Opinion or editorial blog entries from members and other scholars

Facebook is increasingly used by teachers as a user-friendly, student-centred, collaborative online learning environment. However, there also exists a paradox in Facebook use; some of the more frequently promoted advantages can actually lead to problematic outcomes.

Julie Faulker and David Elliott question the hyper virality of Pokèmon Go in relation to the rapid circulation of popular digital texts. Why this game, now, when (arguably better) augmented reality games have been around for ten years?

Neil Selwyn writes on how digital technologies are altering the nature of education work … not always for the best.

Dr Edwin Creely, LNM graduate researcher, writes about the encroachment of digital technologies into the pedagogy of literacy educators and the materiality of writing practice: "...the pen and the pencil appear to evoke memories of another time and another world: the analogue world where the art of writing was visceral and haptic and where the skill of producing a script was venerated."

Digital technology use in schools is clearly not working, at least not in the way that we are led to believe. In October this year, the fourth ICT national assessment program (NAP) data will be released by ACARA. Since ICT NAP testing began a decade ago, no more than 66% of students at Year 6 or Year 10 across the country have achieved national minimum standards – a far cry from the 90% of students meeting similar standards for NAPLAN testing.

This essay points to a global problem evident in the field of ‘Internet Addiction’. Heavy Internet use is positioned as problematic based on an outdated, self-selecting test, and an extraordinary amount of quantitative research that continues to perpetuate abnormality. The limitations of the research in this field are highlighted... read more...

Author: Andrew Hope In lecture halls, classrooms, study areas and virtual learning environments something is haunting education… the ‘promise’ of data analytics. As part of the increasing...

Author: Michael Henderson There is a fundamental crisis that the digital technology teaching and research community face: the dominance of stories about what we do with technology rather than what we...

Author: Julie Faulkner In December 2013 The Age published a letter that continued the debate about our education system failing to meet student learning needs. Rather...

Author: Michael Henderson Nicola F. Johnson Glenn Auld Phillip Dawson Social media, such as social network sites and blogs, are increasingly being used as core or ancillary components of...