Continuing the look at ICT in Education using the 5 W’s as a focus, today it is the turn of what, as in what kind of ICTs have the potential to make the biggest impact on education? :d

Technology and inanimate objects do not of themselves effect change. ICTs are neutral and can be used for a variety of purposes, both positive and negative:

Technology is available to develop either independence and learning or bureaucracy and teaching.Illich (1973) – quoted in C. Abbott, ICT: changing education (London, 2001), p.32

…the technology itself is neutral. It can be used to deskill jobs, to fragment them and to increase routinisation and repetition. It can also be used to enhance them to provide more opportunities for the exercise of skill and responsibility.Jones (1980) – quoted in S. Dunn & V. Morgan, The Impact of the Computer on Education: a course for teachers (London, 1987)

It is up to schools and teachers to recognise the potential of developments in ICTs to affect learning experiences in a positive way. The most common way for ICTs to be implemented, as I have touched upon briefly elsewhere in this series of posts, is to augment established routines and practices. Electronic registration, word-processed worksheets, and Powerpoint presentations are all examples of this. The potential is rarely explored for ICTs to change fundamentally the learner/teacher dynamic, the working practices of a school, or methods of pupil assessment.

So what, then, are ways to use ICTs to change the nature of education for the better? To answer this question we need to think of examples of ICT usage to allow pupils to either do or record something that was previously impossible (or very difficult). Here are some examples:

• Using a wiki to record and make links between knowledge acquisition.
• Working collaboratively in an online environment by commenting on a blog posting or discussing something asynchronously in a web forum.
• Using Skype or other Voice-Over-IP technologies to contact pupils in schools around the world.
• Staying in touch with a teacher or leader during a project via email.
• Working anywhere by using a Personal Learning Environment.

An interesting study was reported upon in Education and Technology: reflections on computing in classrooms (1996). The ‘Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow’ initiative was evaluated retrospectively, with comments made upon how teachers adapted to the availability of reliable, plentiful technology in the classroom environment:

Throughout their careers, teachers had taken the role of expert in the classroom. But technology-rich classrooms undermined that role as some students quickly became more knowledgeable than both their peers and their teachers in using particular computer applications or hardware. Eventually, teachers not only accepted students’ expertise but capitalized on and expanded the roles of student experts in their classrooms, relinquishing their emphasis on teacher-directed activities. Moreover, they discovered that students who had been perceived as slow or reluctant learners often blossomed when given an alternate means for displaying their abilities.I. Haymore Sandholtz & C. Ringstaff, ‘Teacher Change in Technology-Rich Classrooms’ (in C. Fisher, D.C. Dwyer & K. Yocam (eds.), Education and Technology: reflections on computing in classrooms (San Francisco, 1996), p.283-4

This, I think, is the potential of ICTs: the ability to balance structured and unstructured learning experiences. The ability to be able to record and research within a Personal Learning Environment whilst having the freedom to work in different ways and the authority to share one’s findings with others. ICTs, as Robinson (1997)B. Robinson, ‘Getting Ready to Change: the place of change theory in the information technology education of teachers’ (in D. Passey & B. Samways (eds.), Information Technology: supporting change through teacher education (London, 1997), p.41 states, ‘poses an enormous, possibly unique, challenge as a resource to the teacher because its use demands considerable shifts on all fronts.’ It is up to us to make sure that we embrace new ways of working and opportunities to allow pupils to learn in different ways, even if it means a shift in the traditional authority of the teacher as the fount of all knowledge.

An important use of technology is its capacity to create new opportunities for curriculum and instruction by bringing real-world into the classroom for students to explore and solve. Technology can help create an active environment in which students not only solve problems, but also find their own problems.J.D. Bransford, A.L. Brown, R.R. Cocking (eds.), How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School (Washington D.C., 1999), p.195

Finally, just because we are not entirely sure about exactly how a technology may be used in the classroom is no reason not to experiment with it. The telephone was expected to be used to listen to operatic performances, not have conversations; the ‘text messaging’ feature of mobile phones was expected to be seldom used; ‘post-it’ notes were originally used as bookmarks in their inventor’s hymn book. The potential of ICTs to change learning experiences should not be constrained by the mind of the inventor or, for that matter, the teacher! :p