According to Prensky, digital natives are “native speakers of digital language”, while a digital immigrant is defined as those who didn’t grow up with technology and had to learn/adapt along the way (2001a). But are these terms still relevant with the constantly changing and evolving uses of technology in the classroom? Technology has become an expected area of understanding for teachers as part of the overall best practice, similar to good classroom management being expected in all classes. While I would be more considered a digital native by Prensky's terms, I know people from all ages who are very competent using technology.
I believe the idea of digital natives and digital immigrants is very outdated in my international context. If we consider our students to be digital immigrants now, what will our students be in 50 or 100 years? Are these terms even necessary? Our school is a 1 to 1 laptop school for both teachers and students. It is essential that all students and teachers embrace the use of technology when appropriate for teaching and learning. The idea of digital natives and digital immigrants is erased and replaced with terms such as growth mindset and fixed mindset becoming more relevant for integrating technology. In a previous post, I focused on the importance of expanding our knowledge by problem solving, resiliency and pushing boundaries of personal understanding with an emphasis on growth mindset and not labelling individuals as digital natives or immigrants (MacLean, 2015). We should be encouraging our teachers and students to be open-minded and willing to learn regardless of the medium. We should be encouraging our students to be risk-takers, to make mistakes and to learn from them. Having a growth mindset, allows us to be open to new challenges (which could be technology for some). Our current school policies do not lend themselves to the terms digital natives or digital immigrants. Rather, again, there is an expectation of teachers using technology only when appropriate for best practice and students using technology as a resource only when it enhances their learning. 21st Century Learner Or Just a Learner As a teacher, it is my role to facilitate learning for students by helping them develop skills and conceptual understandings that can be transdisciplinary and transferred into any avenue for their future. Students need to learn to be good communicators, creative and critical thinkers, collaborative, with an ability to be self-managed, engaged and passionate about learning. These skills can be developed through a multitude of learning experiences in both formal and informal settings. In addition, being reflective needs to be combined into this learning process as well. Again, I truly believe that the label of a 21st century learner is now irrelevant. To me, it is just being a learner. We want our students to develop skills to be lifelong learners, now and always. It is not something that is restricted to only the 21st century and many educators understood the importance of teaching transdisciplinary skills before the 21st century and will continue to after the 21st century. From an ICT integration standpoint, I use the 6 ICT in PYP skills as a way to fuse effective technology implementation into the curriculum where necessary. These include: creating, collaborating, organising, communicating, investigating and developing a digital citizen (The role of ICT in PYP, 2011). In order to be effective using any technology tool, students need to develop the finer skills associated with these to be successful. There are so many collaborative tools that exist, but it is more important for students to understand how to use group roles, taking turns, respectfully disagreeing and having healthy debates than how to use Padlet or Google Docs. Students need to learn how to build on others ideas while giving credit and not feel that someone is stealing their idea. These skills can be taken out of the technology world and applied into other real world experiences, which makes the learning meaningful and long lasting. Through an inquiry-based, constructivist teaching model, students can develop their curiosity for learning and learn the skills to find the answers to what they want to learn. When passion and enthusiasm is involved as a learner, the learning really is limitless. References The role of ICT in PYP. (2011). International Baccalaureate. UK: IB. MacLean, E. (2015, November 20). Digital Immigrant or Native? Growth Mindset More Important [Blog]. Retrieved from http://emilymacleanmed.blogspot.sg/2015/11/digital-immigrant-or-native-growth.html Prensky, M. (2001a). Digital Natives, Digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5).
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Younie (2006) suggests that the UK ICT implementation had many challenges at the micro level such as slow internet and lack of technology in schools. In an international school, this is very much the opposite. We have a plethora of resources available to use with quality internet speed, funding to support new technology initiatives, education technology coaches to support staff and students and access to a number of different platforms for technology. The biggest challenge at the school micro level is that we have comes back to teacher training. With all of this technology and the international school turnover rate, teachers are constantly needing to be trained and upskilled to use the technology we do have effectively. At times, I wonder if so much technology being available to staff can be overwhelming. My role as a technology coach is to support teachers in figuring out what technologies are best for which task to make the learning meaningful and the technology integration enhance their learning.
Thinking from my Canadian experience, it is sometimes challenging for schools to gain buy-in on policies that were created by individuals who are not on the ground working with children and the technology every day. There is often a disconnect between a policy being created at the macro level and practice at the micro level. Policy creating takes time and with the changing of technology so quickly, it is essential that a policy for ICT implementation is created with this mind to allow for innovation and change. It is also important for policies to be reviewed and reflected on a yearly (at minimum) to ensure that what is written fits the needs of what is happening in reality. I think international schools are unique to government schools as the school has more control over the policies for education. This can be both good and bad. While we don’t have a government creating the policies for us, we do still need to answer to certain governing or accrediting bodies. Firstly, we have our board of directors that oversee what happens in terms of policies in the school. We are accredited by WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges), the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) as an IB World School as well as EduTrust (Singapore governing body). Our policies and procedures need to meet the needs of all of our accrediting bodies. This can be tedious when each are slightly different while also creating policies that meet the individual needs of our school community. The Singapore government requires are quite different than an inquiry approach for the IBO, which can be challenging when creating policies. WASC and IBO are more similar in their accreditation processes and expectations of evidence, which makes creating policies at the school level easier when the accrediting bodies are aligned. Our school looks to a lot of other schools who are similar to ours to see what they are doing. This greatly influences our own policies as we combine various policies to meet the needs of our community. While we borrow some, we also have to make sure our policies fit our specific environment and community. Therefore, we are constantly reviewing, adapting and ensuring that our policies are guiding us forward. We do not have any ICT specific planning documents that we use. For next year, we are generating a large database of appropriate, tested and vetted technology resources for staff that support the different ICT skills in the PYP (International Baccalaureate, 2011) for teachers to reference. If the resource/software is not on the list, then they must apply through a Google Form explaining their rationale for wanting to use the resource and how it would be incorporated into their teaching and learning. This will help us gather more data on how and what teachers are using technology for in their classroom. In addition, our budget serves as an inventory of paid subscriptions and purchases every year. I also create various documents to keep a record of technology resources such as a spreadsheet with the various iPad apps stored on the iPads at different grade levels. Overall, I create a lot of my own planning documents for various tasks to demonstrate how I’m planning out technology integration across the Primary school so it’s been great to see some examples. References International Baccalaureate. (2011). The Role of ICT in the PYP. UK: International Baccalaureate. Younie, S. (2006). Implementing government policy on ICT in education: Lessons learnt. Education & Information Technologies, 11(3/4), 385-400. doi:10.1007/s10639-006-9017-1 As an education technology coach, I can definitely relate to the article by Devolder, Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur (2010). On any given day, I am switching the hats that I wear in my role many, many times. I’m constantly moving from a coaching role to a consulting role to a coordinator role to an advocate and back again.
I would say the majoring of my time is split between leading professional development by supporting students and teacher and planning for implementation. Planning allows me to collaborate on curriculum development and changes with our teachers (Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010, p. 1652). I meet with year groups each week to support them in the planning process. I also spend a lot of time developing new school initiatives or developing policies related to my role. In terms of implementation, this includes me getting into classes to co-teach and support teachers and students. This role also always me to work toward implementation through formalized professional development sessions or one-on-one coaching. As per Lai & Pratt (2004, as cited in Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010), my role does have a budgetary and resource allocation component but it is also shared with the director of education technology. Therefore I am not the one making the budget but suggesting ideas and reviewing others’ proposed purchases. In addition, I have to ensure that the resources we have are working for what we need them for and advocate for more resources when necessary. In terms of the ‘nuts and bolts’ that Marcovitz (1998, 2000 as cited in Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010), I try to minimize my role in the technical and repair component of it. This is the role of our IT manager who is phenomenal at the technical side of our operations. That being said, teachers still come to me regularly to fix their problem. It is important for me to acknowledge when I am capable of supporting them and when I need to refer them to the experts. When possible, I do try my best to problem solve with teachers as it can be frustrating when things aren’t working and it is also part of my emphasis on building relationships whenever possible. References Devolder, A., Vanderlinde, R., van Braak, J. & Tondeur, J. (2010). Identifying multiple roles of ICT coordinators, Computers & Education, Vol.55(4), pp.1651-1655. As Proctor et al (2003) suggest, the measurement of effective ICT integration is quite challenging. In my setting, we have teachers self-evaluate their technology skills and competence at the beginning and mid-year. This data helps us support the planning of professional development to meet the overall needs of our staff.
Currently, we do not have something to measure the impact of technology use in our organisation on a large scale. However, I am interested to look for ways to measure data and have data-driven dialogues to help move us forward. I’d be interested to hear what other schools are currently doing to help measure this data. A lot of our conversations with teachers are around the purpose of their technology integration: Is it achieving the desired learning outcome? How is it enhancing the learning experience for students (Proctor et al., 2003, p. 69). These informal discussions are great sources of informal data which can help us better understand teachers’ approaches to technology integration. The SAMR model is one way to help teachers understand how they are using technology for integration. Much of the data that I gather for different trials I have been involved with (ie 2-to-1 teacher devices) is anecdotal. This can be challenging to measure growth. However, you can often see the changes in patterns and growth. When our school became a 1-to-1 laptop school, there was a clear decision from the administration that ICT skills for students would not be assessed (ie, typing, etc). However, there would be more of a focus on transdisciplinary skills such as visual literacy, research skills etc. These skills would be a source of teaching points and commented on in reports but not given a numerical value. Because of this, it makes it challenging to gather concrete data on student skills as a way to inform future planning. That being said, I’d be interested in giving our students a survey at the beginning or end of year to see what skills they have and what skills need to still be developed according to students’ self-assessment. Reading Voogt & Pelgrum (2005) really resonated with me. Our school pedagogies are definitely becoming more student-driven and inquiry based with the teachers in the role of facilitators and supports. ICT has become more woven and embedded into the curriculum with less focus on tools and more on what they are trying to achieve. Skills that can be transferred between disciplines are also emphasised with a focus on skills that will be long-lasting. Our inquiry approach to teaching focuses more on collaboration and creation with students exploring their own inquiries based on personal interest and sharing their findings. Because an inquiry model is a focus for our pedagogy, it changes how teaching and integration of technology in the classroom. Our school has invested a lot into professional development to support teachers in developing a transdisciplinary and inquiry classroom. Through planning with the education technology coach, the teachers and coach can work to support students with this model and find the most meaningful ways to integrate technology. References Proctor, R., Watson, G. and Finger, G. (2003). Measuring information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum integration.Computers in the Schools, 20(4): 67–87. Voogt, J., & Pelgrum, H. (2005). ICT and curriculum change. Human Technology, 1(2), 157-175. Armfield (2011, p.109) suggest that in many situations technology integration in the classroom is simply used for traditional activities. Yet, we need to be looking at how technology transforms the teaching and learning experience for our students and ourselves as teachers.
Armfield (2011, p.111) also brings to light the idea of a community of practice in which all stakeholders are working towards the same goal. I think this is an important point with regards to technology integration. If the administration does not value the transformative aspects of technology in education, there won’t be budgeting for devices. If teachers don’t value technology in education, they won’t bring it into their classroom. If students don’t value it, they won’t engage with it. It really needs to be a part of the school’s mission and vision about creating a learning environment to meet individual needs using 21st-century tools and strategies to enhance learning. Armfield (2011, p.114) suggests further challenges such as teachers having little experience with technology and fearful of attempting to use it. Many teachers lack knowledge in how technology can support pedagogy and content to benefit their students. This is something that is very common in schools. It takes a lot to build ownership in learning as well as the confidence and courage to take risks in the classroom in front of students. Matzen & Edmunds (2007) suggests that just teaching technology tools in professional development is not good enough and teachers will not likely integrate into the classroom in a transformative way. However, if there is a student-centred approach to instructional strategies, then teachers are more likely to have a shift in their own instructional methods. My role is to lead all of the professional development sessions for education technology. This includes creating surveys to understand staff needs and develop a professional development plan each term to meet these needs, deliver the sessions and reflect back on the success of them and where to go from there. Depending on the time of year and session topics, attendance can vary but I measure success in how teachers then take their learning and apply it in their classrooms or share their learning with others. I love when teachers come back and say they’ve tried something they learnt during a session in their classroom and can share their reflections on it. This also helps them consolidate their own learning and they can then support others who would like to try similar integration strategies in the future. Just like I would facilitate sessions with our students, our professional development sessions are all linked to at least one of the ICT in PYP skills that the International Baccalaureate outlines (2011). This allows teachers to also think about what transferable skills they are developing, similar to how we teach our students. During sessions, I believe it is important that it is hands-on for teachers and that they try things out. I always allow for time to explore so that teachers are constructing their own learning with technology (Matzen & Edmunds,2007). In addition, I model teaching the sessions in a way that I would teach my students to ensure that the learning is student centred (Matzen & Edmunds,2007). This also helps teachers integrate into their own classrooms as they often model what they have been shown during professional development sessions in their own class (Matzen & Edmunds,2007, p. 427). I think that it needs to be a combination of ICT skills and learning new ways of teaching. This cannot just fall on the technology coach though - it needs to be supported by the administration and the curriculum coordinator to guide the way of teaching and learning. In order for teachers to incorporate technology into their lessons, they need to understand how to use the technology. Therefore, whenever we do EdTech PD at our school we always have a dual approach where we look at the technology tool and also look at applications of this in the classroom. From there, hopefully, we’ve sparked some ideas with teachers to help them use the tool to deliver or assess content in the future. We can also then have coaching sessions to support teachers in their planning and draw on some of the tools that would help them best deliver content without spending time ‘teaching’ them during these times. Professional development is ongoing as suggested in Armfield (2011, p. 115). Therefore, we cannot teach teachers everything there is to know about technology integration at once. There needs to be an ongoing commitment to professional development of best practice and technology integration at the school level to build this idea of a community of practice. This will help teachers become more confident using technology in their classes and move beyond just teaching skills towards transformative learning. In addition, as teachers become more confident using technology they should also spend more time reflecting on how they’ve used it and adapt to enhance their teaching. Similarly, as more professional development sessions are run, there needs to be reflection by the technology team to ensure the sessions meet the needs of the staff in a challenging and effective manner. Our school is really good about providing time and resources for teachers to actually learn through technology. Our department has offered close to 30 sessions this year for teachers and are looking to expand that to an online course for new teachers to bring them up to basics as well as use 2 days if staff professional development days and 2 Primary/ Secondary meetings to develop our new digital citizenship curriculum next year. Schools need to keep this commitment of giving teachers time if they want their teachers to use technology effectively (Armfield, 2011, p. 119). Lawless & Pellegrino (2007) suggest that most professional development is voluntary. This is very true in our school this year in terms of technology integration professional development. All 30 sessions are voluntary meaning that only those who are motivated and want to engage with these sessions, rather than those who really could benefit from sessions like this. This is another reason we are moving 4 mandatory staff professional development sessions next year. Effective technology integration is something that all staff need to work towards, hence the whole school approach by administration next year. References Armfield, S. (2011). Technology leadership for school improvement Planning, designing, implementing and evaluating technology, pp. 109-128, 2011. in Technology and Leadership for School Improvement. Papa, R. (Ed) California :Sage International Baccalaureate. (2011).The role of ICT in PYP. UK: IB. Matzen, N. J., & Edmunds, J. A. (2007). Technology as a Catalyst for Change: The Role of Professional Development. Journal Of Research On Technology In Education, 39(4), 417-430. Webb and Cox (2004) highlight that teachers need to think critically about their pedagogy and how ICT can be integrated into it. ICT is not an afterthought, rather part of the planning process. As teachers are planning, they need to think about what they hope to achieve. From there, they can think about the pedagogy and strategies that will work best and the tools and their affordances they require to make it a reality. ICT cannot be seen as separate from good practice and planning, rather, seamlessly integrated.
Do all teachers use this complex pedagogical reasoning in my organisation? No. But I think the more technology is seen as just one of many resources rather than something that should be used, we see more and more teachers shifting their ideas of technology integration. I love watching the teachers teach who understand technology integration though. It is as if the technology is just an extension of their normal classroom practice and the students don’t see it as anything else either. It is used when appropriate, and when it’s not appropriate, it isn’t used, allowing both teachers and students to leverage their devices in effective ways. Our school and administration have put a lot of time, money and resources in supporting teachers in getting to this level. While not everyone is there yet, it is the direction we are moving as a school with more and more teachers having a deeper understanding of appropriate and effective technology integration each day. Teachers need to be willing to not be at the centre of the classroom. This is a huge pedagogical shift from ‘traditional teaching’. As mentioned in Somekh (2008) in the various examples, the roles of teachers and students had to change and become co-constructed. Teachers are no longer the sole expert and need to take on the role of being more of a facilitator and supporter. The students have greater access to information through technology which allows the way they learn and what they learn to become more flexible and varied. Through effective technology integration, students can develop transdisciplinary skills rather than just technology skills that can benefit them throughout their life (ie: collaboration, time management, creating, investigating, etc.). In order for this shift to be successful, teachers need to feel supported in a safe environment where it is okay for them to try things and make mistakes. Teachers should receive professional development in a variety of forms to support technology integration into their classroom. This is often best done with a technology coach who can guide them through effective practice. This year, I had to work with all teachers in teachers in the early years to implement our new e-Portfolio programme for students, teachers and parents. In the past, the teachers were responsible for continually upkeep paper portfolios with comments the children said about pieces of work that the teachers wanted the parents to see. There was a huge shift to making it all online and having the students drive the reflections, making it more authentic for the students. In doing this, teachers had to change what they thought portfolios were and how reflections were meant to be recorded and used. This was done by starting small and growing the successes to other classes. Teachers received professional development not only on the specific application and the technical components of doing the e-Portfolio but also professional development on how this could look and work within the classroom. I worked with the teachers and co-taught at times, worked with small groups of students and met one-on-one for additional support. Students were choosing the work they wanted to share by the end of the integration. The students would document their work using photographs or video. They could then create audio or written reflections (depending on their development levels and personal choice) that would be shared online. The teacher allowed for a time within centres throughout the week for students to use the iPads to add to their e-Portfolios. Student motivation and engagement went up as they were in control of the learning and that they had an authentic audience (their parents) that would immediately see their work online. For teachers, the time and effort they needed to maintain the portfolio drastically went down, allowing them to reallocate that time to focus on student learning. References Section 5.3 of: Somekh, B. (2008). Factors Affecting Teachers' Pedagogical Adoption of ICT. International Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education. J. Voogt and G. Knezek, Springer US. 20: 449-460. Webb, M. and M. Cox (2004). "A review of pedagogy related to information and communications technology." Technology, Pedagogy and Education 13(3): 235-286. http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759390400200183 I have come across TPACK in numerous educational situations as well numerous other courses for this master. TPACK is a framework that supports the integration of technology for effective classroom teaching. It combines technological, pedagogical and content knowledge as a way of thinking to support teachers in ensuring the use of technology is appropriate, thoughtful and effective during the planning stages (Mishra, & Koehler, 2006). As a technology coach, my expertise lies in technological/pedagogical knowledge (TPK), where I support teachers in integrating technology for their specific content in a specific content. It is also important that I balance when digital technologies are appropriate and maybe not so appropriate to ensure that teachers move beyond just using a tool.
I think TPACK is a good starting point for teachers who are learning and evaluating how they are integrating technology into their classes but it needs to push their thinking even further. Technology should allow new learning opportunities that would not have been possible before (Mishra & Koeler, 2008). The SAMR model for technology integration to help teachers understand that technology can reach many levels of higher-order thinking and create opportunities for our students to use technology to do things that traditional methods failed to allow for. As technology use moves up the chart, it moves from enhancing the learning experience to truly transforming the experience for students. With the SAMR model, it is understood that the use of technology may vary across all four but it is important for teachers to think about what the real purpose is of the technology. If teachers are only ever using technology for substitution, is this really a good use of technology? Would the students simply be able to not use technology and achieve the same desired learning outcomes? When we move towards modification and redefinition, we are allowing students to develop their critical thinking and creativity skills as they show their learning and understanding in new and complex ways. The more we think about technology integration through TPACK and SAMR the more our students will be able to have meaningful learning experiences.TPACK focuses more about planning for technology integration within a context, whereas SAMR focuses on how technology is changing the learning experience. When technology, pedagogy and content knowledge all exist, it is about understanding the balance with the ever changing technology to ensure that best practice of teaching is always being exemplified in the classroom (Koehler & Mishra, 2009). For me, the biggest need for teachers who want to integrate technology is a growth mindset. Teachers need to be willing to learn and make mistakes. It is only from here that we can reflect and move forward to better our teaching practice for our students. We need to be open to new ideas, new ways of doing things and new tools to get the job done. We need to be open to letting our students take the lead and be okay with the role of the teacher adapting with it. With a growth mindset, we can be open to new and exciting opportunities, which includes how we integrate ICT. References Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)?. Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 9(1), 60-70. Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2006). Technological pedagogical content knowledge: A framework for teacher knowledge. Teachers College Record, 108(6), 1017-1054. Mishra & Koehler (2008). Keynote address [YouTube]. Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iCPLTz7Z-Q Cuban, Kirkpatrick & Peck (2001) suggested that the majority of teachers in US are not computer users. If teachers aren’t using the tools, then the impact on teaching and learning is not present. In my international school setting, this is not the case at all. All of our teachers are provided a laptop when they begin with our school and receive training on them. There is an expectation that attendance, grading, reports, planning are all on our LMS systems. Thus, technology use is not an option rather a mandate as part of being an employee at the school. In terms of teaching and learning, much of this is also done digitally, however, not mandated in the same way. That being said, with digital resources for classes, teaching teams can share the workload easily by sharing resources with a click of a button. Teachers can view student work using tools such as Teacher Dashboard easily to support them with their work without having to take bags of workbooks home to review.
Cuban, Kirkpatrick & Peck (2001) suggested we need to know more than how often students are turning on computers but rather what students are doing with them while they are on. If it is simple drill and kill practice all of the time, the impact on learning will be minimal as they are not developing skills that are transferable in other scenarios. As I was reading about Cuban, Kirkpatrick & Peck (2001) study, I felt our school had much more access to technology than the schools in the study who had computer labs. With a 1-to-1 programme at our school, each student has access to connectivity and software at all times whether at home or school, thus, increasing the use of computers. Teachers do not have to worry about booking the lab or if the internet connection will be working. This allows for technology to be used at a moment’s notice in class or left to the side of the table when not needed. The 1-to-1 programme allows for technology to just be another tool for students to use if deemed necessary. Somekh (2004) outlines 4 examples of institutional resistance to change in the article. ICT is often seen as a separate subject rather than being integrated into every subject. Teachers often use a one-size fits all, linear model where they start from scratch and teach all the skills rather than differentiating for the needs of the students who are well advanced. Students with access to technology is compounded by the kinds of ICT use. Finally schools restrict access to a number of websites out of fear of unknown and need to be extra cautious in schools. What we have learnt is, that in order for technology to be effective, it needs to become a part of the human activity (p. 177). I think there will always be resistance to new technologies entering into the educational realm. Geoffrey Moore’s book ‘Crossing the Chasm’ (2001) outlines that there is always going to be a bell curve when it comes to technology starting from technology enthusiasts who are willing to try anything as soon as it is available to the skeptics who are the last to give in to technology initiatives if ever. I actually think this is a good thing. It is good to have a variety of perspectives and varying adopting times. It gives the visionaries time to try it out and imagine where it can go which convinces the pragmatists and conservatives to make the transition once there is some proof it will work. When I run trials with new technology tools, this is exactly how i approach it. I access those most willing to try, see what the results are, reflect and analyse if this is the best move forward as a school and use this data to help move the school forward. In my school, technology is not just the responsibility of one teacher. Rather it is the expectation that all teachers teach ICT within their classrooms. As the Technology Coach, I support teachers in doing this but at the end of the day, we all need to weave ICT into our lessons when appropriate. This takes the ownership of ICT off just a single specialist, just like we are all language teachers to an extent. Integration of subjects has become the norm not that anomaly. As a school who uses a transdisciplinary approach to learning through the IB framework, students have all subjects being intertwined. As I am reading the articles by Somekh (2004), I wonder what his findings would be today 12 years later. Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001)’s article is now about 15 years after it was written. What are the more recent studies arguing about the impact or lack thereof with technology? Is there really as much discrepancy between home and school? When my students were doing something at home (ie 3D printing), we found a way to bring it into the classroom. I let the students drive their own learning and incorporated the tools they wanted to use. I use Edmodo to mimic Facebook for privacy, age restrictions and safety but still allowing them the social aspect of media. With a student who struggled with creating content and developing his e-Portfolio, I used a mobile device with Blogger to mimic what he was doing with Instagram on his own time. Are these the same tools they are using at home - no. But they are replicating their uses at home in an appropriate and safe way for educational purposes. Because I was making the effort for them, they were also making the effort and I saw improved work quality and quantity. Technology can have a positive impact on learning, community and teaching if used in authentic, meaningful and innovative ways. References Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001). High access and low use of technologies in high school classrooms: Explaining an apparent paradox.American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 813–834. Moore, G. A. (1991). Crossing the chasm: Marketing and selling technology products to mainstream customers. New York, N.Y.: HarperBusiness. Somekh, B. (2004). Taking the sociological imagination to school: an analysis of the (lack of) impact of information and communication technologies on education systems. Technology, pedagogy and education, 13(2), 163-179. Cuban, Kirkpatrick & Peck (2001) suggested that the majority of teachers in US are not computer users. If teachers aren’t using the tools, then the impact on teaching and learning is not present. In my international school setting, this is not the case at all. All of our teachers are provided with a laptop when they begin with our school and receive training on them. There is an expectation that attendance, grading, reports, planning are all on our LMS systems. Thus, technology use is not an option rather a mandate as part of being an employee at the school. In terms of teaching and learning, much of this is also done digitally, however, not mandated in the same way. That being said, with digital resources for classes, teaching teams can share the workload easily by sharing resources with a click of a button. Teachers can view student work using tools such as Teacher Dashboard easily to support them with their work without having to take bags of workbooks home to review. Cuban, Kirkpatrick & Peck (2001) suggested we need to know more than how often students are turning on computers but rather what students are doing with them while they are on. If it is simple drill and kill practice all of the time, the impact on learning will be minimal as they are not developing skills that are transferable in other scenarios. As I was reading about Cuban, Kirkpatrick & Peck (2001) study, I felt our school had much more access to technology than the schools in the study who had computer labs. With a 1-to-1 programme at our school, each student has access to connectivity and software at all times whether at home or school, thus, increasing the use of computers. Teachers do not have to worry about booking the lab or if the internet connection will be working. This allows for technology to be used at a moment’s notice in class or left to the side of the table when not needed. The 1-to-1 programme allows for technology to just be another tool for students to use if deemed necessary. Somekh (2004) outlines 4 examples of institutional resistance to change in the article. ICT is often seen as a separate subject rather than being integrated into every subject. Teachers often use one-size fits all, a linear model where they start from scratch and teach all the skills rather than differentiating for the needs of the students who are well advanced. Access to technology is compounded by the kinds of ICT use. Finally schools restrict access to a number of websites out of fear of the unknown and need to be extra cautious in schools. What we have learnt is, that in order for technology to be effective, it needs to become a part of the human activity (p. 177). I think there will always be resistance to new technologies entering into the educational realm. Geoffrey Moore’s book ‘Crossing the Chasm’ (2001) outlines that there is always going to be a bell curve when it comes to technology starting from technology enthusiasts who are willing to try anything as soon as it is available to the sceptics who are the last to give in to technology initiatives if ever. I actually think this is a good thing. It is good to have a variety of perspectives and varying adopting times. It gives the visionaries time to try it out and imagine where it can go which convinces the pragmatists and conservatives to make the transition once there is some proof it will work. When I run trials with new technology tools, this is exactly how I approach it. I access those most willing to try, see what the results are, reflect and analyse if this is the best move forward as a school and use this data to help move the school forward. In my school, technology is not just the responsibility of one teacher. Rather it is the expectation that all teachers teach ICT within their classrooms. As the Technology Coach, I support teachers in doing this but at the end of the day, we all need to weave ICT into our lessons when appropriate. This takes the ownership of ICT off just a single specialist, just like we are all language teachers to an extent. Integration of subjects has become the norm not that anomaly. As a school who uses a transdisciplinary approach to learning through the IB framework, students have all subjects being intertwined. As I am reading the articles by Somekh (2004), I wonder what his findings would be today 12 years later. Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001)’s article is now about 15 years after it was written. What are the more recent studies arguing about the impact or lack thereof with technology? Is there really as much discrepancy between home and school? When my students were doing something at home (ie 3D printing), we found a way to bring it into the classroom. I let the students drive their own learning and incorporated the tools they wanted to use. I use Edmodo to mimic Facebook for privacy, age restrictions and safety but still allowing them the social aspect of media. With a student who struggled with creating content and developing his e-Portfolio, I used a mobile device with Blogger to mimic what he was doing with Instagram on his own time. Are these the same tools they are using at home - no. But they are replicating their uses at home in an appropriate and safe way for educational purposes. Because I was making the effort for them, they were also making the effort and I saw improved work quality and quantity. Technology can have a positive impact on learning, community and teaching if used in authentic, meaningful and innovative ways. References Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001). High access and low use of technologies in high school classrooms: Explaining an apparent paradox.American Educational Research Journal, 38(4), 813–834. Moore, G. A. (1991). Crossing the chasm: Marketing and selling technology products to mainstream customers. New York, N.Y.: HarperBusiness. Somekh, B. (2004). Taking the sociological imagination to school: an analysis of the (lack of) impact of information and communication technologies on education systems. Technology, pedagogy and education, 13(2), 163-179. I think the affordances of technology often are dependent on the tool, the person and the context but technology provides us with so many affordances in educational settings. My school context has a BYOD Macbook school from Year 7 and above. This allows students to have the affordance to access information from their personal laptop from both home and school (Conole and Dyke, 2004). However, our Year 3 to Year 6 students have a class set of laptops that remain at school. This makes it challenging when students don’t automatically have the affordance to access their work from the same device and rely on cloud-based sharing to be able to access their work from a home device. There is the assumption that students have the affordance of accessibility at home sometimes in these grades to continue work even.
One of the technology resources our school uses is Google Apps for Education. This suite of applications provide us with so affordances. Gmail provides us with the ability to communicate quickly, easily and in an organised manner. Though because of this, I find myself often checking to make sure I don’t have any messages and respond promptly when I can (This leads to both positive and negative connotations as mentioned in Conole & Dyke, 2004). The Google Docs and Presentations provide students with the ability to create and the affordance to collaborate. They can access so much information for their presentations and work through online that students become curators in addition to consumers and creators. With so many digital tools, my students are constantly creating multimodal presentations to showcase their understanding. App-smashing and digital storytelling have become a way of developing high-order thinking as students create, evaluate and reflect. While our school has access to quite a substantial amount of technology, it does not mean everyone is using it as effectively as possible. In terms of technology usage, our school emphasises it be used only when it is authentic and enhances the student learning experience. However, with the rate of changes in technologies, it is hard for teachers to stay current at all times and feel confident using unfamiliar tools. The policy document for our international school covering ICT is called "ICT, phone and social media". This document covers the main campus K-12 school, east campus K-6 school and two local kindergartens. This purpose of the policy is “to ensure the effective and proper usage of the computer systems within the school and protect employees and school from litigation associated with inappropriate use of ICT, phone and social media.” (School policy, 2015). The policy focuses more on operational expectations of teachers while use technology in education settings. In addition, we have an acceptable use policy for teachers, students and parents to further explain the expectations of each stakeholder for technology used for the purpose of learning. The policy outlines provides a framework of expectations. Within that, hardware and software are purchased, implemented and maintained for the benefit of student learning. Technology has numerous advantages that extends beyond just student learning in an educational setting. The policy clearly states that ICT resources are provided to staff in order to support the teaching, learning, research, administrative and business activities of the school. The usage of ICT in teaching and learning provides the students with a 21st-century approach to learning. I was surprised when I read back that it focused so heavily on the guidelines and boundaries of using ICT instead of how to use it for teaching and learning. However, once those are in place, the ability to explore technology integration within the framework becomes more manageable for students and teachers. One thing I really appreciate about our school’s approach to technology integration is that there is no one person who has a say of what resources get implemented. There are tools such as ManageBac, PowerSchool and Google Apps that have been implemented on a whole school scale and mandated but to get to that point, there was a lot of input and research to make those decisions. Similarly, when staff want to purchase software, there is a process of bringing it to the IT committee composed of administration from all divisions, Head of School, Director of Administration as well as our 2 IT staff and 2 EdTech teachers. This helps to ensure that various perspectives are seen and discussed before a discussion is made to see if the new software is the best fit for existing systems and for student learning. The committee meets biweekly for the entire morning. References Conole, G. and M. Dyke (2004). What are the affordances of information and communication technologies?ALT-J 12(2): 113-124. School Policy (2015). QP64 - ICT, Phone and Social Media. [internal document] |
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