Learning environment and digital literacy: A mismatch or a possibility from Finnish teachers’ and students’ perspective (original) (raw)

Young people today live in a digitalized world, which is characterized by ubiquitous and blended technology. The mobile tools, virtual applications and traditional computers form ‖an information ecology,‖ as call it, by which they mean a system of people, practices, values and technology in a certain environment. Such an -ecosystem‖ technology is integrated into a wide variety of existing practices and manners, and users and tools that complement each other. In the lives of young people, the Internet has a central and multi-faceted role: it is a way to gather information and it is a tool and channel for virtual collaboration and communication through new applications of social media. It is also a space for leisure time activities, such as virtual collaborative games. Moreover, the Internet is an extensive arena for publishing, sharing and commenting on various kinds of texts, pieces of art, music and videos. Buckingham and Bryant (2007) emphasized that in this new reality, the social affordances and practices are new and exciting, not the technology itself. These new applications are not only tools that replace some earlier analogue practices; they alter the basic foundations of our existing conceptions of own cultural basis and values, attitudes and activities. As a consequence of the digitalization of the lives of young people, their digital worlds in and outside of school are quite different. The very different use ICT in school and outside school is discussed and highlighted in several studies: free time use of media is more active, richer, more extensive and more recreational oriented than is school use (Ching, Basham, & Fang 2005;. In school, the informal learning of digital skills is still typically neglected and the curriculum does not reflect the changes in the subject of domains. There is a need for a general revision of the curriculum, not only in some specific subject areas, as emphasized by Erstad (2010) and Hague and Williamson (2009). In the most recent policy papers, the importance of relevant digital competencies is an aim of education as well . The aim of the chapter is to discuss the characteristics of a learning environment that supports and promotes digital competence in a wide context of uses and bridges some of the gaps of digital literacy in formal and informal educational settings. We use two Finnish studies as examples to demonstrate the connection between the learning activities and the digital competence they promote. We will also offer suggestions about new approaches to teaching practices that encourage an integration of informal and formal learning as well as improve the academic oriented digital skills; that is, digital skills that also improve academic achievement.