are pioneers who have arrived well before them.
Ecclesfield and Garnett are such pioneers, and this book tells the story of their ongoing journey. It includes some of their departures and arrivals, some of their wanderings and, most pleasingly, some of their planned future destinations. In their preface they state that the primary objective of the book is ‘to initiate dialogues around the issues it raises and to provide tools and pointers to resources and that wellspring of dialogue, ideas.’ This they have certainly achieved, and moreover, the book that they have produced should be essential reading for those who care about the future of learning.
– Dr. Rónán O'Beirne, NCUK
Author's/Editor's Biography
Nigel Ecclesfield
Nigel Ecclesfield was JISC Advance Programme Manager for the FE and Skills Development and Resources Programme supporting project work to develop innovative uses of technology throughout the UK. Nigel has been engaged in post-compulsory education since 1978 and educational research since 1985 working for national agencies, European projects, and higher education institutions. Nigel worked in FE colleges in various practitioner and management roles and became an inspector of Work-based and Community Learning. Previously at Becta where he worked on a range of national technology projects and surveys. He is interested in the influence of organizations on practitioner uses of technology, learner-centric education, teacher education, and open scholarship.
Fred Garnett
Fred Garnett has been working with adult vocational education teaching since 1982, initially with Lewisham College where he became Community Projects Officer. As part of TaLENT he helped create a Community Grid for Learning and helped set up the Creekside Environmental Education trust. As Head of Community Programmes at Becta he lead on community eLearning as part of the £250m Community Access to Lifelong Learning (CALL) initiative reporting to the DfES, DCMS and the Cabinet Office. Since leaving Becta he has been a Visiting Research Fellow at the London Knowledge Lab, where he leads on Digital Literacy and set up the Ambient Learning City & WikiQuals projects.