Al Upton has been very vocal in the positive aspects of using technology in the classroom. In this interview for E-learning Insights he discusses the success that his class has had using blogging as a learning tool. The simple truth is that students are already on-line. They share their lives, interact with peers and they have personal spaces on a range of different web-sites. Despite teachers perhaps not being as technologically savvy as their students what they can offer is their life skills and wisdom. They need to direct the students to make correct choices about the way they use the internet and ensure that they are learning from the tasks that they are doing. Teachers should not be afraid to let go of control and allow the students to teach them something. Another important aspect of blogging or publishing work on the internet is that the students now have an audience for their work and therefore take pride in what they are doing and are more motivated to do the work. It is inspiring to hear Al Upton talk about the enthusiasm his students had for their blog project both before and after the project took place. He also mentioned a tool called voicethread which is amazing. It is a great way to safely collaborate on projects either with people in the same class or members of Ed.voicethread. I googled it to find out more and am really looking forward to using it in class.
There are a number of reasons why googledocs is a practical way to access all of your documents (see tutorial above). Personally I have found it helpful because I have been living between two destinations and two PCs which means I either e-mail myself the work I have been doing, creating many copies of the one document, as in the video or I save things on my USB key which, despite being the super-organised person that I am, I do not always remember to pack, which leaves me in a difficult situation. Googledocs is great because as long as you are connected to the internet you can access any of your documents and as mentioned in the tutorial, it is not just word documents, you can do spreadsheets and presentations. Miriam’s blog posting about google docs was really helpful as it explained how this program can be used to help students too. It is a great way for students to work collaboratively on projects, it is free and very easy to use and most importantly students will no longer be able to use the excuse “I forgot my homework”, everything can be seen in their googledocs account. I also appreciated Miriam’s points about the downside to googledocs. It is important that teachers be aware of both the positive and negative aspects of the technology they are using especially when working with young people. It is a good idea to seek professional opinions from peers or to do some research before using the software in class, just in case.
Chris Betcher’s blog posting, The Truth is Out There has really shed some light on the article that was published in the Sydney Morning Herald about PLC’s experiment into allowing students to use whatever resources they can to help them in their exams. The article merely introduces the idea to the public but Chris, being a teacher at the school and having discussed the idea with its creator, Deirdre Coleman, explains the ideas behind its invention and why it has come about. During practicum I realised the impact that technology is having on students, particularly in the realm of assessments. With an endless amount of resources to consult, cases of plagiarism are becoming much more prevalent and a lot harder to detect. This is a factor that cannot be avoided and with technological advancements will become even more commonplace. Accepting this and thinking about ways to make this a positive is essential and I think PLC are on the right track and everybody will eventually have to follow suit. Chris makes a really valid point about the futility of learning chunks of information just to pass an exam and then never using it again when what is really important is critical thinking . With the vast amounts of information available and the fact that anybody can publish this information on the internet the danger now is that much of it is not authentic. What is important is for students to be critically evaluating this information and not just accepting things at face value. Due to the Net Gen’s need for speed they can often be found to take the easy road, this is where they need a motivator and a guide, these are some of the new role of the teacher.
I found some very interesting points in Will Richardson’s blog posting, Reading Online is Not Reading on Paper. It is essential that teachers, old and new be aware of the pitfalls for including ICT in the classroom. While this kind of technology in the classroom is new the technology is not new to those people in the classroom. The digital natives have been exposed to this technology since the day they were born and use it on a daily basis to access all types of information and for many different reasons. Although the students may be more comfortable with this kind of technology, one thing they don’t have is a teaching degree. It is the teacher’s job to ensure that the technology is being integrated in an authentic and meaningful way. The American government is complaining that introducing ICT into the classroom has not improved students’ skills and knowledge but it is more complicated than simply making the technology available. Teachers must be trained in how to incorporate it into their pedagogy not the other way around. Richardson refers to Bauerline’s article, Online Literacy is a Lesser Kind in which another major problem facing the Net Gen is revealed, the deterioration of their reading skills now that the majority of their reading takes place on the computer. Jacob Neilson’s study showed that the majority of subjects, rather than “reading linearly, sentence by sentence tended to jump around chasing keywords, bullet points, visuals, and colour and typeface variations.” Also he found that the attention span for reading has greatly diminished, this is a scary thought for literature and language in general. While learning different ways of reading different media is important a balance should always be maintained. A major focus in education at the moment is literacy, perhaps Nielson has discovered a contributing factor to the poor levels of literacy found in the Net Gen. Students need to be encouraged to engage in litterature in all forms but especially novels and material that will challenge them and enhance their literary skills.
Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age contains some extreme and innovative ideas for the future of teaching and learning. Rather than seperating the different disciplines into groups they should be interrelated and share a similar theme. The author also claims that seperating students into age groups is outdated and irrelevant. While these ideas may or may not be effective what this artcle is doing is creating ideas to encourage educators to think outside the square of teaching as it is today and to realise the limitless possibilities now available, especially through technology. Despite copious amounts of research regarding ICT in the classroom and the possibilities, nothing has changed. ICT has not taken up its place in the classroom, it has remained a popular idea but not put into practice. Computers are no longer merely tools for acessing information, students can now be the authors of information. Computers allow the active construction of information. Most importantly is to make learning meaningful. When students can relate what they are learning at school to a purpose that will help them in life outside of school they are more motivated. With the fast pace of the world skills one learns in school will be obsolete by the time they reach the work force. One important skill: being able to learn. Making the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what was learned at school.
I found some very interesting points in Will Richardson’s blog posting, 