teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk

WARNING! This website is no longer actively maintained. It is an archive of 2 years work by Doug Belshaw who now blogs at dougbelshaw.com...

It’s my wife’s 26th birthday today, so I’m having to do this roundup in time snatched wherever I can - when she’s drying her hair, in the bath, and so on. Sorry, therefore, if it’s a bit disjointed… Oh, and I’m not going to podcast it either because I’m full of cold and my almost subsonic, Barry White-esque tones would probably be inaudible to those over the age of 25… The theme of my roundup this week is Why bother with educational technology?

These are the things that I’ll be looking at in this week’s roundup:

• EdTechDev - Technology in Schools: What the Research Says
• Barbara Ganley (Flickr) Why I’m Using Social Software
• Mike Baker - What minds should school nurture?
• Will Richardson - School 2.0–The Conversation Continues
• Stephen Downes (Flickr) - School 2.0 Diagram
• Debra Sprague - Technology and Teacher Education: Are We Talking to Ourselves?
• Susan Ohanian - Thinking About Why Kids Hate School

Most of my thinking about today’s post came from the report entitled Technology in Schools: what the research says, linked to in a post by EdTechDev

The reality is that advocates have over-promised the ability of education to extract a learning return on technology investments in schools. The research studies now suggest that their error was not in citing the potential of technology to augment learning�for research now clearly indicates that the effective use of technology can result in higher levels of learning. This review of the past decade suggests four miscalculations on the part of educators:

• First, in being overly confident that they could easily accomplish the depth of school change required to realize the potential
  technology holds for learning�not an easy task
• Second, in their lack of effort in documenting the effect on student learning, teacher practices, and system efficiencies
• Third, in overestimating the time it would take to reach a sufficiency point for technology access
• Fourth, in underestimating the rate of change in technology, and the impact of such rapid, continuous change on staff time, budgeting, professional development, software upgrades, and curricular and lesson redesign

The tendency amongst those not adept with technology has been to point at the technology itself and say that it hasn’t led to an increase in standards/results/other measurable things. Unsurprisingly, educational technology is not a ‘magic bullet’ - it requires other things to be in place, more traditional concepts of organizationa dn leadership:

Researchers find that extracting the full learning return from a technology investment requires much more than the mere introduction of technology with software and web resources aligned with the curriculum. It requires the triangulation of content, sound principles of learning, and high-quality teaching�all of which must be aligned with assessment and accountability.

After reviewing a number of different ICT-based learning methods - interactive whiteboards, videoconferencing, 1:1 laptop initiatives, etc. the authors of the report produce the following table. A ‘+’ in the ‘Rigorous Research’ column means ‘at least one rigorous, experimental, or quasi-experimental design study shows positive results’. As you can see, most ICT-based learning methods have at least one such positive outcome in this column:

The authors conclude, therefore, that:

Overall, across all uses in all content areas, technology does provide a small, but significant, increase in learning when implemented with fidelity.

but,

Most educators are looking for the value proposition that will significantly advance learning, teaching, and school system efficiencies. Taking advantage of these leverage points requires serious review of specific research studies that specifically address the needs and challenges of specific schools and serious attention paid to leadership development, professional development for teachers, school culture, curricular redesign, and teacher preparation.

This last, emphasized part (emphasized in the original) is the key point. Without the technical support structures (IT technicians), professional support structures (headteachers and governors) and social support structures (other teachers), ICT-based learning initiatives are unlikely to take off.

‘Learning 2.0′ (as some have dubbed it) demands a whole new mindset. It involves mentally knocking down the four walls of classrooms and conceiving learning as a continual, socially-negotiated process. One such way of introducing this ‘flat-classroom’ approach is to use social software. Barbara Ganley rather neatly summed up how messy yet connected learning can become using social networking in this slide, part of a presentation entitled Why I’m Using Social Software:

Barbara ends her presentation with a great quotation from Paolo Friere:

The teacher is no longer the one who teaches, but who himself is taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach.

All of this brings us back to the purpose of education in the 21st century and the changing nature of knowledge. But I’m not going to get too far into that here - you might want to have a look at Mike Baker’s rather interesting article for BBC News, however - especially the bit about why it might not be in the best interests of a school to develop creative minds…

Instead, have a look at the two diagrams below. The first is the US Department of Education’s vision for ‘School 2.0′ (PDF), the second Stephen Downes’ vision (Flickr). Click either to go to the full-size version)

They’re both interesting and informative and I like the way the vision has been presented. Stephen Downes‘ is of course more rough-and-ready, but I like the way he has focused on how learning networks can be forged in everyday situations, augmented by technology. The US Dept. of Education’ focuses a bit too much on the technology - it would be easy to say after looking at the diagram ‘Well we haven’t got the hardware, so we can’t change in this direction yet’. Stephen’s diagram shows what can be done now.
Finally, and getting back to the question posed in the introduction to this week’s roundup, why should we bother with trying to integrate educational technology and make our classrooms ‘flatter’? There’s a great article by Debra Sprague in the CITE Journal entitled Technology and Teacher Education: Are We Talking to Ourselves? that I came across this week. She writes,

Some teacher educators do not understand the type of teaching and learning technology supports. They have developed a culture that does not include technology and are uncomfortable when that culture is challenged. On the other hand, some educational technology faculty members are familiar with, at best, one pedagogical content area and are unaware of some of the issues teacher education needs to address.

The focus of the article is on teacher educators, but the comments Debra makes can equally be applied to teachers themselves. Her article is divided into two contradictory, yet complementary, sections. First she argues that the educational technology field is talking to itself, because:

• The focus is on how to use the technology rather than how to teach with the technology
• Teachers are unaware of how software and various applications of educational technology can be relevant to their classroom
• The pedagogy behind educational technology often lags behind its use

The problem is that teachers who are somewhat technophobic aren’t going to read about how to integrate technology into the classroom. Why? Because they tend to publish their findings on their blogs, wikis and in email conversations with one another. Debra suggests that educators advocating the use of educational technology need to get involved in the political process, continue publishing their findings in traditional teacher journals, and present at conferences. But I believe that in order to make a difference we need to be demonstrating things to other teachers in our own schools. We need to be showing both our colleagues and superiors how using educational technology can lead to increased motivation and engagement, if not improving standards.

Finally, some food for thought: how many times do teachers complain during in-service training that what is on offer is either irrelevant or boring? Susan Ohanian lists the following misdemeanors for which students are often punished:

• Tardiness
• Excessive talking
• Disrespect
• Sleeping
• Eating
• Failure to complete assigned work
• Lack of materials
• Poor attitude
• Mischief
• Littering
• Phone violation

I wonder how many of these are the result of a similar lack of interest in what is being presented. I’m not saying school should entertain students, necessarily, but what’s being presented should be at least mildly relevant and interesting. After all, we as teachers get grumpy and fractious when single day in-service training sessions don’t pique our interest. Let’s start selling the benefits of educational technology and lead by example!

Popularity: 2% [?]