The revolutionary dimension of technological developments is all too often placed in the foreground, painting a picture of a future we can hardly imagine, let alone perceive. This book emphasises the evolutionary dimension of developments, and how we take small steps. How certain underlying, invariable aspects survive hype after hype, and have their own rhythm or longue durée. It is the search for where change meets inertia. Progression is a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. The essays bundled in this book have as a leitmotiv this attention to how progression is a matter of locating the small steps we can take and the invariables that lie beneath developments that stimulate or hinder certain big steps forward. It concentrates on the zone of proximal development, to use the term of Vygotsky. This collection of essays represents a personal view of the area where psychology, media, technology, and culture meet in the context of technological and social developments. These crossroads are addressed through topics such as digital identities, interactive media, the museum visitor in a digital world, and growing up in a digital society.
MULTIFILE
Although there is consensus in the current literature that feedback plays a fundamental role tostudent performance and learning, there is debate about what makes it effective. Particularly,some assessment instruments, like the National Student Survey in the United Kingdom, revealthat evaluation and feedback are systematically among the areas that students are less satisfiedwith. The aim of this article is to describe the indirect feedback technique, which was devised andused by the principle author in his previous tenure as a professor at the University of Cadiz inSpain and to reflect on how it can be applied to overcome some of the limitations presented in adifferent context of practice. It is argued that indirect feedback meets many of the principles ofgood practice (facilitation of self-assessment skills, delivery of quality information about thestudents’ learning, encouragement of dialogue, and improvement of teaching) identified by Nicoland McFarlane-Dick (2006).
