Adopting the use of a legacy digital artefact in formal educational settings: opportunities and challenges

Abstract

This paper explores how a legacy digital artefact can be adopted within formal education settings and looks at the pedagogical and other opportunities created by its use within primary and secondary classrooms. In particular, through a comparative case study of three schools in the UK, the paper investigates the potential of using a virtual 3D model of the 1938 British Empire Exhibition in formal educational settings and highlights a number of salient issues and challenges that emerged. As the data suggests, engagement with the model created opportunities for playful learning, facilitated motivation and collaboration, and enhanced student interest. However, participation was often compromised by barriers such as the wider pressures of the curriculum, assessment regimes and teacher time as well as technical inhibitors and limitations. In light of the above, the paper considers the range of actors and factors that influenced the experiences of teachers and students who engaged with the use of the 3D model and concludes by considering the implications of these findings.

The effect of an educational video game on high school students’ motivation, self-efficacy and knowledge in a History course

“…Furthermore, video games can also increase students' motivation to learn and self-efficacy by creating greater interest and commitment to content presented in class (Bozgun & Baytemir, 2021;Byusa et al, 2022;Sanchez et al, 2022;Yunus et al, 2021). The use of portable consoles in the classroom also helps keep students motivated, regardless of the strategy used by the teacher (Gouseti et al, 2020;McFadyen, 2021). SDT has also studied the motivation for playing video games, and perceived autonomy and competence appear to be related to students' enjoyment of them (Ryan et al, 2006).…”

Collaboration and communication in blended learning environments

“…In many contemporary classrooms, teachers and pupils shift frequently and effortlessly between digital and physical learning arenas and communicate parallel in both. Employing digital technologies in everyday learning has been found to spark playful learning, increase motivation and engagement, and enhance pupil interest (Bebell and Kay, 2010;Hur and Oh, 2012;Harper and Milman, 2016;Gouseti et al, 2020), and therefore offers many exciting opportunities for improved communication and collaboration practices.…”

“…Many teachers lack the competence and resources in terms of educational technologies and thus, the potential of digital technologies often remains untapped (Krumsvik et al, 2016;Blikstad-Balas and Klette, 2020). It is still common that the development of more innovative and smooth communication and collaboration practices is dependent on a few enthusiastic staff members (Gouseti et al, 2020), so-called front runners (Rogers, 1995), meaning that potential best practices often remain local and short-term. Teachers can also struggle to see the opportunities and advantages of using digital technologies for collaboration and communication when all pupils and teachers are gathered in the same physical space (Midtlund et al, 2021).…”

Digital Encounters of Surrogacy: Nodes of a Fictional Ethnography

“…On the other hand, up until recently the employment of digital technologies has heavily rested on the preservation of cultural artifact and practice knowledge, through the design and development of online digital portals that host culturally significant tangible artifacts (Pramartha and Davis 2016). The approach of creating digital artifacts, a process that engages different cognitive operations and literacy systems (Dobson 2007), has been mainly applied in formal education and its pedagogical virtues are acknowledged by recent research (Gouseti et al 2020), exemplifying anthropology’s persistence to classify material culture as principally a concern of ethnology (Pfaffenberger 1988). Nevertheless, reflecting on the history of the artifact in anthropology and its political gravity in the colonial project, we might consider a forceful appropriation of its properties in the digital realm (Apostolidou forthcoming).…”