Impact of ICT Reflections

Impact of ICT Reflections

The text emphasises the collaborative potential of ICT such as classes taking digital photographs or videos to record event. I think this is actually one of the most interesting areas of developing technologies, the way they draw people closer together, be it through networking, gaming or in this example the shared experience of recording.

The paper picks up on the idea I had about ICT and personalised learning. It presents quite a thought provoking debate suggesting that it could change the whole pupil teacher relationship as children gain more freedom and autonomy. I guess the idea here is that children will learn to educate themselves through accessing particular resources. However teaching is not about control or dictating for authority’s sake it is about finding what is best for the needs of each individual and I do think ICT is a great tool with which to do so. Surely it can only be a good thing is we can equip children with the knowledge of how to become autonomous learners.

Learning styles are picked up upon in the article as being a growing area in the research of ICT theory. It states that learning styles can ‘provide a pointer to the probability of a tendency towards one or another kind of learning experience or instructional style’ but emphasises that it should not be used to determine who will be suited to a particular discipline. This seems very true, however as I previously mentioned, I would go so far as to say that whilst many children will be able to interact and connect with ICT on some levels, It could be perceived as the new multiple intelligence itself as some children will have a natural disposition to it and will excel in that area. Afterall if some people are believed to have a persuasion towards the natural world and its cycles and patterns; then surely others could have an affinity with what is man made and at a pace dictated by humans, and has its own patterns and encoded language.

Reflections on the Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate into ICT in the Primary Classroom

Reflections on the Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate into ICT in the Primary Classroom

Today I am considering the Ofsted report on ICT in schools.

The report which is now a couple of years old suggests the use of ICT is getting better but there is still room for improvement.

It states that the use of ICT is most successful where the teachers make links between it and other curriculum areas. In fact it even goes so far as to praise schools where ICT use in other subjects is more interesting and exciting that the timetabled ICT lessons. It condemns ICT lessons which ‘exist in a vacuum and do not help them grow as learners’ because it suggests that it is a tool which can enrich all areas. The idea must be that IT is not a subject in isolation but compliments learning almost everywhere.

For me there key word seems to be adaption, creating the idea of ICT being a tool to meet their own needs. Words like ‘assimilate’, ‘help’ and ‘enhance’ suggest an element of support but also negotiation, where the technology called upon assists them but never represents the work in its entirely, moreover it has to be moulded for their own purpose as a means to an end and not an end in itself. I identify with this perspective quite strongly because my educational philosophy is based on the idea of learners all having different needs and baggage and everyone being individual and benefiting from differing approaches. I like the idea of learners developing an awareness of what suits them and having the freedom to choose external resources to compliment and aid their work. Informations communications technology is such a brilliant tool for learning because it encompasses so many different devices which record and express information from phones, to digital cameras, to programmes for data handling and presentation and online encyclopedias. Working with something which makes the end result of their efforts seem so much more proffesionally presented is also going to make children take more pride in the ownership of their work.

Amusingly the document speaks of children’s ‘ICT diet’ which seems a bit of a strange term, however thinking about it this does express the idea of an intake of experiences which I guess following the analogy could either be nutritious or unproductive. Furthermore it speaks of the need for a ‘balanced’ diet which promotes the idea of moderate intake in all areas of the curriculum.

My Reflections on the use of ICT in education today

My Reflections on the use of ICT in education today

The article I have been reading this week concerns the idea of there being a gap between home and school and discusses the need to bridge it. This is an interesting notion of a space or void resulting from differing experiences of technology, the home experience being rich and diverse and the school one stagnant and prescribed.

Controversially, the writer considers the use of new technologies to be perfecting much more sophisticated and relevant skills for the ‘knowledge economy’ than the ones taught at school. This maybe an extreme view but it probably has some truth in it.

Again this article mentions the printing press and recorded word as a technological development of just as great a significance in the past. It urges us to view digital technology in much the same way

The article urges educators to embrace the kinds of technology children are using day in day out in their home lives. Examples I consider significant in popular culture are consoles like the Nintendo Wii where the player physically moves to create movement on screen in particular to emulate the moves in sports such as tennis or bowling, or the Brain Training Games of the Nintendo DS with the emphasis on value of number or spellings. Also there are the Internet sites such as YouTube which have a real culture of their own, a community based around sharing entertainment clips.

I guess a teacher who embraces technology and uses it to its potential would be one who really gets to grips with the programmes and devices children regularly use and try and involve them in the delivery of the curriculum, either by using the actual device as part of the teaching or the concept behind a device. Actual use of the programmes or devices would be in an English lesson writing a Wiki about the central topic, or creating a dramatic interpretation of a text to go on YouTube. Perhaps in a business and enterprise lesson or maybe even maths children could start a class Ebay account and experience marketing, buying, selling and percentages. Non direct use involving the concept of ICT would be for instance in maths lessons children could design number problems for a DS Brain Training Game or the equivalent in literacy, in design technology they could design and create packaging for a computer game or mobile telephone. Perhaps it is going a little to far but children could be allowed to use dance mats and Wii Fitness in physical education. Or Guitar Hero or Singstar in music. These seem extreme examples but really if they help children engage with the wider subject then why not draw them in by a media they recognise and enjoy!

There seem almost limitless oppertunities for involving informations and communications technology in the teaching of the whole curiculum whether by actually using the devices themselves or the concept of them to motivate young people.

Prensky and the Digital Age...Immigrants and Natives.

Prensky and the Digital Age...Immigrants and Natives.

My reflections about his theories and the development of a new intelligence

I have found the argument by Prensky highly thought provoking. His analogy of immigrants and natives seems a really helpful way of understanding how people are either born immersed within the culture of technology or have to try and assimilate themselves into it. For those who migrate the digital world is like a society with traditions alien and its digital jargon and processes like a second language they must learn to use but which will never be as instinctive as their own birth tongue. Alternatively the natives know nothing else and it is part of their nature, they are therefore adept at using it and can do so to its full potential. It is useful to have the comparison because from having a concept of one it makes it easier to understand the other.

Fascinatingly Prensky goes so far as to suggest that the action make up of the human mind has changed with the introduction of the digital age. He believes a kind of evolution has taken place where people have become so used to technology and certain pursuits such as fast paced computer games that the mind has been transformed. At the very least he thinks that we have adapted to use different mental processes and I can see some logic in this. Certainly an activity like playing a high speed computer game such as one of the online strategy war games e.g. Command and Conquer requires certain brain processes to be an effective player. An individual must be able to have acute reaction times, planning attacks and pre-empting the enemy assaults, also interestingly they must be able to work at a team and make a collaborative effort with people across the world who they have never met before to fight the opposing side. I find this element of networking really fascinating because it is interaction in a way previously unthought-of, where people join for a common goal without face to face communication and it is interesting how they establish pattern of working together immediately. My point is that these skills are newly experienced by a generation raised in the digital age; they are learning these abilities and ways of working from a young age whereas to older immigrants these must be extremely challenging to develop. So perhaps it does seriously train the mind to use different areas in the thought process a kind of rewiring where areas can be accessed more quickly. Perhaps people’s minds can be trained to work in certain ways and are indeed ‘malleable’ for instance a panic attack sufferer will become trained into a cycle of panic where they trigger their own attacks just as perhaps the mind of a frequent computer game player will be trained to take shortcuts and quickly access certain areas so they react almost on auto play. Interestingly Prensky relates this new programming to when people took up watching digital images on television and film and processing it as a form of expression or when written word was first introduced and they adapted to converting the images as language.

Digital Immigrants are said by Prensky to be identifiable by the way they use technology such a printing off on screen information or showing people things online in front of them rather than sending links. It seems a willingness to participate in digital technology but still with a preference for human interface and to have physical copies of things. In this way they are sort of sampling the technological world but then not using it to its potential by adapting it to their former world. The theory Prensky has is that there is a conflict between the immigrants and the natives and the extent to which they are immersed in technologies. He believes that for things to move even further forward, we need to think about how the digital natives are taught, they cannot learn through outmoded techniques which have no relevance to them and their world, because this will make education seem stagnant and outdated and not equip them with the proper skills they need. Or for another matter even allow certain children to access the curriculum who have become adept at handling technology and working with machines and devices but are inexperienced in using a pen and paper. I can strongly see where he is coming from and certainly would support the use of as much new technology as possible in the classroom as a way of really connecting with and engaging the children. A teacher needs to become as much involved in the new age as possible, trying out digital devices such as cameras and iPods and taking an interest in discovering online communities because this is part of what children bring with them into school as a conception of the world.

However I do think that obviously there needs to be a balance. Prensky speaks of many different attributes appealing to the native such as connecting with visual images over written text, wanting the feel of instant gratification through computer games, to multi task and be engaged in several acts at the same time and randomly find information on the internet rather than systematically. It may sound traditional and conservative but there are traditions surely we do still want to preserve like the joy of reading a physical book ( as opposed to the digital notebook novels) or the composition of a song on an instrument (rather than on a digital programme producer). We do not know how far technology will go and what it will be like in a century’s time, so I think it is important to have forward vision as well as glancing back to the past. What Prensky calls legacy and future content. He does indeed acknowledge that so much ‘exposure’ to technology may be at the expense of other skills and call it a ‘reprogramming process’. One disadvantage is reflection as he believes our is such a fast paced age that there are not enough opportunities for it. He also conceives that due to their experience of information at the finger tips and speed of delivery, multi tasking, and instant gratification they may find education relatively boring. However he positions the fault far more with the educators for failing to keep up with the times then the technologies for creating these mindsets.

I have found the work of Prensky a really compelling argument and one which will undoubtedly have some impact on my practice as an educator. For me the most interesting part is to recognise the skills developed through gaming or networking as skills in their own right, and the challenge would be to make the curriculum accessible to these particular learners. Perhaps in a way the digital age has created a new area of the multiple intelligences (previously defined as ...) which is a brain adept at communicating and processing information through digital technology which is intelligence in its own right. Our teaching needs to plan for this learner just as it does for the others and appreciate their skills. My view is that we should try and identify them and help our learners adapt and transfer them to other tasks. For example a child who is talented at playing strategy games and solving puzzles demonstrates logic which could be applied to mathematics or reasoning out problems in class, or one who has quick reactions on a platform game may be equally responsive and successful in a fast paced lesson with lots of rewards or have the same precision and judgement of distance when aiming for a target in PE.

Helen Balmer 20/10/08