Digital Transition

Transition - 1. Passage from one form, state, style, or place to another.

I struggled to find the right word to decribe what I'm trying to sort through in my mind at the moment. I wanted a word to describe the middle ground between say a traditional paper based, non-digital classroom and the always on, connected 1:1 environment I saw the other week in Melbourne. I first thought netherworld captured that essence initially but a quick check on the actual meaning quickly showed that word was inappropriate.  I thought digital purgatory had a nice ring to it, but using computers is not a form of atonement so I've settled for the less edgy transition.

My school and in particular, my own classroom runs a form of digital transition. I've coined this term as an inner mind response to discussions with my colleagues during and after our visit to see the 1:1 laptop program at St Albans Meadows Primary School. We share a bank of twenty laptops across four classrooms so as teachers, we have learned to be quite creative and flexible in our use of this limited resource. So, what is digital transition?

Digital transition - not a traditional place of learning but not quite the transformed connected classroom either. There are times when circumstances force the teacher and the class back into traditional mode  - when networks go down, when laptop access is scarce, when time is tight - to become a place where whole class instruction. worksheet driven activities and lock step units are then more commonplace. When the technology is available, things flow more easily and students can attend to tasks with full access to preferred tools as required.

Does anyone have a better phrase to encapsulate what I'm trying to describe here?

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One thought on “Digital Transition

  1. Mr Teacher

    This is a great post and I have no doubt that it will strike a chord with many teachers at this time of year. Like you, I am feeling very tired and very much in need of a break. We have had nothing but weekends since the middle of October and don’t finish for Xmas until Friday 18th. It has been one of the most hectic terms that I have ever experienced, with lots of work to be done during evenings and weekends.

    I am striving to be better at my job but the insane paperwork is starting to take its toll and my lesson content is suffering as a result.

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