Tag Archives: education technology

Week 1 of Distance Learning

Posted on by
5
video conference

photo: Getty Images

We are in a time of rapid education reform. Australian schools have in recent weeks been planning for and beginning to enact distance learning. I reflected on Tuesday after Day 1 of my school’s move to distance learning, and over the last few days I’ve reflected further as I’ve led, taught and listened to the responses of students, teachers and parents from across the school.

Below are my Week 1 takeaways.

Less is more

This week, our teachers have been working incredibly hard. They have been putting in extremely long hours to make this ‘pivot’ work. They have been preparing content and front loading teaching before the school day begins, as our Distance Learning Plan notes that the day’s work needs to be to students by 8.30am on the morning of a particular lesson, so students can plan their work for the day. Teachers are responding to individual emails, messages and requests from students and parents. What they have achieved individually and collectively is nothing less than extraordinary, and the gratitude from the school community for their hard work has been resounding. However, teacher workload in a distance learning model is an issue we need to consider. ‘Less’ is better for teachers.

Students have been engaging positively and openly with the distance learning model, but some have felt inundated with communication and set work over these first days. The pace of learning from home can be slower than learning that happens at school, the delivery different, and the need for disciplined student work habits greater. Some students have been feeling overwhelmed. ‘Less’ is better for students.

As we continue to evolve in our distance learning provision, we need to think carefully about the desired learning outcomes, what is really important, and what is possible and desirable in the current climate of global crisis. We need to be realistic about the hours teachers have in the school day to provide teaching materials, learning opportunities and feedback; and the ways that learning happens in a home environment, when many students are learning independently and with less support than they have in the school classroom.

One thing we are considering is what a lesson’s worth of work might look like. A lesson at school includes transition time between lessons, roll call and packing up, as well as probably some teacher-directed instruction and some student working time. How might we use this to guide what we provide and expect of students, giving students time between lessons to stand, move, be active, do chores and catch up with each other in non-classroom spaces and ways.

‘Less is more’ will become even more important as teachers increasingly work from home, with all the complexities of family environments.

Let’s make sure that students, parents and teachers are all able to be human beings at this time, not human doings. Teaching material shouldn’t be about keeping students busy, or glued to their screens, but about continuing their education, wellbeing and connectedness in these uncertain circumstances.

Testing and tracking

Similarly, we need to consider the purpose of assessment and feedback, and how these can best work in a distance learning environment. We can think about this from the point of view of what is possible for teachers to enact, and what is useful for student learning.

How might we use our professional judgement to rethink, redesign or reschedule assessments? How might we use technologies to give meaningful feedback? Video conferencing, OneNote, and online rubrics through platforms such as Schoolbox and SEQTA, are some tools that teachers can use to  provide online, continuous feedback.

At my school, we are not taking lesson-by-lesson attendance, but we are tracking student engagement in learning by asking students to ‘like’ posts in Teams, seeing who joins class or small group video meetings, student work in OneNote class notebooks, and checking in on students who don’t appear to be engaging.

Humanising distance learning

In this time of physical distance, our students and staff are keen for a sense of connectedness. We’re finding that video and audio are humanising distance learning for our students. This includes live video and audio meetings with groups of students, pre-recorded screen casts, and PowerPoints with audio or video.

Seeing teachers’ and peers’ faces and hearing their voices can help to bridge the isolation we all feel, and bring some of the connectivity and relationality missing when we are teaching and learning remotely.

Technology, 21st century skills, and education

Posted on by
8

As Jon Andrews points out, the education world seems obsessed about framing our thinking around what the future holds, and guestimations of its possibilities. The term ‘21st century skills’ is a symptom of our future-obsession, as schools and governments scramble to prepare their students for … duhm duhm daaaahhhhmmm … The Future. In the late 20th century those words were a way of saying educators were futures thinking, but almost 20 years into the 21st century, I wonder about the usefulness of the phrase. How about just talking about the knowledge, skills, and capabilities students need now and into the future? Does ’21st century skills’ mean anything or is it a meaningless phrase interpreted in different ways by different people? When will we start talking about 22nd century skills?

In my recent reading and thinking about technology in education, talk of 21st century skills is ubiquitous. As Higgins (2014) notes, however, there is no consensus or clear definition of what it means, or what these skills entail. On the one hand, there is a sense of global urgency around the integration of technology in schools, and on the other there is challenge and resistance to technology integration and the contestability of 21st century skills (Hunter, 2015).

Higgins (2014) points out that discussion of 21st century skills is driven by a focus on the economic imperative for productivity and preparing students for the future world of work. In his review of literature around 21st century skills, he finds that the central tenant of what is considered a 21st century education is critical thinking, especially because digital worlds mean that information is increasingly available and questionable in its nature. Other skills that abound in global discussions around the skills required for being successful in the current century include creativity, innovation, communication, collaboration, problem solving, risk assessment, research and information fluency, and digital citizenship (Higgins, 2014). The US Committee on Defining Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills defined deeper learning as knowledge that can be transferred or applied into new situations (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2013), mirroring Wiggins and McTighe’s (2005, 2011) focus on transfer as the key focus of learning.

Fullan (2013a) is critical of the 21st century learning skills agenda, calling it a vaguely defined skill set with too much focus on standards and assessment and not enough on pedagogy, and with little integration of student use of technologies. For Fullan (2013b), deep learning goals are what he refers to as the 6 Cs:

  • Character education: honesty, self-regulation and responsibility; perseverance; empathy for contributing to the safety and benefit of others; self-confidence, personal health and wellbeing; career and life skills.
  • Citizenship: global knowledge, sensitivity to and respect for other cultures, active involvement in addressing issues of human and environmental sustainability.
  • Communication: effective oral, written, and digital communication; listening skills.
  • Critical thinking and problem solving: thinking critically to design and manage projects, solve problems, and make effective decisions using a variety of digital tools and resources.
  • Collaboration: working in teams; learning from and contributing to the learning of others; social networking skills; empathy in working with diverse others.
  • Creativity and imagination: economic and social entrepreneurialism; considering and pursuing novel ideas; leadership for action.

Fullan (2013a) urges educators to move beyond a superficial homage to 21st century learning skills to developing what it means to actually implement them in practice. Higgins (2014) challenges us to ask: “Do we need a curriculum with less specified knowledge, allowing a greater emphasis on skills, based on the argument that information (and therefore knowledge) is more readily accessible? Or do we need more knowledge, as the basis for developing greater expertise and the ability to make informed and complex judgements, based on a deeper understanding of a topic or field?” (p.571). Certainly there are those who argue that knowledge is now more important than ever, and question a primarily skills-based education (e.g. Hirsch, 2016).

As part of the 21st century skills movement, digital literacy has become a global focus. In the UK, the Communications Act 2003 tasked the media regulator, Ofcom, with promoting and researching media literacy, defined on its website as enabling “people to have the skills, knowledge, and understanding to make full use of the opportunities presented by both traditional and new communications services” and helping “people to manage content and communications, and protect themselves and their families from the potential risks associated with using these services.”

A Commonwealth of Australia (2009) report highlights digital media literacy as a dynamic concept and a necessary condition for a successful digital economy. It says: “Digital media literacy ensures that all Australians are able to enjoy the benefits of the digital economy: it promotes opportunities for social inclusion, creative expression, innovation, collaboration, and employment. … The focus of digital media literacy policy and programs is on the development of three core skill sets:

  • the technical ability to engage at a basic level with a computer and the internet, such as to create documents and emails;
  • the ability to understand and critically evaluate digital media and digital media content; and
  • the ability to create content and communications.”

While the movement to focus education on a contested set of 21st century skills is debated in education circles, governments around the Western world have acknowledged the need for their citizens to be critical, creative, collaborative, interdisciplinary in their thinking, and to be able to leverage technologies. I agree with Fullan that we need to move beyond lip service homages to preparing students for uncertain futures. I also align with Higgins’ suggestion that students need more knowledge as the basis for expertise. Skills don’t exist in a vacuum, and students can only think critically, creatively, divergently, and entrepreneurially, once they have a knowledge base from which to do so. I would like to think, for instance, that a knowledge of literature and history can help our students to become global citizens knowledgeable about past events, multiple perspectives, and dystopian possibilities. And that a knowledge of mathematics and science can lead to creative problem seeking and systematic problem solving.

What do you think? Can we retire ’21st century skills’, and instead talk about what knowledge, understandings, skills, and capabilities, our students need now and into the future?

References

Fullan, M. (2013a). Stratosphere: Integrating technology, pedagogy, and change knowledge. Toronto: Pearson.

Fullan, M. (2013b).  Great to excellent:  Launching the next stage of Ontario’s education agenda.

Higgins, S. (2014). Critical thinking for 21st-century education: A cyber-tooth curriculum? Prospects, 44(4), 559-574.

Hirsch, E. D. (2016). Why knowledge matters: Rescuing our children from failed educational theories. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Hunter, J. (2015). Technology integration and high possibility classrooms: Building from TPACK. Abingdon, England: Routledge.

Pellegrino, J. W., & Hilton, M. L. (2013). National Research Council. Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2011). The Understanding by Design guide to creating high-quality units. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

What’s the point of technology in education?

Posted on by
2

source: pixabay.com @Pexels

I’ve always been a bit of a secret techy nerd, thanks, in part, to my dad who was an early adopter of computer technologies. In the 1980s, we had an Amstrad CPC desktop computer, one with a cassette tape deck to play computer programmes. My parents taught me how to write basic computer code using … BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). My mum wrote programmes using BASIC that my brother, sister and I could play. We soon upgraded to an IBM PC and floppy disks. While we also had a full set of Encyclopaedia Britannica, we were at the bleeding edge of 80s technology! We continued to upgrade computers and have access to games. From the 80s I have fond memories of the arcade-style game Gilligan’s Gold, and in the 90s I loved strategic simulation games like Civilization and Jones in the Fast Lane. The Walkman revolutionised and mobilised music listening, and I spent hours of my high school years in my bedroom making mix tapes on a double audio cassette player; timing was everything.

Now for a statement of the ridiculously obvious: The technological landscape has changed dramatically since I was a child. Its physical, virtual, and ethical parameters are very different. I have been considering what our children and students need now in terms of technologies that can aid or augment learning and living, and what kinds of knowledge and nous they require to be effective and empowered negotiators of their current worlds and the multiple identities they act out on real and virtual platforms.

But why bother with digital technologies? Why not stick to traditional technologies (pen, paper, the overhead projector!)? In part, our local and global context requires it. The world feels a sense of urgency around predicting our students’ future and busily preparing them for it. Being tech savvy has become an economic imperative.

In Australia, technologies and technology education are an ever-increasing focus. The 2008 Melbourne Declaration of Educational Goals for Young Australians states that “when students leave school they will be confident, creative, and productive users of technologies” (p.8) and that “practical knowledge and skills development in areas such as ICT and design and technology are central to Australia’s skilled economy and will provide crucial pathways to post-school success” (p.12).

As part of the 21st century skills movement, digital literacy has become a global focus. A Commonwealth of Australia (2009) report highlights digital media literacy as a dynamic concept and a necessary condition for a successful digital economy. It says: “Digital media literacy ensures that all Australians are able to enjoy the benefits of the digital economy: it promotes opportunities for social inclusion, creative expression, innovation, collaboration, and employment. … The focus of digital media literacy policy and programs is on the development of three core skill sets:

  • the technical ability to engage at a basic level with a computer and the internet, such as to create documents and emails;
  • the ability to understand and critically evaluate digital media and digital media content; and
  • the ability to create content and communications.”

In 2013 the Australian Curriculum, Assessment, and Reporting Authority (ACARA) published the seven General Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum, including the ICT Capability that “involves students learning to make the most of digital technologies available to them, adapting to new ways of doing things as technologies evolve and limiting the risks to themselves and others in a digital environment (p.49).

In 2014, the Australian Government released the Industry Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda that aims to strengthen Australia’s competitiveness. One of the major announcements at this time was the proposal to focus on science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and innovation in schools, and the introduction of the Coding Across the Curriculum Program.

In 2015 ACARA released The Australian Curriculum: Technologies, which aims to develop the knowledge, understanding, and skills to ensure that, individually and collaboratively, students:

  • investigate, design, plan, manage, create, and evaluate solutions;
  • are creative, innovative, and enterprising when using traditional, contemporary, and emerging technologies, and understand how technologies have developed over time;
  • make informed and ethical decisions about the role, impact, and use of technologies in the economy, environment, and society for a sustainable future;
  • engage confidently with and responsibly select and manipulate appropriate technologies − materials, data, systems, components, tools, and equipment − when designing and creating solutions; and
  • critique, analyse, and evaluate problems, needs, or opportunities to identify and create solutions.

ACARA (2016) has since declared STEM education a national priority, describing STEM as closely linked to Australia’s productivity and economic wellbeing, central to a well-rounded education, and contributing to a diverse and capable STEM workforce pipeline.

The introduction of OLNA as an online literacy and numeracy assessment, and NAPLAN moving to computer-based assessment from 2018 (on an opt-in basis), means that students from Year 3 need to be able to be proficient keyboard and computer users in order to effectively demonstrate national literacy and numeracy requirements.

So how are educators to engage in all of this? Fullan (2013) urges us to move beyond a superficial homage to 21st century learning skills to developing what it means to actually implement them in practice. Higgins (2014) challenges us to ask: “Do we need a curriculum with less specified knowledge, allowing a greater emphasis on skills, based on the argument that information (and therefore knowledge) is more readily accessible? Or do we need more knowledge, as the basis for developing greater expertise and the ability to make informed and complex judgements, based on a deeper understanding of a topic or field?” (p.571).

The launch of a new communication and learning management platform at my school and my involvement in a couple of strategic projects have had me thinking about digital pedagogy and how to choose digital tools for learning. In a sea of fast moving technologies and faster moving policy, perhaps we can anchor ourselves with the building blocks of teaching and learning: good curriculum and assessment design, well-considered pedagogy, and knowledge of our students. Then we can make decisions around technology based on what it is we want them to know and be able to do.

 

References

Fullan, M. (2013a). Stratosphere: Integrating technology, pedagogy, and change knowledge. Toronto: Pearson.

Higgins, S. (2014). Critical thinking for 21st-century education: A cyber-tooth curriculum? Prospects, 44(4), 559-574.

Digital Pedagogy

Posted on by
14

source: pixabay.com

I have worked in one-to-one schools for most of my 17-and-a-bit year teaching career, and I’ve tended to be an experimenter with and adopter of learning technologies. I’ve been known to use online discussion forums to extend class discussion around English and Literature texts and concepts. I’ve used class blogs, wikis, and backchannels as collaborative learning spaces or expansions of the classroom. I use Twitter, Google Docs, Voxer, and blogging for my own learning and development. I have participated in MOOCs (massive open online courses).

I’ve recently been considering digital pedagogy from more of an organisation and systems level, as I look into how to refine my school’s use of technologies as tools for learning and teaching. As I begin a search of what research literature might offer us in this realm (please, if you have a seminal paper or reference here – pass it my way!) I have a couple of reflections. One is that, as technology moves quickly and research moves slowly (from data generation to publication), research on digital pedagogy needs to be treated with caution. Research around technology is emergent and fast changing; by the time it is published, it may be well out of date.

My other initial reflection is that there seems to be a discrepancy between the use of digital technologies promoted by enthusiastic teachers, conferences, and technology companies, and the discussion about education technologies in academic research. The former often promotes the possibilities of technologies for learning as future-building and positive. The latter tends to reveal a more cautious or critical approach to what digital technologies can offer teaching and learning.

It’s not surprising that tech giants promote themselves to schools, but there are some worrying reports that tech corporates, such as Edmodo and Google, use schools and students to collect and track big data. Corporate agendas are something we might consider when thinking about how technologies infiltrate or colonise our schools.

Neil Selwyn (in his 2016 book Education and Technology: Key Issues and Debates) points to the limitations of digital technologies, arguing that there is a lack of genuine diversity in the educational opportunities provided by educational technologies, but rather more of the same. He notes that “any ‘individualisation’ or ‘personalisation’ involves fitting individuals around preconfigured outcomes and expectations rather than offering genuinely bespoke education. … an individual is not actively self-determining but conforming to the requirements and expectations of a mass system” (p.161).

I share Selwyn’s cautiousness around technology in schools when it is seen as a shiny new thing or an end in itself. I am more comforabtle when digital pedagogy is about choosing the tool fit for the purpose, aligned with learning objectives. Technology is part of the teacher and learner’s arsenal, not the end point in themselves.

Additionally, while digital pedagogies are often viewed with much hope for their possibilities, the realities seem to be more disappointing. Marte Blikstad-Balas and Chris Davies (in their recent Oxford Review of Education paper ‘Assessing the educational value of one-to-one devices: Have we been asking the right questions?’) show that one-to-one devices are often positioned as having benefits to pedagogical change, development of future skills, and efficiencies and cost savings. (Interestingly, at my school the photocopying bill did not decrease with the move to one-to-one devices.) In looking at three schools (two in the UK and one in Norway), Blikstad-Balas and Davies found some benefits of one-to-one devices, but these tended to be focused on convenience, instrumental use, and functionality, rather than pedagogy. The three schools studied raised concerns including ad hoc teacher enthusiasm and uptake of one-to-one-devices, and teacher scepticism around implementation of digital technologies as part of pedagogy. Students reported feeling either pressured to use devices they didn’t want to use, for purposes they didn’t see as valuable, being distracted from their learning by one-to-one devices, and finding one-to-one devices unreliable. Year 11 and 12 students reported using their one-on-one devices for whatever they wanted (such as social media and online gaming), which was often not what the teacher was instructing. These findings are a sober reminder to schools about the realities of implementing educational technologies.

The educational world is saturated with information and promotions of various digital technologies. The 2016 Horizon Report for Higher Education, for instance, identifies a number of future trends and technologies predicted to influence education. Those working in education institutions need a way to make sense of the digital noise. Selwyn’s 2016 book Is technology good for education? provides useful questions to ask ourselves when considering digital pedagogy (p.24):

  • What is actually new here?
  • What are the unintended consequences or second-order effects?
  • What are the potential gains? What are the potential losses?
  • What underlying values and agendas are implicit?
  • In whose interests does this work? Who benefits in what ways?
  • What are the social problems that digital technology is being presented as a solution to?
  • How responsive to a ‘digital fix’ are these problems likely to be?

At my school we are working with a purposeful and transparent frame for making decisions about digital technologies and pedagogies. This frame is based around our strategic intents for our students, and our beliefs around learning, good teaching, and the core business of schools. No matter what the latest tech fad or shiny device, any pedagogy needs to start with the purpose of the learning and the design of curriculum. Pedagogy first. Digital if and when appropriate.