From virtual to participatory learning with technology during COVID-19

Abstract

During COVID-19, schools around the world rapidly went online. Examining youth technology use reveals sharp inequities within the United States’ education system and incongruencies between the technologies used in virtual schooling and those in the lives of students outside of school. In affluent communities, virtual schooling is supported by a distributed schooling infrastructure that coordinates students’ knowledge work. This home and school technology infrastructure features material, human, and structural capital that facilitates youth development as nascent knowledge workers. Technology use during virtual schooling keeps youth activity grounded within the “walls” of school; during virtual schooling, students have little voice in setting learning goals or contributing “content.” Technology use at home for learning or entertainment stems from their own goals and features them as active inquisitors seeking out information and extending their social networks, and crucially, using participatory learning technologies such as Discord for communications. An extended period of virtual schooling could enable a rethinking of the role of technology in schools, including an embrace of play, emotional design, participatory communications, place-based learning, embodied understandings, and creative construction.

Students’ Discourses During the Online Distance Learning in the First Wave of the Covid19 Pandemic: An Action Research With Students as Co-Researchers

“…This research, as well as other limited investigations on the students' voice, showed that constructionism and participation are important factors for the students' learning through online distance education (Squire, 2022).…”

Exploring the Challenges of Afghan Refugee Women Facing COVID-19: A Qualitative Study in Iran

“…Social isolation was another finding of the study that was reported in many other studies due to conditions caused by COVID-19 and quarantine and restrictions, and it seemed natural ( 54 – 56 ). But what was new was that, unlike other studies in which people turned to virtual communication and saw it as a substitute for real communication ( 30 , 57 ), the women in this study due to the limited access to the Internet and cell phone, were also deprived of virtual communication, and this deprivation intensified their social isolation.…”

Challenges to Learners in Interpreting Self as Other, Post COVID-19

“…For this reason, learners should be advised to attend any conferencing related to school in a manner that makes them less distressed. This includes mentoring learners to use other forms of social media for continuing peer contact, such as using Discord, with such mentoring often best provided by peers themselves [206].…”