Thinking about Technology - reflections on Podcast and Video - Week 1 ESC407
21st Century Education from Future Tense, ABC Radio
This podcast provides perspectives on the use of technology in teaching from a variety of delegates at the 2012 Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association. One of the speakers, Greg Whitby, Executive Director of Schools for the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta in Sydney claims that the focus on technology is a "waste of time". He says, "If you focus on the technology, you ignore the central problem and the central issue."
Greg goes on to state that the central issue "is the nature and quality of the learning and teaching". What he means by this is that technology, regardless of whether it is a lap top, desktop, tablet or smart phone is not what is important. What is important is what is done with the actual technology and how it is used to engage or assist the students in what they are actually learning. In other words, what he is saying is that a school could have the greatest and most up to date technology, software and applications but it would be largely useless if that school's teachers were not equipped with the knowledge of content and pedagogy. The technology is a tool that is valuable to enhance the teacher's knowledge, experience and passion.
A good analogy would be that instead of focusing on teaching players the appropriate skills, techniques and gamesmanship, a football coach focused on the boots they were wearing and the type of ball that they were playing with. Would they win a lot of games? I think not.
I agree wholeheartedly with what Greg Whitby is saying and believe that we need to ensure that we have the use of technology in the classroom in perspective. I think that there are a number of reasons why schools focus on the technology.
Firstly, the incorporation of the use of ICT is mandated in the Australian Curriculum as a General Capability which means that it is a box that requires ticking.
Secondly, I think that the use of technology in classrooms is seen by parents, politicians, school boards and students as evidence that the school is well resourced and a 'technology innovator' and that the level of investment or use of technology at a school is indication of its ability to provide a superior education. Of course, this is particularly true of the private and independent school system however can also be applied to government funded schools. I think that this is largely indicative of public sentiment around the value of technology and the extent to which the latest technology is still seen as a status symbol.
And finally, I believe that in many ways, our education system is struggling with managing the modern teenager who is a creature that is facing a vastly different lifestyle and future to any cohort previously seen. Around one in five Australian students are disengaged at school which means that they are not learning properly and are more likely to drop out. Technology can be a great way to engage students and more adequately prepare them for life after high school.
References:
This podcast provides perspectives on the use of technology in teaching from a variety of delegates at the 2012 Victorian Information Technology Teachers Association. One of the speakers, Greg Whitby, Executive Director of Schools for the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta in Sydney claims that the focus on technology is a "waste of time". He says, "If you focus on the technology, you ignore the central problem and the central issue."
Greg goes on to state that the central issue "is the nature and quality of the learning and teaching". What he means by this is that technology, regardless of whether it is a lap top, desktop, tablet or smart phone is not what is important. What is important is what is done with the actual technology and how it is used to engage or assist the students in what they are actually learning. In other words, what he is saying is that a school could have the greatest and most up to date technology, software and applications but it would be largely useless if that school's teachers were not equipped with the knowledge of content and pedagogy. The technology is a tool that is valuable to enhance the teacher's knowledge, experience and passion.
A good analogy would be that instead of focusing on teaching players the appropriate skills, techniques and gamesmanship, a football coach focused on the boots they were wearing and the type of ball that they were playing with. Would they win a lot of games? I think not.
I agree wholeheartedly with what Greg Whitby is saying and believe that we need to ensure that we have the use of technology in the classroom in perspective. I think that there are a number of reasons why schools focus on the technology.
Firstly, the incorporation of the use of ICT is mandated in the Australian Curriculum as a General Capability which means that it is a box that requires ticking.
Secondly, I think that the use of technology in classrooms is seen by parents, politicians, school boards and students as evidence that the school is well resourced and a 'technology innovator' and that the level of investment or use of technology at a school is indication of its ability to provide a superior education. Of course, this is particularly true of the private and independent school system however can also be applied to government funded schools. I think that this is largely indicative of public sentiment around the value of technology and the extent to which the latest technology is still seen as a status symbol.
And finally, I believe that in many ways, our education system is struggling with managing the modern teenager who is a creature that is facing a vastly different lifestyle and future to any cohort previously seen. Around one in five Australian students are disengaged at school which means that they are not learning properly and are more likely to drop out. Technology can be a great way to engage students and more adequately prepare them for life after high school.
Punya Mishra - Keynote Speaker @ 21st Century Learning Conference - Hong Kong 2012
What a terrific conference this must have been and I have now added Professor Mishra to my list of imaginary guests at my Ultimate Dinner Party.
Whilst I enjoyed his entire presentation, there were a few points that really resonated with me. The first of these was his three arguments for challenging technocentrism (who even knew this was a thing??) and the table of the number of generations for particular technological changes. That is truly an amazing infographic. No wonder so many of today's youth are challenged...their heads are spinning and they are drowning in the sheer volume of information that they receive and the amount of new stuff that they have to keep up with. And permission to stop focusing on educational technology because really, it's not even a real thing. It's just technology, but we, as educators, make it do our bidding by using it in new and innovative ways. Awesome.
The second point that I really identified with was that the various disciplines that we teach, allow us to see and look at the world and to make sense of it. Technology enables us to do this in a much richer fashion; but we still need the content, and the knowledge of pedagogy to enable our students to get the most out of the technology.
I loved the example of students in Denmark having internet access during their exams and the fact that the way exam questions were written had to change to more how and why questions and less straight facts about when and who. Isn't that what we want our students to do? Be able to interpret, analyse and critically evaluate? I've never had to just remember facts in the workplace, I've always been able to look them up but I do need to know WHY I need them and HOW to use them. And so will our students.
So, for me now "creativity is the only solution" and I look forward to learning how to "repurpose existing tools". As teachers, we can't rely on somebody to develop an app that will automatically get the information into every student's head, regardless of their aptitude, enthusiasm, cerebral capacity or socio-economic status. The only thing that can be flexible enough to do that is a teacher who cares enough to innovate and to re-purpose something that worked for another student - to look at different ways to use a range of tools...one of which is technology.
References:
ReplyDeleteI would just like to expand on the comment about “technology in perspective.” As educators we face challenges with the reinforcement of ‘responsible technology’ use and perspectives outside of the classroom. No matter a schools accessibility of technology and its capacity to tick all the ICT boxes required to meet curriculum expectations, we face the social kickbacks of poor attitudes regarding the use of technology outside the school-sphere. Eg. Valuing sitting a child in front of Netflix instead of reading a physical book to their child, impeding on foundation literary skills.
I think as educators it is our responsibility to promote the importance of meaningful (and appropriate) technology engagement not only to our students, but to other educators, family members, institutions and members of the greater society who have a both a direct and indirect impact on pour students.
ReplyDeleteI would just like to expand on the comment about “technology in perspective.” As educators we face challenges with the reinforcement of ‘responsible technology’ use and perspectives outside of the classroom. No matter a schools accessibility of technology and its capacity to tick all the ICT boxes required to meet curriculum expectations, we face the social kickbacks of poor attitudes regarding the use of technology outside the school-sphere. Eg. Valuing sitting a child in front of Netflix instead of reading a physical book to their child, impeding on foundation literary skills.
I think as educators it is our responsibility to promote the importance of meaningful (and appropriate) technology engagement not only to our students, but to other educators, family members, institutions and members of the greater society who have a both a direct and indirect impact on pour students.
Great blog post Melinda! Being a mature age (nearly 40 aghh!) student one of my big fears is that technology is advancing faster than I can keep up with it, and that I won't be giving my students the best opportunities if I don't keep up to date. However, I acknowledge my relative privilege in having the socio-economic comfort to be able to access and make serious attempts at understanding and using technology, and think that there is the potential for students' from under-funded/ resourced schools, or those with more "old-fashioned" department heads, to miss out on a lot of the opportunities other students get. Hence I agree with your point regarding the "status symbol" aspect of a school being well resourced in technology, and hopefully there are government led initiatives that improve equity of technology's access, provision and training to schools that need it
ReplyDeleteThanks Jess. 40??? You are a mere chicken. I turned 50 in January.
DeleteInteresting point re having the "socio-economic comfort" to access technology. I agree with you to some extent about school-provided technology, there would certainly be some level of disadvantage for poorer schools. However, take a look around your town. Dubbo is a large regional town with a very mixed socio-economic demographic - we have a fine mix of very wealthy people here and also some extremely poor and disadvantaged, and everything in between. But, if you were to hang around outside ANY of our schools , private or public, you would notice that the vast majority of children (some as young as grade 1), are all glued to a device of some sort. If you catch public transport anywhere, watch people. Regardless of their (perceived) socio-economic status, the majority of people are using some form of technology.
That's why I love the 're-purposing' idea...we need to look at what's available and innovate.
Yes I guess that's true- everyone seems to have access to some kind of device don't they! And like you say, if we teachers can tap into that and "re-purpose" ..such as Apps to motivate and engage students using their mobile devices, we may get somewhere!
DeleteI completely agree with your point that you (and I) have “never had to just remember facts in the workplace, I've always been able to look them up but I do need to know WHY I need them and HOW to use them.”
ReplyDeleteI want to add that the HOW and WHY should be applied to the act of using technology too. I think that teaching students to apply these questions when using digital technology can greatly mitigate the problem of students “drowning in the sheer volume of information that they receive and the amount of new stuff that they have to keep up with” you mention.
I have been reading This Idea Must die, which has responses by various academics to the 2014 Edge Question, and I found one contribution that I think illustrates this point: Journalism Professor Jay Rosen argues that the idea of “Information Overload” must be discarded. His thesis is that technology has not flooded society with an overload of information, there has always been excessive information. He argues that what is needed are better filter, that can select for useful information and ignore unhelpful information. I think we not only want good filters in our technology, but we also need to teach students how to be their own filters – to apply the HOW and WHY to their internet/database searches and the technologies they choose to use. We need to teach them how to look up facts as well as how to use them.
Hi Melinda,
ReplyDeleteSome great takeaways from some particularly interesting discussions. I do like how you highlight the use of technology in both private and public schools. Working in a public school myself, it is great to see how even out most vulnerable students have access to technology for their learning just as much as their private school counterparts. Australia needs to have this equality and equity.
Also a good point to be made that in one way we are "drowning in information", as it is true in a sense. Thats where I think it is part of our responsibility as educators to model and teach critical thinking and show our learners to be informed consumers when it comes to taking in information.
Wishing you the best with the rest of the subject!
Krystina
Great reflection! I also agree largely with what you say about Greg Whitby, but it is not immediately clear (to me) that he believes you could have 'the most up to date software and applications but it would be largely useless if that schools teachers were not equipped'. You are right in saying his central issue is "the nature and quality of the learning and teaching", but his other major point (stated by the presenter and himself) in his own words: 'The real power of what is going to happen ...[is] the software thats used on them'.
ReplyDeleteI do believe there is educational value to be had from good software. And it is possibly that this may be intrinsic educational value. The various TED talks given by Suguta Mitra give an explicit illustration of this point.
Secondly, I completely agree with '[the level of] technology at a school is indication of its ability to provide a superior education' as you say.
I worked in a rich 'suburb' (not the right term) in S. Korea for a primary school (predominantly preschool but also up to 12 year olds). Let me tell you they were well equipped! (among other things they had a mock TV studio and swimming pool) But many of the teachers they employed were first years, and the resources available to us to be honest were rarely used. Those items were most definitely used as a status symbol for the school though.
I also was struck by Punya Mishra's presentation. As he said 'a lecture is a lecture ... the more technology changes the more it stays the same. It's what we teach, and how we teach it'.
After the rather disagreeable and dry textbook Mishra's presentation was completely refreshing.
Thanks for your post :)
Wonderful blog post Melinda, I definitely got a lot out of reading your thoughts on these topics and there were some great insights.
ReplyDeleteI particularly like the quote in the podcast “technology doesn’t educate people ….people educated people” and this is something that as teachers we must all take into account. Technology is all around us and forever evolving and changing, however when it come to education it is vitally important that teacher training is put ahead of technology and teachers must be taught how to implement ICT’s in a student centered way to promote contempory learning.
Last year I did a 5 week prac at a local public high school, in an area which has a vast array of socio - economic demographics and it was interesting to see that even the students on the low side of this demographic had a mobile phone device. Technology was used in this school and laptops were available to students periodically for some lessons. But interestingly due to funding, I guess, the use of technology was not a common thing in this school. In saying this I believe that the level the students had to interact with it was enough and it was good to see that some of the more traditional methods of educating the students was employed. This resonated with me strongly as I believe that although technology should be available to students, it should not be used in all aspects. Technology definitely has its place and in this ever changing tech world students must be given the opportunity to learn about technology but there needs to be boundaries and the time utilising technology needs to be effective. Teachers must be true to their craft but also learn the ways of bringing technology into the classroom to enable effective and positive learning outcomes.
Punya Mishra has also made his way onto my dinner party list as I found him so interesting to listen too and would love to have more deep conversations with him. His talk was very informative and made many good points.
A big part of education is learning about the world around us, and how to equipped young people to be socially critical and active participants in a society that is rapidly changing. The use of technology will absolutely enrich a student’s education but I too believe the foundations of content and use of pedagogy are needed to get the most out of technology.
The intersection of Technology, pedagogy and content explained in the TPACK model is vital for creating effective learning structures for our students, incorporating the foundations of content and pedagogy whilst intersecting this with the every changing world of technology, is an important education philosophy.
Thanks again for your wonderful insights.
Amanda