Technologies for Learning: Unpacking the Objectives – New Behaviours
We are in the middle of an on-line debate about the future of technologies for learning in our schools. This has already included some significant announcements regarding a change of direction to Glow and we will be continuing to develop our thinking building up to the Scottish Government ICT Summit on the 17th October. To help inform our work I have set five objectives, the third of which is unpacked below.
Objective 3: Promote new behaviours for teaching
When I speak to a lot of ICT enthusiasts some of them tell me that, “Technology makes teaching easier,” and “it saves them time”. I don’t necessarily agree with either of these statements. Regardless of technology, teaching can be a difficult and time-consuming career. These are two of the reasons why we work hard to attract some of the most highly qualified, talented and enthusiastic people into the profession.
What I do think though is that technology is changing the way that we teach, in exactly the same way that technology has changed the way that we shop, carry out financial transactions, play (computer games) and socialise (just think of what Facebook has achieved in a short amount of time).
It seems to me that technology has transformed almost every aspect of our lives but is still to have the same transformational impact in our classrooms.
With many children coming to school with a computer in their pocket and a number of LAs looking to find creative ways of providing one to one computing access for young people, perhaps it is time we revisited models of classroom interaction and share more good practice. Technology has also changed how we learn – how we find information, how we interact – our classrooms and learning spaces need to more fully reflect this.
As well as improving teacher confidence (see objective 2) we also need to support teachers in identifying the benefits of using technology to improve pupil learning. As new technologies appear in society and as other technologies become more robust and ubiquitous in our classrooms we need to work together to develop and promote good and future models of effective learning and teaching.
Finally, we need to support teachers and school leaders in seeing themselves as confident, life-long learners.
By doing so, I hope that we can achieve a measurable improvement in the application of technology in learning. This will include increased innovation by teachers and learners in classroom practice, increased achievement by learners and most importantly, increased sharing and collaboration amongst teachers to develop themselves as learners, for the betterment of their students.
What do you think? Why don’t you have your say and contribute to the on-line discussions taking place between the 12th September – 10th October. You can find out more information and join in at http://glo.li/eduscotict.
Michael Russell
Cabinet Secretary for Education & Lifelong Learning
Related information
Technologies for Learning: Unpacking the Objectives – Introduction
Technologies for Learning: Unpacking the Objectives – Confidence
Watch the video - Cabinet Secretary for Education Michael Russell discusses the future of Glow – the schools website
5 comments
While I agree that the quality of teachers needs to be consistently high, I completely disagree with where you are uncertain about technology making teaching easier and saving time. You agree that technology has changed our daily lives, now you need to question HOW it has changed our daily lives; it has made things easier and quicker to do. You can organise your entire life from your smartphone; banking; shopping; communicating etc etc. Of course teaching is always a challenging, demanding career but to suggest that technology doesn’t lighten the load even a little is to deny the possibilities that technology holds and completely defeats the purpose of campaigning for change. All aspects of technology and ICT need to be fully embraced or reform will once again only be half hearted.
You cannot deny technology ‘has made things easier and quicker to do’ : trolling, cyber bullying, plagiarising, political propaganda etc etc! Rather than thoughtlessly embracing technology we should consider the issue of responsible technology use?
Both in business and education one of the biggest time wasters is having to read through screeds of emails that are sent out, blanketing all recipients with no thought to selection.
Likewise plagiarism is now a horrendous problem in schools, with students frequently handing in work that they are unable to explain / analyse effectively because they ‘googled’ it (or even worse, believed what they read on wikipedia!)
Ultimately it is training students (and some teachers too) to be selective and questioning about both the technology they use (is it fit for purpose? GLOW certainly is not) and the information that is handled through it. These critical faculties have been hampered by far too many consultants and other snake oil merchants dazzling politicians with promises that turn into ashes.
Ultimately technology is a useful tool , an adjunct to effective teaching, not an excuse to try and force it to become the centre of everything because it looks shiny. Learning is lifelong, it doesn’t habitually need batteries, a lack of social interaction skills and a USB stick!
I completely agree that internet sense and safety is of immense important… but you aren’t going to achieve it by censoring or limiting ICT.
As for Wikipedia, perhaps you should read up on the recent campaign to solidify it’s validity; user generated content is the future and young people need to be able to distinguish a good resource form a bad one. Wikipedia offers a great starting ground for such understanding as it requires referencing and tells you where a piece of information lacks credibility. I am not saying it is the best resource in the world but it is definitely something school children need to learn how to use. The world of referencing and understanding good and bad sources is daunting for anyone; Wikipedia makes it easy.
And I agree that Glow is in no way fit for purpose (hence the need to explore the web in its entirety, the good, bad and ugly).
If we expect to create lifelong learners it is absurd to dismiss ICT and, I think Wikipedia. Wikipedia leads you to areas of interest, tiny vessels of information that you will ultimately search for elsewhere. Sources like Wikipedia, and Google, create curiosity, ICT allows development of that curiosity.
I don’t think at any point I said censor or limit ICT and I would wholeheartedly agree that it would be absurd to dismiss ICT – good job I did not urge that either!
I am aware of the campaign with regard to Wikipedia. I believe it will be a labour that will make the endeavours of Sisyphus look humble, not least as more user generated innacuracy and dogma squirts into Wikipedia. To be quite honest I suspect that user generated comment will be the future, and a bleak one at that considering the lack of intellectual rigour demonstrated therein.
School children need literacy and numeracy and build upon that with a range of skills and subjects at the secondary level. I would hazard a guess that they need to learn to use text, dictionary, thesaurus and other valid primary and secondary source material in order to develop literate, numerate, critical faculties before they start to use ICT as an adjunct to serious learning.
Ultimately a broad, accurate education leads you to areas of interest, aided by ICT, not led by the nose.
@abbywilson575 Thank your for your comment and I am delighted to hear that you think that technology does make teaching easier and that it can save you time. I’m also pleased to see that you are keen that we have a renewed focus on internet safety and responsible use – I touched on this issue during my first post on Monday.
@AnActualTeacher I am delighted with your focus on responsible technology use this will be incredibly important as we move forward.
Michael Russell
Cabinet Secretary for Education & Lifelong Learning