Chapter 15 – The Internet as an Educational Space

Chapter Summary

The Internet and Its Impact on Learning

• Learning is a key activity of human beings. It can be informal or formal i.e., taking part in a course.
• Before the Internet learning required movement, going to a library, making a phone call, or attending meetings or class.
• The Internet was developed to network computers and enable communication around the world.
• Access to digital technologies has become routine through devices such as mobile phones and tablets as well as traditional desktop and laptop computers.
• There are many tools available for us to use and lots of content for us to access.
• The Web enables us to keep up to date in a discipline or profession as well as finding out what is new.
• Informal learning takes place at an individual, group, or indeed system level.
• Formal learning takes place in workplaces, schools, and colleges. Key issues such as the curriculum, the role of the teacher and the role of the student, and the control of the process, particularly assessment, are still contentious.
• In the COVID-19 global pandemic of 2020–2021, workplaces, schools, and colleges closed. Schools and colleges pivoted to using the Internet as an educational space and in a very short time, learning moved online. This was emergency remote teaching.

Learning Using the Internet

• The range of learning resources on the Internet is vast. There is a lot of information. There are many tools.
• These Internet resources can be used by individuals, groups or by teachers in classrooms. Using them is often experiential learning. 
• Two important tools are YouTube and Twitter.
• YouTube (Hart, 2021a)is a video platform that enables access to video content. During the COVID-19 pandemic, YouTube was a key support for remote learning (YouTube, 2021).
• Twitter (2021) is a microblogging tool. It enables an individual to access ideas and thoughts from around the world.
• The availability of resources and tools for learning on the Internet makes much of the argument for it as an educational space.
• Classrooms are key sites of formal learning. The use of the Internet in the classroom is controlled by the teacher.
• Once classrooms are connected to the Internet teachers and learners have access to a wide range of tools and resources for learning.
• Virtual learning environments (VLE) are closed web-based systems for students and teachers. 
• Online courses are widely available. Instructional design distinguishes a course from a resource. A teacher/instructor organises the learning and the interactions. It has a pathway designed by the instructor and assessments.
• The Internet is being used as an educational space. It is used as an educational resource i.e., a source of learning content and skills. It is also used as a space to connect with and work with other learners.
• However, there seems to be a clear difference between using it as an educational resource – that is as a source of learning content and skills and using it as a learning environment.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted this difference as the Internet has been the space to connect teachers and learners, often through Zoom and other video conferencing platforms.
• Learning using the Internet poses challenges to our conceptions of learning and how we learn.

Interrogating Learning and the Internet

• There are two ways to interrogate learning and the Internet. We can start with the technology and see how it can support and enable learning or we can start with what learning is and explore how learning is enabled by the Internet.
• Technologies, such as mobile phones or tablets, are now available to many.
• Littlejohn (2013) identifies four learning behaviours; consume – using knowledge, connect – with relevant knowledge, people, resources, create – make new knowledge through using it and finally contribute back the new knowledge to the collective.
• Dron (2021a) considers people in education as coparticipants with technology.
• Inequality of access to technology was a major issue during the COVID-19 pandemic (International Commission on the Future of Education, 2020).
• Views about how we learn with technology are informed by our beliefs.
• Traditional learning theories focus on the individual and on the design of the instruction with the setting of goals and objectives (Gagné et al., 1992). Constructivist learning theories consider how learners learn by making meaning.
• Mayer’s (2005) cognitive theory of multimedia learning argues that learning with multimedia makes specific cognitive demands on learners.
• Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) argue that effective learning requires thoughtful activity, collaboration for learning with learners taking responsibility for learning and that learners need to learn about learning (Bransford et al., 2000).
• More recent theories try to account for learning in a networked world such as the Internet. Downes (2012) developed connectivism to reflect the network of the Internet and how it enables learning.
• Traditional approaches to teaching are being challenged by mobile technology. McWilliam (2007) argues that we need to ‘unlearn pedagogy’ if we are to take advantage of the digital world.
• The worldwide move to online learning and teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the experience of formal learning and assessment at all levels.
• This experiential learning highlighted the need for educators to be skilled in using digital technologies and the need to ensure that all children/learners can take part in digital education (European Commission, 2020).

Future Trends

• Learning is being transformed by the access to technology and the ability of learners to create and develop in the online world.
• The strength of the Internet is the access to knowledge, tools, and people.
• Access to knowledge for all is possible and that teachers are no longer the gatekeepers.
• The weakness is the volume of information and ideas. Teachers effectively are becoming curators of learning resources.
• A second challenge is using the tools and apps for learning, a narrow subset of tools is used in teaching.
• The Internet requires a rethink about how people learn and how to design learning.

Conclusion

• How the Internet as an educational space will develop is beyond our speculation.
• It now plays a role in all our learning.
• Teachers and learners use it to access information and create and develop solutions to problems.
• The Internet is changing the role of the teacher and how learning is organised; the external conditions of learning (Gagné et al., 1992).
• Most of all it supports learners to achieve mastery in whatever they wish to learn. This makes learning available to all provided they have Internet access.
• We need imagination and experience to fully explore what the Internet offers as an educational space.