Drawing on research conducted mostly in Catalonia (Spain), Moises Esteban-Guitart outlines a distinct vision of education enhanced by students' identities, which leads to a discussion of the sociocultural factors that shape the processes of learning. He brings these ideas to life by examining traits of a mobile-centric society, the present-day ecology of learning, and his three metaphors of learning (connecting knowledge, connecting minds, and connecting communities). He then suggests a number of basic principles regarding learning for the twenty-first century based on prior literature in the learning sciences. He presents the terms 'funds of identity' and 'meaningful learning experiences', and reviews the funds of knowledge approach and the Vygotskian basis for understanding identity. In the second part of the book, he illustrates a number of strategies for detecting students' funds of identity and their meaningful learning experiences, and describes some practical experiences based on the theoretical framework he adopted.

Funds of Identity: Connecting Meaningful Learning Experiences in and out of School

The emergency resulting from the coronavirus pandemic reminds us that, as human beings, we share a common challenge. Recently, it has been suggested that Covid-19 pandemic involve a “world perezhivanie”, a collective and traumatic “lived experience”, characterized by a profound crisis that affects not only our health, but also our economic, social, political and educational systems. In the light of this situation, we need to critically re-imagine education in 21st century. In this theoretical paper, we propose two principles designed to overcome three common biases in our understanding of learning and education. From these assumptions, we describe and illustrate the meaning and practice behind an inter-generational, personalized, shared, connected and sustainable education, based on a culture and praxis that is caring and involved, that allows us to consolidate processes of educational transformation and improvement.

/pdf/manifiesto-en-tiempos-de-pandemia-por-una-educacion-critica-4a7h2i1dn9.pdf

Manifiesto en Tiempos de Pandemia: Por una Educación Crítica, Intergeneracional, Sostenible y Comunitaria

/pdf/funds-of-knowledge-2-0-towards-digital-funds-of-identity-4jvhb7pldh.pdf

Funds of Knowledge 2.0: Towards digital Funds of Identity

This study explores Arts & Science faculty and librarians’ attitude of learning theory and perceptions of digital literacy (DL) and how digital information literacy (DIL) might improve and enhance student learning outcomes. Digital literacy (DL), information literacy (IL), and digital information literacy (DIL) consists of interaction with academic technology (AT) programs and tools. The objectives are: the rise of IL within the parameters of DL and discuss the birth of DIL, examine the modes of adoption and explore the levels of inclusion for faculty and librarians’ concepts of DL with DIL instruction with AT, define the IL phenomenon, and how IL affects faculty and librarian pedagogy. The study reveals the tension and distinction between DL and IL. Key research questions are: What are Arts & Science faculties’ digital literacy (DL) epistemology? What is the librarian’s/ library digital literacy (DL) epistemology perspectives, and what are Arts & Science faculties’ concept of DIL?

/pdf/digital-literacy-adoption-with-academic-technology-namely-59pfpcb3bi.pdf

Digital Literacy Adoption with Academic Technology Namely Digital Information Literacy to Enhance Student Learning Outcomes

Recent scholarship in the interdisciplinary field of the learning sciences has focused on the ways that young people use digital tools to connect learning experiences across different settings and over time. Two aspects stand out in this research: (i) the potency of youth agency in creating new activities, communities, and pathways for interest-related pursuits and (ii) the ways that peers, adults, and different sociocultural contexts afford and constrain opportunity. These contexts, or settings, include peer groups and families; schools, neighbourhoods and cities, and also nationwide infrastructures that foster connections between school-based and out-of-school learning. The articles in this special issue of Digital Education Review shed light on these topics and advance our understanding of the theories that deal with learning across various settings and times, and how to promote more equitable youth learning across these settings.

/pdf/learning-across-settings-and-time-in-the-digital-age-2wpa1tdb86.pdf

Learning across Settings and Time in the Digital Age

The aim of the paper is to describe some of the challenges faced by schools, or by formal education in general, as a consequence of today’s mobile-centric society (henceforth MCS), the term we will use to denote the new, networked learning ecology that has arisen from the massive penetration of digital media in everyday life. After revisiting some of the ideas of McLuhan and Vygotsky in the light of this new technological scenario, we describe five traits of the MCS and the challenges – illustrated through educational practices – that we believe schools will face if they wish to preserve their function of individualization and socialization. We believe that despite the emergence of the MCS, the main function of the school is still to provide the “box of tools” (a set of psychological instruments, such as reading, writing, mathematical notation, digital literacy, etc.) that enables people to develop their learning skills and life projects and to become part of communities and groups. However, the complexity and mobility of the new learning environments means that the position held by schools needs to be re-evaluated in the face of the informal learning paths and experiences – both online and offline – to which learners now have access. We also need to re-evaluate the meaning of the school itself as an institution and the model of learner it should be training.

/pdf/some-of-the-challenges-and-experiences-of-formal-education-3rv5h2oka0.pdf

Moisès Esteban Guitart

Papers

Some of the challenges and experiences of formal education in a Mobile-Centric Society (MCS).