Digitally mediated learning is the idea that learning can happen using digital tools in order for students to learn. Some examples include the use of online courses, virtual classrooms such as Zoom, or even using various educational apps to help students learn.
Digitally mediated learning includes things such as technology, flexibility, interactions, collaboration, and a personalized learning experience catered to the learner.
Examples of digitally mediated learning:
Virtual classrooms: online learning environments where teachers and students can interact and engage in discussions to promote learning. This is very similar to an in-person classroom experience just done online.
Online courses are delivered either in a hybrid model or fully online using a platform such as Canvas, Blackboard, or Moodle.
Simulations: interactive experiences that allow students to learn about real skills and help problem-solve. For example, students are using virtual reality to mimic an experience.
Educational Apps: Mobile apps designed to teach students key skills in subjects such as math, science, English, and social studies. Some examples of educational apps are Starfall, Learning A-Z, Legends of Learning, and Epic.
Now let's talk about the impact of digitally mediated learning—the good, the bad, and the ugly. For context to understand my viewpoints on this subject, my background needs to be understood.
My background information: I graduated with my bachelor's degree in 2021 with an education degree in birth kindergarten. During my bachelor's program, I was one of the unlucky few who were impacted by learning online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I have taken many college classes in a variety of different formats, such as hybrid classes and virtual online classes. I have used several platforms to do my classes, such as D2L, Canvas, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoTo Meeting, and Moodle. After graduation in 2021, I landed my first teaching job at one of the state's all-virtual charter schools. Here I taught kindergarten fully online using a combination of a platform called Jigsaw, Zoom, and Canvas. In 2024, I started my fully virtual Masters program at Arizona State University.
Now that you understand a little about me, digitally mediated learning has been mostly positive. However, not every aspect of digitally mediated learning has been positive for me, so I would like to review the strengths and weaknesses and provide examples to review the pros and cons of digitally mediated learning.
Pros:
One of the biggest impacts that I have seen as a pro of digitally mediated learning is the use of educational apps. Pappas states, "Online learners must also be able to link it to pre-existing knowledge and mental schemata. In other words, to build on their current knowledge base, which is also known as "scaffolding" "(Pappas, 2017). When I was a kindergarten teacher, I had many students who were above grade level for reading. I was able to use various educational apps to challenge my students individually and provide reinforcement for struggling students in an easy way. I used an app called Vocabulary A-Z, for example, to transform the way I taught sight words. I was able to assign weekly sight word games for my students to focus on our words of the week as well as give my students who were advanced new words to learn and provide games for my struggling students who needed a review of the past words. I was able to use the app to help my students read words, sound out words, read and write words, and create sentences with the words based on what they individually needed. As a result, all of my students were either on grade level by the end of the year or well above grade level, and most had a lot of confidence in their reading skills. I also find that educational apps are multisensory, which is a great way to engage students with ADHD to help them focus. This was something I would not have been able to do as much as I did due to the school daytime constraints for my reading block that I had.
Additionally, another pro I would say is the use of virtual classrooms. I have personally been a student and a teacher in a virtual classroom and feel that overall, since most of the time, there are fewer distractions, it is easier to focus on the learning and retain what I learned.
Cons:
Although I find educational apps mostly amazing. I do think, depending on the age of the student, sometimes these apps can be a distraction. I had many students who would click off the app and do another game that they wanted to do instead of the assigned work, which was very hard to monitor without physically being with the student. Eventually, using the apps became much easier, but for some students, it can be a distraction. I think for younger children, it might be easier to not use as many apps or only use a select few apps so that students might not click off of them.
Next, although virtual classrooms are great. I do see that virtual classrooms can be very hard for students to participate in depending on their home environment. I had a student when I taught virtually who absolutely did not pay attention and did not behave in our Zoom classroom sessions due to the distractions in his home. However, in person, he was the most well-behaved and advanced student in the class, but based on what I had seen about him on Zoom before I met him in person, I definitely did not think that. I think virtual classrooms can work for some but not others. I think in the future I would limit the time spent in virtual classrooms for young children and provide recordings of all virtual classroom sessions for any other student that might have missed something because of home distractions.
In conclusion, learning is not one size fits all. I do think that overall, digital learning has many benefits for most students. Defelice states to, "Develop internal data collection processes" (Defelice, 2021). I do think careful planning would need to be implemented so that the learning experience caters to the needs of all students so that no matter what the situation is with how the learner learns, they can be supported and learn what they need to know. When I become a learning designer, my hope is that I take the time to get to know ALL of the learners so that I can create experiences that cater to every learner's individual needs.
References:
Defelice, R. (2021, January 13). How Long Does It Take to Develop Training? New Question, New AnswerLinks to an external site.s. https://www.td.org/insights/how-long-does-it-take-to-develop-training-new-question-new-answers
Pappas, C. (2017, September 29). Merrill’s Principles of Instruction: The Definitive Guide Links to an external site. ELearning Industry. https://elearningindustry.com/merrills-principles-instruction-definitive-guide
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