With the advent of digital technology, many of our old ways of working and learning are being replaced. This is happening outside as well as inside the classroom. It is clear that a brand new learning model is required to be developed. But how can this be accomplished? The answer is that it requires not only the creation of an infrastructure of digital technology to support learning but also solving the fundamental issue of what will learning and education going to be in the near future.
This article explores ways to make learning a vital part of everyday life in the digital age, drawing upon the contributions of researchers and teachers from all over the world. This article is targeted at learners (including parents and students), educators and curriculum designers and technology experts as well as researchers in the field of learning sciences, as well as the decision-makers.
There are a variety of opinions on what digital-age learning should look like. However, there is a general consensus that we must support the co-evolution between learning and technology for communication. This includes exploring new opportunities for radically different educational concepts and for the development of innovative new practices which can be supported by modern communication technology.
One of the major challenges is that the current use of new information technologies for learning remain a kind of “gift wrapping” (Fischer 1998). These technologies are added to existing frameworks, including instructionism and fixed curriculum. They also function as a complement to decontextualized or uncontextualized learning. This is evident in numerous comparative studies where a face-to-face setting is used as a baseline that limits the study of tasks and functions that are only available in digital environments.
