The impact of digital technologies on teaching and learning
This thesis explores the impact of new technologies on learning and teaching and draws on research work carried out over a ten-year period. The thesis looks at the facilitators and barriers to using digital technologies effectively and explores the challenges for educators as they respond to the changes brought about by these digital technologies. It presents eight published works that have investigated the impact of digital technologies and collected data using a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques. The core paper provides a model by which the impact of digital technologies can be analysed and understood and the remaining papers populate that model. The model identifies a system of learning spaces that describe the ways that learners, teachers and managers respond to the challenges and opportunities that digital technologies bring to learning. The papers explore how the school space, the teaching space, the personal learning space and the living space have all been transformed by digital technologies. These papers highlight the ongoing tension within education brought about by the conflicting ambitions of managers to control learning while at the same time encouraging personalisation. The papers consider the nature of digital divides and also the potential hazards presented to young people by digital technologies. Finally, the papers explore the relationship between the use of digital technologies and academic achievement. The work presented here provides a coherent contribution to the field that offers new understandings of the impact of digital technologies on learning, and identifies key issues for further research.
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