A project on education’s brave new digital frontier has captured the 2024 ATA Educational Research Award. Robert LeBlanc, PhD, from the University of Lethbridge (U of L) was selected as this year’s winner of the award for his groundbreaking work on the impact of the digital world on today’s classrooms.
LeBlanc’s research, “Digital Platforms and Education,” takes an in-depth look at how the use of rapidly developing technology is transforming classroom teaching and learning.
“The COVID-19 pandemic sent schools across the world into online learning,” said LeBlanc. “This put the mediating role of digital platforms front and centre.”
LeBlanc, an associate professor and board of governors research chair in literacy studies at the U of L, noticed that digital platforms were suddenly an unavoidable dynamic in schools, thus worthy of more investigation.
“Suddenly, everyone was adopting and navigating digital platforms like Google Classrooms, Skype and Zoom, Moodle and Zotero, and other learning management systems, often on the fly.”
Through his research, LeBlanc identified several areas of concern as schools move to a more digitally based classroom.
“The major findings of the study revealed that there are some major gaps in the current research examining digital platforms in schools,” said LeBlanc.
He noticed that many of the platforms being used to augment and evaluate content were typically limited to providing only technical feedback, such as grammar, punctuation and layouts. They lacked the dynamic input that a human can provide when they review content.
LeBlanc also points out the emergence of new issues surrounding intellectual property that did not exist when education primarily relied on teaching tools such as textbooks, reading projects and handwritten assignments. Digital platforms, while offering a unique network of connectivity for both teachers and students, become problematic when dealing with data security, privacy and copyright.
A major goal of the research was to provide teachers and administrators with concrete principles for choosing and using digital platforms in their classrooms.
“Digital platforms have become something of an infrastructure for a lot of day-to-day instruction — they aren’t going anywhere any time soon,” said LeBlanc. “I’m hoping my research can help teachers and administrators think through and make decisions around key issues like security, privacy and data harvesting when weighing the payoffs of adopting a digital platform with the significant investment of time and money.”
LeBlanc’s research has garnered attention in scholarly and professional resources. It is published as an article in the esteemed Review of Research in Education and in a widely disseminated research policy brief. LeBlanc is now interested in continuing his inquiry into digital platforms, by examining their intersection with the administration of the Alberta diploma exams.
“In addition to some of the obvious technical challenges, I’m also curious about the impact of this digital infrastructure on teachers’ day-to-day instruction as they prepare students to take the exam.”
The ATA Educational Research Award is awarded annually to recognize Alberta-based research that relates to classroom teaching and learning. The 2024 award panel, comprised of four Association representatives and one retired faculty of education professor, reviewed four applications from Ambrose University and the University of Lethbridge.
“After careful consideration, the panel selected Robert LeBlanc’s project for its high quality, originality and direct applicability to improving professional practice in Alberta schools,” said panel member Lisa Everitt, PhD. “His dedication to enhancing teaching and learning through informed and critical examination of digital platforms has earned him this well-deserved recognition.” ❚
