Leader
More Quality with Digitalisation
It was a pleasure to meet
the students again at the
beginning of the semester.
Not just as a group,
but also as individuals.
These meetings bring into
view many kinds of personalities,
motivational factors and ways of
organizing everyday schedules.
Talking face-to-face brings up
surprising questions and realisations,
expectations and doubts.
Such encounters at the university
are true quality time.
“The most important thing
for man in the world is da-ga,”*
M.A. Numminen once wrote. “The
feeling of your hunger disappears
when da-ga sounds.” What is daga?
Da-ga is a made-up word. Daga
is the rhythm and meaning of
life. Da-ga is the solution to everything.
Da-ga makes the world go
round.
Digi is the da-ga of today.
One of our government’s key projects
is developing digital learning
environments in higher education
institutions. This is good.
The society is becoming ever more
technological. Universities need
to keep up with the times, even
lead the way. When it comes to the
digital, universities have expertise
and open-mindedness, but also
guarded and critical attitudes.
What is the digital? The digital
is about abandoning handouts,
the digital is about open access to
knowledge. The digital is about
mobile learning and channels of
interaction, the digital is about
empowered participants.
I have understood our country’s
government’s directions to
mean that everyone should decide
to do their job a bit better. The
digital helps us with this. It offers
new possibilities for environments
in which to operate.
The digital has made knowledge
available for everyone. Does
that then mean that gatekeepers of
knowledge, like universities, are
no longer needed? No! Information
is useless, even harmful, to its
receiver, if the user does not have
the capacity to evaluate it and
process it to usable knowledge.
The ability to evaluate information
is the kind of basic competence
for which people come to study
at universities. It is learned in a
structured study process which
lasts throughout the entire studies.
The competence will develop
further in the working life, and this will be all the more straightforward
the more one has learned
lifelong learning skills throughout
one’s educational path.
The pedagogical principles of
university studies are grounded in
research knowledge. How do digital
environments promote the implementation
of these principles?
How is the digital used to promote
student-friendliness, interactivity,
diversity and internationality?
How to learn a research-oriented
approach to things, how to support
the development of skills for
working life and of the learner’s
personality, and what about being
a learner after the studies are over?
Using the digital in teaching calls
for persistent and determined development
in which the entire organisation
participates. This type
of work is being done all the time.
After austerity measures and
competition, universities have become
organizations that aspire to
knowledge of a high standard and
efficiency. Systematically developing
the competence of the staff
increases profitability, and it is
one way of implementing the government’s
key project. The entire
teaching faculty needs to have the
possibility to educate themselves,
as part of their own work, towards
making use of digital environments.
While drafting the annual
work plans, the employer sends a
message about the importance of
developing the competence of the
staff.
The seminar room and regular
studying schedules continue to
have importance. Face-to-face
encounters will often be the best
forums for discussion, teambuilding
and for encountering another
person. Being present at a
previously agreed time, prepared
for the meeting, participating in
the discussion, asking questions
and making your own constructive
suggestions are all a part of the
skills for working life.
The digital is here. Let’s take
advantage of it, but also of other
encounters to advance the implementation
of the pedagogical
principles of the university.
*Translator’s note: An English
version of musician-poet M.A. Numminen’s
text “Dägä dägä”, titled
“Da-ga Da-ga,” appeared on M.A. Numminen
in English (Love Records 1974),
from which the translations are
quoted.
Seppo Sainio
Chair, The Union for
University Teachers and
Researchers in Finland, YLL
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