Search

Purpose: This response paper aims to comment on specific aspects of the position paper. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, the author presents a response to Fischer et al.'s contribution on "The Challenge for the Digital Age: Making Learning a Part of Life." While imperatives and narratives of learning in the future have been well articulated in the literature, their paper provides insights into lifelong learning in the digital age. Findings: The author raises comments on the comprehensiveness of the lifelong learning perspectives and the calls to action. Over the years, with multiyear efforts on the research-based evolution of the design, implementation and adoption of technology-supported learning environments in some parts of the world, the author believes well-researched innovative pedagogy and design principles have already to some extent impacted transformation of learning and teaching in normal schools. By referring to the work in the running of a model school in Taiwan, the author demonstrate some of the pathways that can guide innovation and work towards operationalizing a futuristic vision that is resonant with the one painted in the paper. The paper will end with some comments on how narratives on the future of learning will evolve. Originality/value: In trying to understand the lens that the vision would bring to learning on the digital edge, the author has provided commentaries to probe into the comprehensiveness of their vision of future learning. From an Asian perspective, the author describes one effort that can help make progress in moving towards this vision. It involves realizing the vision by grounding our designs in real experiments or instantiations, such as the interest-driven creator (IDC) experimental school in Taiwan, and highlight past research efforts which have been successful in transformation of classrooms and schools such as developing seamless learning for connecting learning in different spaces afforded by mobile digital devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to critically explore the opportunities, complexities, and tensions of invoking students' everyday experiences as resources in educational activities. We analyze data from teacher interviews, instructional work in classrooms, and parent–teacher conferences taking place at a lower secondary school. The analysis shows how teachers reflect upon the relationship between students' lives outside and inside school, some of the complexities and tensions that emerges when students' everyday knowledge is invoked in instructional work in classrooms, and how students' everyday lives are activated as resources in parent–teacher conferences by the participants for building meaning together. We discuss issues teachers may reflect upon when planning and conducting educational activities that are sensitive to students' learning lives and everyday experiences. • Teachers define students' everyday experiences as important resources for engaging students as learners in school. • Some aspects of students' activities from outside school are defined as more relevant for classroom learning than others. • Invoking everyday experiences in whole-class conversations requires teachers to maneuver among the different learning lives of students. • Students need guidance in making connections between everyday experiences and academic practices in schools. • Parent–teacher conferences can be used to identify students' interests that can be used in instructional work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]