The importance of digital classrooms

The education sector should harness the benefits and opportunities of digital transformation. However, it also needs to effectively address the risks of the digital transformation, including the risk of an urban/rural digital divide where certain people gain more benefits than others. The digital transformation in education is being driven by advances in connectivity; the widespread use of devices and digital applications; the need for individual flexibility and the ever-increasing demand for digital skills. The Covid-19 crisis, which has heavily impacted education and training, has accelerated the change and provided a learning experience. Digital technology, when deployed skilfully, equitably and effectively by educators, can fully support the agenda of high quality and inclusive education and training for all learners. It can facilitate more personalised, flexible and student-centred learning, at all phases and stages of education and training. Technology can be a powerful and engaging tool for collaborative and creative learning. It can help learners and educators access, create and share digital content. It can also allow learning to take place beyond the walls of the lecture hall, classroom or workplace, providing more freedom from the constraints of physical location and timetable. Learning can happen in a fully online or a blended mode, at a time, place and pace suited to the needs of the individual learner. However, the type and design of technological tools and platforms, as well as the digital pedagogy used impact directly on whether individuals are included or excluded from learning. Students with disabilities, for example, need tools that should be made fully accessible if they are to benefit from digital transformation.

A digital classroom is typically one that incorporates electronic devices and software into the learning environment. A digital classroom is where a physical classroom extends into a digital space. The space of a digital classroom must hold potential for collaboration or continuing work outside of the classroom: reflective discussion forums online can be a good way to address this. In a digital classroom, the tone is set by technology. Because technology facilitates easy access to learning resources and networks, it’s easier for students to track their progress and for teachers to highlight student work in a digital classroom.

There are two interrelated aspects to digital education to which the strategic priorities of this article will respond: firstly, the deployment of the vast and growing array of digital technologies (apps, platforms, and software) to improve and extend education and training. Online, distance and blended learning are specific examples of how technology can be used to support teaching and learning processes. A second key aspect of digital education is the need to equip all learners with digital competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to live, work, learn and thrive in a world increasingly mediated by digital technologies. Addressing these two aspects of digital education requires policies and actions on several fronts, including infrastructure, strategy and leadership, teacher skills, learner skills, content, curricula, assessment and national legal frameworks.

Traditional teaching methods such as the “talk and chalk” technique, and classroom lecture, might only allow limited amount of information to flow from teachers to students depending on the amount of knowledge acquired by teachers. The more knowledge the teachers acquires, the more information will be disseminated to the students. However, the human mind (in this case, the teachers) can only store certain amount of information and this limitation can be very frustrating to backward students who constantly seek vast amount of new information to meet their learning needs. Through the digital classroom the teachers integrate the use ICT such as the electronic mail, social media applications, and online learning portals as platforms to effectively teach the students. In comparison to the conventional way of teaching, this technique creates a borderless classroom which enables the students to freely explore knowledge without limit or boundary.

When we think about digital classroom, we need communication technologies such as: mobile devices, virtual worlds, webinar tools, global strategy games, collaborative tools for sharing information, collaborative planning tools, etc. The term “digital learning” refers to “any instructional practice that effectively uses technology to strengthen a student’s learning experience and encompasses a wide spectrum of tools and practices”. This includes: (1) interactive learning resources, digital learning content (which may include openly licensed content), software, or simulations, that engage students in academic content; (2) access to online databases and other primary source documents; (3) the use of data and information to personalize learning and provide targeted supplementary instruction; (4) online and computer-based assessments; (5) learning environments that allow for rich collaboration and communication, which may include student collaboration with content experts and peers; (6 ) hybrid or blended learning, which occurs under direct instructor supervision at a school or other location away from home and, at least in part, through online delivery of instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path, or pace; and (7) access to online course opportunities for students in rural or remote areas.

When dealing with the question of how (future) digital education should look like, it is pivotal to consider the role of students. Students are the key recipients of (digital) education and their school experience and thereby their professional future is shaped by today’s choices. The aim of contemporary education should continue to be providing students with knowledge in different subjects and disciplines, but provide them additionally with the skills and digital competences necessary to navigate the digital world. This becomes even more important as there are to date still major differences between regions with regard to digital skills and between genders with regard to choosing ICT career paths.

The digital transformation is changing the Bangladeshi economy. New technical and ‘soft’ skills’ are gaining in importance both in the labour market and as a means for fully participating in society. As a result, traditional roles, content and methods of education are being challenged –education today needs to prepare students for changing tasks and roles both in the labour market and as skilled and ICT knowledge based Bangladeshi citizens. Simultaneously, today’s adults need re-skilling and up-skilling opportunities to enable them to tackle tomorrow’s challenges. Rethinking education in the digital age should become a central matter for today’s policy-makers for two reasons. First, only education can form a skilled workforce that is prepared for future jobs and a changing labour market. Rethinking education in the digital age therefore constitutes a prerequisite for Bangladesh’s future global competitiveness. Second, only education can provide the preconditions for the social inclusion and equal participation of Bangladeshis in a digitalised democracy. Rethinking education in the digital age therefore matters for safeguarding Bangladeshi values such as equality, democracy and the rule of law.

The traditional classroom provides limited space for learning, where students can only interact with their course-mates and the lecturer who teaches them. This space can only be expanded if the students themselves take the initiative to interact with people outside the learning boundary. However, “digital classroom” naturally provides the extra space for all learners to interact within individuals outside the classroom via chat room, e-mail, online conferencing or Webinar, video conferencing, and other computer mediated communication methods. This promotes diversity in knowledge gain, and inevitably will deepen the students’ understanding on the subject-matter. It also helps the students to manage information appropriately and thus making 21st century learning more effective.

Technology in the 21st century is not an option, but is a vital part of students’ lives. In the efforts to keep up with and take advantage of technological advancement, many educational institutions integrate technology into their curriculum. However, one sometimes comes across teaching practices that are technology-driven on one end of the extreme while on the other are teaching practices embodied by teachers’ resistance to use technology. While we can expect many aspects of life to eventually return to what it was before the COVID-19 outbreak, digital classrooms may be one of the things that will go from being the new normal to just the normal. It’s never too late to adjust to life in the technological era.

The writer is a Research Officer, District Education Office, Munshiganj. He can be contacted at gazirashidro@gmail.com