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.