2 What this course is trying to accomplish

This is the fourth complete redesign of the course I’ve taught over the years trying to introduce people to the impact of digital technologies related to learning. It has moved from ‘look at these incredible tools, imagine what you can do with them!’ towards what it is now which is more ‘omg, all these digital things have changed our culture, what does that mean for learning?’. The tools themselves have become at once more powerful and easier to use. They’ve also become more insidious and now have a far reaching impact on our culture. This course, then, tries to do far less than the former iterations. The course starts with four questions

Unspoken first step. (What am I trying to do in my classroom, oh, let me see if this technology can help me…)

1. How do the affordances of the tech impact learning/managing learning? (Term 1 first half)
2. What have other people said about it? (Term 1 first half)
3. What could it mean to use it well? (Term 1 second half)
4. What equity/sustainability considerations does it have? (Term 2 first half)

The course itself happens over two terms, with each of the questions being focused on at different times. I’ve spread these out in an attempt at mirroring how one would approach the decision making process in a classroom, but over a 7 month period, instead of in the 10 minutes a classroom teacher might have on a Sunday evening preparing for the week.