Concluding our look at the 5W’s of ICT in Education, today it is the turn of who – as in who are the people who are going to make widespread ICT in Education a reality?

Each generation, although undoubtedly influenced to a great degree by previous generations, interprets human life, history and philosophical problems on their own terms. It is not an overstatement to say that successive generations construct a world view that is paradigmatically and fundamentally different from those which have served their parents and grandparents. These paradigm changes in the way the world is viewed often occur as a result of technology – whether it is the introduction of the horse-powered plough or the dawn of the Internet. These inventions mediate human experience and have an effect on us. As Marshall McLuhanquoted in E.F. Provenzo, Jr., A. Brett G.N. McCloskey, Computers, Curriculum, and Cultural Change: an introduction for teachers (London, 1999), p.1, 3-4 says,

Any technology tends to create a new human environment… Technological environments are not merely passive containers of people but are active processes that reshape people and other technologies alike.

And Winograd & Flores,Winograd & Flores (1987) – quoted in E.F. Provenzo, Jr., A. Brett G.N. McCloskey, Computers, Curriculum, and Cultural Change: an introduction for teachers (London, 1999), p.40

All new technologies develop within the background of a tacit understanding of human nature and human work. The use of technology in turn leads to fundamental changes in what we do, and ultimately in turn what it is to be human. We encounter the deep questions of design when we recognize that in designing tools we are designing ways of being.

Education, then, is always likely to be at least a generation behind understanding fully the world in which young people inhabit. Younger teachers are more likely to share some common assumptions and ways of viewing the world with their students, but may not have the experience, status or confidence to fully capitalize on that advantage and change working practices within educational institutions.J. Johnson-Eilda, ‘Living on the surface: learning in the age of global communication networks’ (in I. Snyder (ed.), Page to Screen: taking literacy into the electronic era; London, 1998), p.226 Education, despite having to be constantly re-invented, is a fundamentally conservative profession and therefore likely to be changed through a process of evolution rather than revolution, as I have mentioned elsewhere:

Technological visionaries of one kind or another have been promising us, among other things, that schools and the rest of our world will be unrecognisable in five, ten or twenty-five years. For the vast majority of us, not surprisingly, the world is changing, but by a process of evolution rather than revolution.A. McFarlane, ‘…and where might we end up?’ (in A. McFarlane (ed.), Information Technology and Authentic Learning: realising the potential of computers in the primary classroom; London, 1997), p.173

There are likely to be many educators who believe that it is students that must do the changing and accommodating to be able to understand the adult world they come to inhabit. What needs to be understood, however, is that the world they come to inhabit is precisely the one which they will define; in a sense education is dictated by the consumer:

Technology can and should end schooling as we know it. For educators, there is not even really a choice: either we tag along as closely as we can, or we lost individuality and nationality in a global marketplace.D. Blacker & J. McKie, ‘Information and Communication Technology’ (in N. Blake, et al. (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education; Oxford, 2003), p.235

Education is all about helping students to learn to the best of their potential. This potential is most likely to be realised if the approach used is student-centred with the learning process beginning from where the individual is currently ‘located’, figuratively speaking. It is up to educators to tap into the potential of technology and the tools provided by students’ culture to help them learn as best they can. We do not control the increasingly media-centred culture nor the zeitgeist. We can, however, encourage students to use what they currently understand and use to learn and understand more easily concepts and ideas we present to them:

Like other builders, children appropriate to their own use materials they find about them, most saliently the models and metaphors suggested by the surrounding culture.S. Papert, Mindstorms: children, computers, and powerful ideas (London, 1980), p.19

As the teacher cannot prepare the student for every possible situation they will encounter in life, it is their job to develop in the student skills and heuristics which will help them adapt to new situations and, above all, the capacity to learn independently. As this is the proper goal of education, we should be willing to embrace methods which help to develop learner autonomy, including ICTs. If the current semi-didactic approach does not work, then we must find new methods. The teacher must be transformed from the ’sage on the stage to the guide on the side’:J.W. Schofield, Computers and Classroom Culture (CUP, 1995), p.201

We may be a society with far fewer learning-disabled children and far more teaching-disabled environments than currently perceived. The computer changes this by making us more able to reach children with different learning and cognitive styles.Negroponte – quoted in E.F. Provenzo, Jr., A. Brett G.N. McCloskey, Computers, Curriculum, and Cultural Change: an introduction for teachers (London, 1999), p.73

We must be careful about seeing ICTs as a magic wand: technology is not a panacea for bad teaching. As Davis, et alN. Davis, et al, ‘Can quality in learning be enhanced through the use of IT?’ (in B. Somekh, G. Whitty & R. Coveney, IT and the politics of institutional change (in B. Somekh & N. Davis, Using Information Technology Effectively in Teaching and Learning; London, 1997), p.25 state,

…teachers can use information technology to create a new set of mundane tasks which negate the opportunities for quality learning.

Effective use of ICTs, as with any pedagogical tool, depends on the knowledge, understanding, experience, intelligence and flexibility of the educator.

Given the benefits of ICTs in education, shouted from the rooftops in everything from academic journals to everyday conversations, why have they not been embedded in many everyday learning environments? One explanation is that indicated above, that given the paradigmatic shift mediated by the introduction of these new technologies, some educators do not understand their importance. To them, for all intents and purposes, learning to use ICTs is like learning another language:

Those who have never used a computer make assumptions about its purposes and use. These are culturally constructed …Those who develop expertise in computer use acquire a technical language and in-front-of-screen behaviours which serve to set them apart from novices, and give them a sense of power that they frequently learn to turn to advantage.B. Somekh, G. Whitty & R. Coveney, IT and the politics of institutional change (in B. Somekh & N. Davis, Using Information Technology Effectively in Teaching and Learning; London, 1997), p.188

Another explanation for the slow rate of adoption of ICTs is the rampant ‘faddism’ in education and the resulting ‘change fatigue’ from the implementation of ‘new’ approaches. Although this view is less likely now than ten years ago, some teachers may see ICTs as simply the latest bandwagon upon which their ambitious choose to travel.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to the adoption of ICTs is the skill factor: the fear that students will know more than the teacher about the technology involved and therefore can circumvent, bypass or interfere with the learning process. Fundamentally, however, this is a fear of a shift in the dynamics of power in the classroom, not a problem with ICTs per se. As a consequence of this, many teachers, when encouraged to use ICTs in their classrooms will do so in ways that maintain the traditional teacher/pupil relationship and attempt to fit the new technology into the old pedagogy:

Teachers’ pedagogical beliefs play a central role in the adoption of ICT. For the most part they incorporate ICT in the first instance by adopting those elements that serve their existing teaching style, rather than entirely changing to match the opportunities the technology may offer.OECD, Learning to Change: ICT in Schools (2001), p.74-5

The traditional method of diffusion when introducing educational change – i.e. allowing ideas and adoption to spread through evangelistic colleagues – has not, and will not, work adequately with the introduction of ICTs in education. The reason for this is that the technology is simply the thin end of a wedge, the ‘thick’ end of which is a fundamental shift in the definition of ’school’, the learning experiences it offers, and the classroom environment. It is for this reason that novel uses of ICTs remain in the hands of ‘mavericks and enthusiasts’.A. Loveless, G.L. Devoogd R.M. Bohlin, ‘Something old, something new… Is pedagogy affected by ICT?’ (in A. Loveless & V. Ellis (eds.), ICT, Pedagogy and the Curriculum: subject to change; London, 2001), p.82 In order to effect a wholescale change, it is not enough to simply share ‘tips’ about how to use ICTs:

Pragmatic approaches of the ‘tips for teachers’ and the ‘this worked for me’ kind do not promote lasting change unless there is also a consideration of the principles and purposes that underpin activities in particular contexts.A. Loveless, G.L. Devoogd & R.M. Bohlin, ‘Something old, something new… Is pedagogy affected by ICT?’ (in A. Loveless & V. Ellis (eds.), ICT, Pedagogy and the Curriculum: subject to change; London, 2001), p.70

In other words, we need a new pedagogy for this new set of technologies. Trying to duck the issue by attempting to force them into an old pedagogy will have damaging results. I finish, then, with a word of warning from Tom Snyderquoted in E.F. Provenzo, Jr., A. Brett G.N. McCloskey, Computers, Curriculum, and Cultural Change: an introduction for teachers (London, 1999), p.245 for those who think that the use of ICTs in education is a passing fad:

Complaining about computers is about as smart today as complaining about the printing press would have been in the 1500s.