Title: New alignment for learning in a digital age

Abstract

In an age of ready access to people, online spaces and information, canonized formal knowledge acquisition is being disrupted. This presentation begins to unlock concepts and ideas associated with connected learning. It draws from research associated with New Alignments for the Digital Age: Insights into Connected Learning. A strong nuance about connected learning is that it is user-driven and self-orientating rather than externally determined, meaning that a quasi environment may be ‘created’ but the learning connections are individually made. Additionally, underpinning connected learning is the emergence of socially constructed knowledge which has implications for knowledge ownership, knowledge truth, knowledge formation and the merging of formal with informal processes for knowledge construction. Connected learning can not be considered wholly in the online realm. Rather it is embodied in every sense to an individual’s interest, interconnected experiences that transcend temporal, spatial and cultural boundaries. As such our conceptualisation of connected learning needs to deepen to effectively be able to rationalise how people learn in a digital age. In this presentations key concepts will be illustrated through current examples of connected learning both in formal settings, include learning communities and informal learning environments. In this approach the complexities of conceptualised self-driven global learning interactions will be explored.

Biography

Associate Professor Sarah Prestridge is the 2020 top scholarly researcher in Teaching in Teacher Education in Australia. She has also been independently named as the expert in Online Education by the Australian Institute of Teaching and Leadership (AITSL). Conceptualising what is considered effective teaching in a digital world has been a major part of her research. Since the completion of her PhD in 2007, she has investigated the integration of digital technologies through the relationship between epistemological and pedagogical beliefs. She has identified the process involved in shifting instructional practices for effective engagement with digital tools. Throughout her research into professional development she has explored the tension between face-to-face, online and self-generating professional learning, conceptualising how teachers learn online through social networks and developed a validated instrument for assessment of and curriculum development towards improving learner self-regulation. These foundations have led to current research in the areas of online teaching and online learning design with consideration of both the instructor and the active engagement of students.