Monday 2 September 2013

New Technology in the Classroom; An Extra Tool, or a Whole New Approach?

In the INSET at the beginning of the year, we discussed the way in which technology is influencing our lives and the lives of our pupils. The potential of computers and technology in education is a rhetoric that teachers and parents alike will be familiar with but it is often referred to in vague terms or with the use of cliches such as 'Textbooks are becoming redundant' (The Independent: 12.11.10) or 'Could Miss be Replaced by a Robot?' (The Daily Mail: 8.11.12) It is only natural for teachers, and perhaps parents too to find this type of distortion unsettling.We don't need Vygotsky to remind us of the fundamental importance role of social discourse to know that teachers need those exclusively human characteristics of humanity, compassion, judgement kindness and many more besides.

This type of reporting is an example of some of the misconceptions surrounding new technologies, both among the general public, but also among staff in schools. The plainly ridiculous notion of current technology being able to fully replace a teacher is easy to dismiss especially for those who have watched technology developing in their lifetime. Teachers who do remember life before Google, and can imagine a world with out Facebook, Twitter or a smartphone and did a fantastic job of educating people without any of them.

However, this type of reporting also reveals one of the key conflicts in the role and use of technology in schools. While much hoopla has been made of power of technology and its potential, the general trend is one of adopting technology into existing pedagogical structures and using it to replace something that existed before. An example of this might be using Google instead of a textbook or using an Interactive Whiteboard instead of a traditional whiteboard. While there are advantages to both of these, there are also some glaring disadvantages such as Google being far too unwieldily for most primary age pupils to navigate confidently and safely and for interactive whiteboards to encourage 'chalk and talk', or at least 'e-ink and talk' lessons. It is precisely this that has led some (McLaughlin: 2011) to suggest that the IWB may have had it's day. This sentiment is echoed by the discussions I have posted recently regarding Sir Ken Robinson and Sugata Mitra's call to reframe the curriculum.

For technology to achieve the potential that has been promised it is essential that it is used as a new vehicle for a totally different pedagogical approach. The power of technology lies not in what it can add, but how it enables us to change our approach. One example of this is how it can empower pupils by providing access to people, ideas and content they would never otherwise have access too. It allows pupils to collaborate with each other within the school context but also across the school community and beyond. It allows learners to easily become music producers, film makers, photographers, writers, artists, broadcasters, and gives them a chance to achieve a global audience. Young people have never before had such a voice, and now have as much potential to be heard, influence others and even change the world as any adult. It is this fact that reveals the true potential of technology. It enables pupils to become constructors of their own learning. It hands them both voice and choice in what they learn, how they learn it and how they share it. It allows the work that they undertake to have genuine significance and purpose.

Here I will detail some of the tools that can be used to enable this type of learning.

Blogging


Blogging is a platform to share learning across the class, the school community and the world. The use It can create a place for work to be shared and the comments section can be used to attract feedback from anywhere. My favourite blogging platform is Blogger. Like all Google products it is easy to use, and very open. It allows much more content to be embedded than Wordpress. It has many different layouts which allow for a more creative use blogs in the class environment. A good quality mobile version is also available.





Collaboration


One of the most powerful benefits of technology is enabling pupils to collaborate in real time. Creating a platform to respond to a stimulus whilst simultaneously allowing pupils to reflect on the thoughts of the whole of the rest of the learning group or school community creates a good example of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development in action. My favourite tool for this is Voicethread. Teachers can post any electronic stimulus, such as a video, picture, document or sound file and pupils respond to it. The neat thing about Voicethread is that the pupils have a choice about how they respond, either by writing, or recording a short webcam video or audio file. They can annotate the stimulus as they do so and this shows up when their comment is watched. Use the Mess Dudes website to allow children to create their own avatar to personalise their comment.



Another fabulous tools is LinoIt, on online wall where pupils can post sticky notes with anything they choose such as text, pictures, video, documents or audio files. There are many uses for this tool, but it is a great way of brainstorming, gathering ideas and responding to a stimulus, again it can be easily embedded into a blog and the children's learning shared.










Broadcasting



Differentiating by learning style is a powerful strategy that removes barriers for lots of pupils. One of the challenges of this approach is that in a world that demands that learning is evidenced, finding a way of recording verbal work in a meaningful way can be difficult. My favourite tool for this is Audioboo, a super simple, high quality recording device that works right off the inbuilt mic in a computer. The resultant file is easy to share and can be embedded on a blog quickly and easily evidencing learning and sharing it with the world.




Film editing

There are many tools available for film editing, but Windows' own movie maker, which is built right into the operating system and can be found on all the school's computers is a simple and easy way to start. Tutorials will be coming this year during INSET, but the basics are easy to pick up and there are plenty of instructional videos on you tube.







Programming

There has been a huge movement recently into making computer science and programming accessible and easy to learn and take part in online. Here are a selection of tools, ranging in complexity from the most simple, to the most advanced which are all great in the classroom.

Scratch was built specifically for teaching programming to even very young children and is a powerful platform on which you can build animations, games, interactive art and stories. It has good tutorials, is child friendly and can be as simple or as complex as you like. The neat thing about Scratch is that you can look at other people's projects, and import them to your own work and change or modify them. This allows children to have something to start from rather than just a blank page, which can be intimidating.





Appshed is a fantastic web based application that allows users to build apps for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. When created, the apps can be downloaded onto a compatible device, and shared with others. This tool is particularly good at helping children to learn about user interface, as the simple navigational capability of a phone needs a really creative approach, to prevent is becoming and endless list of menus and sub menus.





For the most ambitious teachers, codecademy is a online learning environment that teachers users how to code in a variety of computer languages including java, HTML, and C++, this is a challenge not to be taken lightly but is an ideal platform to stretch the pupils most interested in computer languages and programming. Users can ultimately learn to program anything, but starting with Java allows them to create games within a relatively short time period.






There are literally thousands of amazing applications built for learning. As with everything, they vary in qaulity and I would encourage you to find which ones work well for you, and develop a little portfolio of great toold that fit well into your own style and practice. A great place to find more is Edshelf, where you will find reviews of other teachers, screen shots and videos about apps that are available online, and on portable platforms such as smartphones or tablets.