Digital Technology – A Fad or Disruptive Technology?
Gary K. Beauchamp, Dylan Adams, Kevin Smith · 2022
In this chapter, we consider how digital technologies are used in education in a time of ‘liquid modernity’, where ‘change is the only permanence, and uncertainty the only certainty’. In this ‘liquid’ future, technologies are mobile, powerful, connected, and ubiquitous, but need to be used critically to challenge the idea that they provide a utopia for society and in education. The chapter considers the role of Learning Design in making informed decisions about learning activities so they are pedagogically informed and make effective use of appropriate resources and technologies. We highlight that a key part of such decisions is considering the potential of technologies and what they ‘afford’, or allow to happen, or that they do better. We then consider the educational potential of mobile technologies that are increasingly smaller, more powerful, and networked to other users and anyone, anywhere in the world. We conclude that digital technologies, both mobile and fixed, do not provide a utopia, in any sense of the word, but do offer unique ways to contribute to our definition of pedagogy to enhance learning, provoke curiosity, and meaningful engagement in society in another.