e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates

New Media - New Practices

Technology has made a revolution in the way we see the world. By saying techonolgy, I mean not only internet and smartphones, but every kind of innovation that contributed for us to be here today. In the past few years, we have seen the rise of the digital era in which we can have access to almost everything whenever we decide to. This process has transformed our behavior and how we conceive our own meanings. Some years ago, information and culture were controlled by a small elite, now, even though we still have inequalities, more people can access the content and produce it as well. Cope and Kalantzis affirm that: ‘‘readers are simultaneously writers: viewers are simultaneously image makers. New reciprocities, new sociabilities emerge (...)’’ (COPE & KALANTZIS, 2015).

Life is happening faster and faster. Having access to information has never been so easy. The point is: if the world has gone through such huge transformations, education would not be out of it and it cannot be. However, the use of technologies does not necessarily change education, due to the fact that, sometimes, we end up reproducing old practices and our students remain being knowledge consumers. Cope and Kalantzis also say: ‘‘Technologies do not in themselves change anything in education. (...) Changing the medium does not necessarily change the messsage’’ (COPE & KALANTZIS, 2015). With so many tools available, it is time to leave some old practices behind and start providing other ways of representing knowledge.

Therefore, it is quite important to make use of the different technological tools to enhance the process of teaching and learning. It is not possible anymore to think of a world without technology, thus, we must study and comprehend how to apply it in order to provide the best to our students and help them in the process of building and producing knowledge.

REFERENCES

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2015). Learning and new media. In D. Scott and E. Hargreaves (Eds.), The sage handbook of learning (pp. 373-387). Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.

You can also watch the following video about ''The Role of New Media in Education'':

Media embedded August 13, 2020