Addressing the broad question of how we understand the dynamic relationship between technology, society, and learning.
Technology permeates both what we learn, and how we learn.
Let me give you an example. In healthcare, colleagues at UTS have been investigating
how we can use sensor technologies and data analytics to support trainee nurse's teamwork
by providing real-time feedback on where they are and who they're working with. In parallel,
in the TRACK project we are using job analytics to understand the shifting skills changes
and showing in that healthcare contexts we are seeing increasing uses of many
of the same technologies to understand how to support patients, for example,
an emerging area of 'health informatics' which combines data and nursing skills.
Similarly, across learning contexts from schools and universities, to museums and online learning
communities, technology has implications for how we learn. For example, UTS researchers have
investigated how teachers learn from each other using informal communities like those on Facebook.
And again, centre researchers have investigated key issues such as
what teachers need to learn to use mobile devices effectively in their practice.
We want to understand how we can learn with technology effectively, how it is changing
learning needs across contexts, and the pros and cons - innovations and ethical quandaries,
new methods and challenges - that are involved in that. And we want to work with people who care
about learning to do that. Find out more about staying in touch, and who we are on our website.
The Centre for Research on Education in a Digital Society works with stakeholders across learning contexts, in taking sociocultural and human-centred approaches to understanding technology in practice, rather than positioning technologies themselves as the central object of inquiry.
We focus on the dynamic relationship between technology and learning, reflecting that how we learn (with technology) is fundamentally intertwined with what we learn (about technology). Centre members take a critical perspective on the potential harms of technologies, as well as their potential power to foster learning across society, and enhance a just and equitable society.
Specifically, we investigate what we learn about technology and data, asking:
- What are the implications of the changing nature of work and society for what we learn about technology and data?
- How do we scrutinise, model, and measure changes in learning needs in an increasingly technologically-mediated society?
And we investigate how we learn with and through technology and data, asking:
- What are the implications of the changing nature of work and society for how we learn with and through technology and data?
- How do we evaluate learning technologies, taking a critical perspective on the learning they foster?