My Perspectives on Digital Learning

 Martha Pilling

LDT 504

8/24/24

My Perspectives on Digital Learning

Loosely defined, digitally-mediated learning can include any learning which utilizes an online technology to mediate its students. Under that definition, distance learning, learning management systems, micro-learning through YouTube or LinkedIn, and so forth are all variables of digitally-mediated learning. 

Years ago I chose to take a distance learning theater appreciation class through the University of Utah. It was terrible. I was a traditional, on-campus student, so acquiring learning resources at the university was simple. I was required to get a VHS copy of the lecture each week, watch it, converse with my classmates through email, and complete quizzes and tests on the material I “learned” through the VHS tapes. This was at the inception of email, when very few students were familiar with how to use it. I swore email would never catch on, and that it was a completely ineffective way to communicate. How ironic, considering that now I’m in a technology-based field which requires most of the students’ interactions to be through some digitally-based method. Slack has mostly replaced the email communication format, but it is based on the same premise.

  My experience with the distance learning course was extremely challenging because of the lack of an engaging and interactive lecture format. The instructor recorded herself spouting an hour’s worth of unengaging course material in a monotone voice. There was no opportunity for interaction with the material. However, once I finally learned to properly use email, I did look forward to the discussions, and the benefit was that it set me up for success in the LDT Master’s degree discussion boards. Though it was many years ago, I learned discussion etiquette, how to ask questions and be engaged in the discussion, and how to interact with my peers, even if I never met them in person. In addition, the class taught me how to, shall we say, hone my communication skills in a strategic manner, even though it was one of my least favorite college courses.

This was the worst experience I had with an “online” class. I didn’t retain any of the information presented, and I would've much preferred to take an in-person theater appreciation class. If there had been a way to interact in real time with other students, I might not have felt so isolated and bored with the material. Unfortunately, technology was in its infancy, and likely the best we could’ve done at the time would’ve been a chatroom on the internet. The email discussions weren’t completely ineffective, but the class definitely felt like something I just had to endure to get the course credit. It needed an overhaul to make the delivery more interesting and exciting for students. 

Something I’ve learned about learning is that humans are social beings by nature, so we crave connections. We get excited when we find a classmate who shares some of our same hobbies, and we love to discuss our reaction to the material we’re learning. What’s more, we learn by talking about what we’re learning. It provides an opportunity to dig deeper into our schema, and create critical thinking skills. Because email didn’t allow for branches or tangents of thought, it was difficult to feel fully connected, or even to have a chance for deeper, more meaningful discussions.

When the U.S. public schools endured COVID shut-downs, I experienced online learning as a paraprofessional struggling to help students with special needs learn from a completely unfamiliar format. Our school district used the Canvas Learning Management System. Since I’d had a lot of experience with Canvas through earning my Bachelor’s degree online, I was thankfully familiar with it, but the thing that was especially challenging was trying to maintain the attention of the students I worked with when they were used to in-person, pull-out instruction. Frankly, I believe what we put kids through over the course of that year is criminal. We didn’t have many other choices, but most schools in the U.S were ill-prepared to shift to an online format, and students were also ill-prepared to receive learning that way. 

What worked and what didn’t? In the district I work in, we lacked engaging micro-learning sessions. Students were required to sit through a 45-minute lecture (what student can sit and listen intently for that amount of time, even in high school?), and then do whatever busywork we had set up for them. Most students struggled immensely, but especially those with learning disabilities. The students came back to school the following year knowing about the same amount of information as they had before the shut-downs, perhaps even less. There was little retention.

If I’d had any kind of warning that students would be stuck at home for so many months, perhaps the teachers and I could’ve worked to prepare more engaging lessons. If given time, teachers could’ve prepared video formats of micro-learning lectures, attached YouTube or Khan Academy clips to explain difficult concepts, and modified curriculum to be more online-friendly. I believe we all tried to do the best we could with the limited resources we had available, but I also know there were school districts that had planned for such a contingency long before the shut-downs. They anticipated something like this could happen, and they trained their teachers and staff how to be prepared for an online learning format. They had practiced online learning with their students, so they would know what it looked and felt like. The students in those districts thrived, and they actually returned to school having learned plenty. 

The experience taught me that educators need to be forward-thinking. Having multiple contingency plans is not wise; it’s crucial for educational success. Districts that had the forethought to embrace the new technologies and prepare their teachers and staff on its use thrived in spite of extremely challenging and unexpected adversities. They were prepared to make a sharp turn.