paragraph of 25-30lines. transformation that has come about me in pandemic
Answers
Children of today have been surrounded by digital technology since their birth. However, children of today are not equally equipped for their technology rich future: various kinds of digital divides still prevail in the society and affect the young generation and their digital futures. Schools and education of children should undergo an extensive digital transformation to be able to meet the needs of the young generation and their digitalized future. The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly and abruptly forced schools and education indeed to engage in such a transformation. In this study we examine the digital transformation initiated by the COVID-19 pandemic in the basic education of the young generation, the variety of digital divides emerging and reinforced, and the possible barriers reported along the way. We argue that information management research should better acknowledge children, their digitalized everyday life and their basic education as significant areas of concern. We should understand them as well as allow them to shape the education we offer in the context of higher education, but we should also aim at influencing the basic education of the young generation – for the purpose of equipping them with important skills and competencies for their digital futures but also for the purpose of arousing their interest in this important field, maybe even as a career option.
1. Digitalized everyday life of the young generation
Children of today have been surrounded by digital technology since their birth; ever since, their everyday life and practices have been entwined with social media, smart phone, tablet, and Internet use. Digital technology has been thoroughly embedded with how they live and learn. They have started interacting with digital technology already as toddlers if not even earlier, and their adult life will for sure be thoroughly embedded and intimately intertwined with digital technology.
However, children of today are not equally equipped for their technology rich future (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), 2012; Livingstone & Helsper, 2007). We maintain that various kinds of digital divides, i.e. polarizations between those who have access to and ability to develop their skills related to digital technology, and those who do not (Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), 2012), still prevail in the society and affect the young generation and their digital futures. This is a concern for information management research and education, among other fields. Even if we have already examined digital divides around technology access and use quite extensively (see e.g. Agarwal, Animesh, & Prasad, 2009; Riggins & Dewan, 2005; Song, Wang, & Bergmann, 2020, Srivastava and Shainesh, 2015), we are very limited in addressing the young generation (Iivari, Molin-Juustila, & Kinnula, 2016; Iivari, Kinnula, Molin‐Juustila, & Kuure, 2018) as well as in approaching the variety of digital divides shaping their lives (Iivari et al., 2018).
We maintain that digital divide is not merely about access or use of digital technology, but about being able to integrate digital technology into meaningful social practices (Livingstone & Helsper, 2007; Mariën & Prodnik, 2014; Warschauer, 2002) and to gain benefits of it (Song et al., 2020). The young generation needs to understand and be able to make informed decisions on how to utilize digital technologies in everyday life in meaningful ways. Furthermore, we maintain that the digital divide concerns design and development of such technology, too. It is important that the young generation adopts a critical and proactive stance towards digital technology, i.e. they should critically consider how it could and should be, not merely accept how it currently is. For this to happen, the young generation needs to gain skills and competences to innovate, design, program, make, and build digital technology (Blikstein, 2013; Heeley & Damodaran, 2009; Iivari et al., 2018; Mariën & Prodnik, 2014). Important are not only programming or computational skills and competences, but design and innovation related ones (Blikstein, 2013; Iivari & Kinnula, 2018; Iversen, Smith, & Dindler, 2017).
schools and education indeed to engage in such a transformation. This is what we will empirically explore.