The recent banning of smart phones in public schools by several state governments shows Australian policymakers are concerned about children’s use of technology and social media in school time. But what about the way our schools use digital technologies and, in particular, how the data collected by schools about our children is being used? Continue reading
The Journal of Philosophy in Schools recently published a special issue which has a focus of ‘Future Education: Schools and Universities’. The editors, Michael Levine and Laura D’Olimpio, offer the following provocation in their introduction to the issue:
In working to unpick the complex dynamics at play in the way that digital technologies have been taken up (or not) by schools, I have been exploring the concept of the ‘postdigital’ as a way to theorise what is going on.
On the one hand, there is much discourse suggesting that schools are not doing enough to equip students to work in a globalised highly-technological economy and that they need to do a better job of embedding educational technologies in schools. On the other hand, schools make a great deal of use of highly technological administrative systems, and are increasingly using educational technologies such as learning analytics, adaptive computer testing, administration packages and learning management systems. So are schools digital enough yet? Continue reading
Recently, Tiana Murray (an early career primary school teacher) and I had an article published in the journal, Digital Culture and Education, which examines what 10-12 year old children think of the internet. We published it in an online open access journal which I think is a fantastic venue for this research as it allowed us to publish a sample of the children’s artwork about the internet. These beautifully demonstrate the children’s ambivalence; the internet is depicted as both being a joyous place and a place of danger. The article can be accessed here and the abstract and selected children’s artworks appear below.
Dr Rachel Buchanan 