We argue that, starting from a sophisticated understanding of "digital," we should develop a corresponding notion of "education" suitable to meet the challenges of the ongoing digital transformation. The central task for higher education institutions is to model the complex networks of digital skills (critical thinking, media literacy, cross-cultural competence, etc.) as a foundation for creating contextualized learning scenarios in the disciplines. The crucial success factor is the reunification of the classroom with the real world.
The recent development of education seems to be driven mainly by technology; assigning version numbers is an attempt to tame this development. But education is more complex than buzzwords like “Learning 4.0” may suggest. In this article, we argue for viewing education as a loosely coupled system of two interacting layers, technology and pedagogy: closely connected, but not glued together. Using several examples, we show that sometimes technological innovations trigger pedagogical innovations and sometimes pedagogical needs initiate the development of technological solutions. We intend the model of loosely coupled layers of technology and pedagogy as a starting point for opening an overdue discussion on how to make the best use of technology for teaching and learning. We argue that complementing technology with established and proven principles of situated contextualized pedagogy is a key element for the future development of education.
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