Acquiring Learning Skills With Digital Technology

Book excerpt: A common idea within modern education is that digital technologies and traditional learning cannot coexist successfully, that essentially technologies can be distracting and disrupting for students. It is believed that current implementations of technology in educational settings create an environment that is at odds with itself. However, this dichotomy between traditional learning and educational technologies does not need to be the default. Digital technology can be used in positive ways to enhance learning, whether it is providing easier access to information or in a creative light such as the implementation of video games as learning tools. Ultimately, it is possible to incorporate technologies into classical education strategies so that they complement each other. Acquiring Learning Skills With Digital Technology is a critical scholarly publication that examines cutting-edge research on how digital technologies disrupt the traditional learning structure, and proposes ways in which traditional learning and digital technology can complement each other. This will improve learning while communicating a program of skill-acquisitions that can become the basis for stand-alone general education courses and as teaching techniques. It examines three skills that the authors define as trim (abilities in the economy and concentration of language), track (progressive comprehension of documents), and test (pragmatic testing of data and precepts located on search engines). The authors demonstrate these skills’ links to already-established digital skills, platforms, and protocols while also giving examples of each in both practice and format. The book examines a variety of technologies including video games, the internet, and social media, in particular Skype, Google, and Twitter. Featuring a wide range of topics such as social media, pedagogy, and psychology, this book is ideal for education professionals, academicians, IT professionals, researchers, computer scientists, psychologists, and students.