Learning

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Putting educators at the heart of digital learning

Digital technologies have become part of everyday educational practice, and AI is creating new possibilities at remarkable speed. But technology does not make learning meaningful by itself. Educators play a crucial role in turning technological possibilities into learning experiences, using their professional judgement to make decisions about purpose, teaching, inclusion and assessment.

This makes digital pedagogy an important part of the conversation. Fawns (2022) argues that technology, teaching methods, purposes, values and context are entangled and mutually shape educational activity. Technology is therefore neither simply a tool added to teaching nor something that independently determines how education should change. Educators work within these relationships, making choices about how technology supports the students, learning outcomes and contexts in front of them.

That role becomes particularly important as AI changes learning and assessment. Generative AI can offer new opportunities for experimentation, dialogue, feedback and exploration, but it also raises questions about what we ask students to do and what constitutes meaningful evidence of learning. These are pedagogical questions as much as technological ones. Educators need the space and confidence to experiment, evaluate and decide when AI adds value, when it changes the nature of an activity and when it may not be the right approach at all.

Professional judgement is equally important for inclusive teaching and assessment. Technology can provide different ways for students to participate, engage and demonstrate their learning, but inclusive education relies on more than the availability of digital tools. Mintz et al. (2024) highlight the complex relationship between pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, resources and educator knowledge in translating the potential of technology into inclusive practice.

There is also good reason to be cautious about claims that the next technology will transform education. Reich (2020) shows that educational technologies have repeatedly promised disruption without fundamentally transforming learning. Technology has an important role, but it cannot provide a shortcut around the difficult work of educational change.

For ABLE, putting educators at the heart of digital learning does not mean putting students anywhere other than at the centre of education. It means recognising that meaningful, inclusive and engaging student learning depends upon educators who can exercise judgement, develop their practice, experiment with new possibilities and shape technology around educational purpose.

As digital and AI-enabled education continues to evolve, perhaps the question isn’t simply what these technologies can do, but:

How can we empower educators to use technology in ways that make learning more meaningful for their students?

References

Fawns, T. (2022). An Entangled Pedagogy: Looking Beyond the Pedagogy–Technology Dichotomy. Postdigital Science and Education, 4(3), pp.711–728. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00302-7. [link.springer.com], [research.monash.edu]

Mintz, J., Connolly, C., O’Brien, E., Daniela, L. and Ó Ceallaigh, T.J. (2024). Inclusive Digital Education: Contexts, Practices and Perspectives. Computers in the Schools, 41(2), pp.115–119. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2024.2340873. [mic.elsevierpure.com], [research.u…fgalway.ie]

Reich, J. (2020). Failure to Disrupt: Why Technology Alone Can’t Transform Education. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. [tsl.mit.edu], [hup.harvard.edu]