The use of digital educational technology affordances to develop 21st-century skills in online learning

Abstract

Literature has shown that there is a shortage of graduates with the necessary 21st-century skills to fill current workplace requirements, causing a gap in the market contributing to low employability rates. Although higher education institutions have been making efforts to develop policies to include these 21st-century skills within curricula, developing 21st-century skills, such as communication, collaboration, and critical thinking, in a fully online learning environment comes with several challenges. This study used a qualitative case study approach to gather data from ten educators through online questionnaires, document analysis, and interviews. The purpose of this study was to determine what practices current educators were using as well as how they were using digital educational technology (DET) to develop 21st-century skills in their fully online learning modules. Guided by the Partnership for 21st-century (P21) Framework, the results revealed that educators were using several affordances of DET to develop 21st-century skills in their online learning modules; however, these skills were being developed to varying extents. The most popular affordances of DET included feedback and linked representations which encouraged learners to develop critical thinking skills. Some affordances of DET could be used to target the development of a specific 21st-century skill, whereas other could be used to develop skills concurrently. Although the use of DET could result in the fortuitous development of 21st-century skills, it is recommended that educators know what these skills are and receive the necessary training to learn how DET can be used to develop 21st-century skills to their full extent.