Ed tech must reads: column #48

First published in Campus Morning Mail, 16th August 2022 (and marking the 1 year anniversary of writing for them)

“yeet nitro boosted”: A Postdigital Perspective on Young People’s Literacy Engagements With the Discord Platform from Literacy Research: Theory, Method and Practice

To ‘yeet’ is to forcefully throw, with little concern for the consequences. To my knowledge, it hasn’t previously made an appearance in this august newsletter and there are probably good reasons for that. Chief among these would be the expected audience and the norms of communication in this community. This article veers slightly away from this idea, exploring the impact of the platform itself on communication and literacy. Discord is essentially an online forum, popular particularly with videogamers but used more widely. I am seeing it used increasingly in Higher Ed as a space that students will choose to visit when existing platforms are seen to not meet their needs, so understand its quirks seems like time well spent.

Exploring the specification of educational compatibility of virtual reality within a technology acceptance model from Australasian Journal of Education Technology

The technology acceptance model (TAM) is an interesting beast in the ed tech world, in essence seeking to describe the importance of factors including ease of use and perceived usefulness in relation to intention to use different tools. This study from researchers at Adelaide Uni and QUT looks at adding elements relating to educational compatibility to the usefulness equation, finding that this may indeed be conducive to greater engagement.

The learning styles hypothesis is false, but there are patterns of student characteristics that are useful from Theory into Practice

In my professional circles there are few things more likely to get eyes rolling than discussion of learning styles (visual/auditory/kinaesthetic) by people who should know that these have been debunked. (Other than ‘digital natives’ perhaps). I try to find the positives, feeling that even if the ideas are outdated, at least there is a healthy conversation happening around how information is shared and activities are designed. This helpful article offers some useful suggestions for more evidence-based approaches including drawing on student prior knowledge, learning strategies and motivation.

Two Point Campus game from Sega

At some point I suspect that many people working in Higher Ed have had the thought that they could do a better job running the university than the powers that be. This colourful university management game from Sega now gives you the chance to prove it. Design buildings, approve courses, manage finances, hire and fire staff, run what looks suspiciously like a faculty for wizards – the power is finally in your hands. Available on PC and consoles.