Appropriate use of ICT's has the ability to reform traditional education practices into a student-centric model.
Technology based media compels the students to be involved and to make meanings between the classroom activities and the real world.
In this way pupils are engaging in 'Direct Purposeful Experience' which as Dale's Cone shows, is the most effective learning method.
How lucky we new teachers are to be coming into this profession at such an exciting time! The possibilities in the classroom are awesome.
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Below is an article I wrote more than a decade ago when the significance of the new digital age first really impcted on me. Like many other middle-aged people it had taken me some time but finally I realised that the world had changed forever! And the classrooms of the world need to recognise and go with this monumental change in human consciousnes. Ever since that time I ahve endeavoured to find as many ways as possible to use the new technology in my classrooms and in my teaching methods.
ReplyDeleteStudents who spend muych of their own time on X-Box, Play Station or their own computer will not be engaged in a classroom where the old analogue technology is still used. They will not be engaged by published texts and being asked to do learning activities in an exercise book. The digital pedagogies I use include online research and the prperation of digital journals/assignments, tyhe use of computer ESl and English games, the use of programs such as www.puzzlemaker.com to have students creat their own crossword puzzles and weardsearch activities. I also have my students do CLOZE exercises and a whole range of grammar and comprehension exercises on computers. I also have them regulalry post work on the school's in-house blog.
Top 7 Characteristics Of "Digital" Consciousness
By James Ward
Educators, business owners and marketers need to realize that the single largest change in human consciousness is currently taking place right now. The discovery of using "tools" and the discovery of printing pale in significance alongside the changes happening to human consciousness right now. These include:
We are witnessing the end of the analogue consciousness -- starting at the "beginning" and going to the "end" no longer makes sense. Printed books, paper-based letters, audio and video tapes are on the way out. They are not "clickable."
Key words and key phrases embedded within human consciousness will be more important than ideas, values, perceptions and beliefs -- particularly so in terms of sales and marketing activities.
Instant gratification will be the number one motivator for human interaction and activity.
Human consciousness will be shared more than ever before in history -- we are entering the era of one-world-mind -- the global mind is now replacing the global village. Ideas will spread with viral speed or spontaneously ignite worldwide and burn out just as quickly.
Information will be valued more for the way it is presented than for it worth by any other standard.
Authority on all levels will be meaningless. The authority of the "mouse" will be absolute.
Human consciousness will move towards the goal of being cojoined with computer consciousness as a matter of course.
These changes are having and will have monumental changes in every aspect of human life and will change our civilization more than any other thing has done in human history. Their impact on doing business and on selling and marketing will continue to be profound.
Hi Naomi...ahhh, the possibilities!
ReplyDeleteAs well as the amazing teaching opportunities that ICT means for us (as new teachers) ..I'm thinking of the interactive whiteboard, helloooo..so long as the innovations in education are matched by providing adequate skills for processing and evaluating vast amounts of information, I think the Connected Classroom is going to be fantastic.
Hi Naomi, I completely agree. I have put 2 interesting examples on my blog if you'd like to have a look, I particularly love the 'sand art' as a way of promoting discussion with students and learning about history. The other is about using Twitter in a classroom, also a great idea. It's at www.learningjourneycaro.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteCarolyne
The pedagogical possibilities are also influenced by whether a student are located in an urban centre or in a remote area. I've taught a number of classes in remote schools where students are enthusiastic about getting involved with I.T based media tools however they have to line up (which isn't always an orderly process).
ReplyDeleteBut when/where the resources are all rolled out (depending on student level, ability and background) it's still a challenge to keep the students focussed and on task don't you think?
At the end of last year the teachers of the palm Island Bwgcolman Community School voted to have all ipods and mobile phones banned from the school. That is students were not to be allowed to have these in the school grounjds during school hours. While the vote was carried by a majority of teachers (oinly just) voting for banning subsequent discussions after the vote showed me how hasty the staff had been. The IT expert on our stff pointed out how if this was the case then we should ban all books then! It was a wrong and silly decision as these digital machines are the communications media of now and of the future. Better than ban them he suggested controlled use of theifr in developing communjication skills, say by using them an hour a day with programs like Diachat etc to produce texts...even texts for assessments. I would now, in a newr vote take the position to allow them and use them.
ReplyDeleteI heard several years ago from a VET teacher training recruits for the skills required to become an Aboriginal policeman/woman in the NT that the use of video ipods with the lessons on them reduced the number of times candidates took the competency tests by three quarters. I was stunned by this research. There is the future in the classroom!
I am sorry i didn't edit the above:
ReplyDeleteDiachat should read "Divachat"
Sorry about the other typos.
There are a massive amount of interactive educational games to be found on the Internet. Below are justa few samples to give an idea of what is available:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.englishclub.com/esl-games/matching.htm
http://www.rong-chang.com/game.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/
http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/index.html
An excellent site for your use and for the use of your students is
www.puzzlemaker.com
You can make your own crosswords, wordsearches here or, alternatively have your students use this site to make their own.
Hi Noel
ReplyDeleteI agree that the possibilities are influenced by the location and funding of the school in question. Its a shame to think that students in remote areas are not having access to the same resources as their urban counterparts. Hopefully Julia Gillard's smarter schools funding policy helps address this?
newsroom.nt.gov.au/.../6531/.../Burns%20Gillard%20110210%20NPA.pdf
Jimbo
ReplyDeleteYour article 7 Characteristics Of "Digital" Consciousness re-enforces some of the central ideas in this course about the knowledge economy. The changes this new age herald for educators are substantial and require a great shift in thinking and doing compared to traditional teaching practice of the past. Teachers as managers of ideas and information will be of key importance as we make this transition to the knowledge based economy.
Hello Naomi,
ReplyDeleteI'll offer a few comments on this thread with your indulgence, but first a quick bio.
I was born in North Queensland and now live in Switzerland. By profession I am a teacher of "Applied Arts" which originally meant resistant materials ("resistant" referring to wood, metal, plastic etc. rather than the pupils). After undertaking post-graduate studies in curriculum and policy at UQ through the late 1980's, I went on to work as a curriculum/instructional designer and program manager in TAFE Queensland, operated as an independent management consultant helping small to medium sized companies move toward "learning organisations" for a few years and have spent the last decade as a full-time parent. I've taught fine and applied arts as well as ICT in high schools in Queensland and London as well as teaching/tutoring in teacher education at various universities around Brisbane.
So, to the grindstone:
"Appropriate use of ICT's has the ability to reform traditional education practices into a student-centric model."
This is a very broad statement - are we talking about use of ICT as a learning or instructional medium. a few points - first, the biggest impact of ICT in education has been larger-scale collection of student and teacher "performance" data; second, administrative needs (surveillance/assessment) have always defined what counts as curriculum, learning/instruction and assessment/performance in schools. In this sense a school is an apparatus of surveillance (as per Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison"). Surveillance (administrative) needs define and legitimise classroom practices. Anything not strictly ballroom, whether it is sound educationally or not, will not be allowed to happen. ie. random web browsing and computer "games" are generally banned activities in ICT classrooms even though they offer educationally sound learning experiences.
"Technology based media compels the students to be involved and to make meanings between the classroom activities and the real world."
I'm not sure what you mean by "technology based media" but I'd be surprised if any "media" or activity for that matter will compel all students to "be involved" - even a shared meal would not do the trick.
Making "meanings" between the classroom and real world? the classroom is a real world. It's not sufficient to "make meanings" between one world and another if those "meanings" are crap. There is always a qualitative interest, there is always intentionality, consequence, integration, disintegration, etc for the individual, their relationships and their group/s. There is always also, a tendency to compartmentalise experiences and even our identity (ie. shooting a character in a computer game is NOT the same as shooting a living character). The degree to which any substantive "meaning" that emerges from classroom activities can be relevant in other compartments of lived experience remains to be proven, there may be a further difraction or even dis-integration of identity through classroom experience in general and "online" experience in particular.
"In this way pupils are engaging in 'Direct Purposeful Experience' which as Dale's Cone shows, is the most effective learning method."
See also: it actually takes about 10,000 hours of "deliberate pracice" to achieve expert/elite competence.
http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html
"How lucky we new teachers are to be coming into this profession at such an exciting time! The possibiltities and potential in the classroom are awesome."
Indeed they is.
From Neil Kelly:
ReplyDeletePoint 1."the biggest impact of ICT in education has been larger-scale collection of student and teacher "performance" data.."
Point 2. "In this sense a school is an apparatus of surveillance (as per Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison"). Surveillance (administrative) needs define and legitimise classroom practices."
Hi Neil I was most interested in your post. In terms of Point 1. I am not sure whether you have followed the introduction of the NAPLAN test program in Australia and the controversy of the MySchool.com site set up by the Australina government where the massive of data collected through national testing can be accessed. In this regard you are right. And in Queensland, where we are all part of OneSchool, the data pumped into that program must be massiive each day and it is all available to those authorised to access it. We do live in an age where the Minister For Education can access, for example, the behaviour record of any single child in any Qld School at his leisure. This is indeed a worry but only reflects the massive computerised data bases being built up in so many areas of our western culture. However, I have seen over the last decade, an incredible increase in the use of digital technology in every every aspect of the teaching and learning process. Today for example some of the sudents I have been involved with as a relief, teacher rather than in my normal role as Senior Learning Support Teacher, were upgrading their IT skills through a specialised "Bootcamp" going on for an hour every day of this week and run by the brilliant operator who is our IT expert. They worked according to his instructions for half the time and then free ranged the remaining half. "Free time" is always a part of the computer program at our school. The kids take, and work on digital photos, have access to a massive database of cultural and historical material on our school site, and can use searvh engines to do research for topics in SOSE and etc. They also have a special purpose-made-for-this- school simulated Facebook program that they can access and use. They are taught the proper way to use social networking sites like this and the skills needed to protect their privacy etc when using them. They also have access to a school based blog and frequently play both "for fun" and "for leanring" games. Interactive CDs are alos in common use in the school and to be honest I have yet to find a single child who isn't engaged when it is time for computers! And the really committed drive me and the other staff mad begging for acces to the Computer Labs before and after school and during breaks.
Secondly I feel you aare wrong about the modern school. Foucalt's day has gone. The Aboriginal kids, at the school where, I work definitely play a part in the selection of the curriculum and certainly are not browbeaten and controlled by the staff and the 'school-as-organisation." Just try and enforce a particular imposed agenda in a school in a community that only a few years ago burnt down the police station and rioted in full cry for several days in response to a serious grieviance. Just as the old days of 'master/servant" management have lomng gone in business, they are going quickly from education. Digital technology means kids can vote with their feet and learn at home and basically flip the bird at the school!