Why would we use technology in education? This is a
question I’ve been asked before and one I ponder over frequently. It’s easy to
answer with, ‘we live in a society where technology reigns supreme, so we need
to make sure our students are prepared for it’, but I think the answer goes
much deeper than that. We need to think of what the technology allows us to do
rather than the technology itself and where the technology allows the learning
to go for our students.
In this blog post, I will explore the following reasons
we need to be using technology in education:
·
Improving digital literacy skills and help our
students to become
·
Preparing students for the jobs of the future.
·
Engaging students
I will also look at examples of how Web 2.0 tools
such as blogs, social media and Skype and the iPad have transformed learning.
Digital Literacies and Multiliteracies
It’s common when out and about that you would see a
toddler in their pram holding either a smartphone or a tablet. I think it’s
safe to say that we’ve all seen it and I know I have internally questioned if
that is a good idea or not. What’s interesting about this though, is that this
is kind of proof that children now are digital natives. They are accustomed to
receiving information quite quickly and have developed a preference for
graphics over text and games to work (Prensky, 2001) . By the time they go
to school, they already have knowledge of how some device types work and would
therefore be partly digitally literate. Digital literacy includes the technical
skills required to operate a computer or mobile device (Walsh, 2011) .
I think we can all agree that we need to have a certain level of digital
literacy skills to navigate life and no doubt, these skills will need to be
greater in the future as technology advances. What is important for us as
teachers is to ensure that we pass on the skills necessary for our students to
be fully digitally literate which not only includes how a computer operates but
how they are able to navigate the online world safely.
What about our students multiliteracies? Multiliteracies
can be interpreted to mean that literacy is no longer merely text and that due
to changing technologies we make meaning from text in many different ways and
from many different forms (Povey, Stevens, & Summerell, 2013) . We are bombarded
with a multitude of text types from print, image, movement, graphics,
animations, sound, music and gestures. How then can we ensure our students are
understanding what they are seeing? Without the
use of technology in education, our students will not develop the necessary
skills to support them in navigating the online world such as decoding,
critical thinking and problem solving. What better reason to use
technologies in education than this?
New Text Types (Summerell, 2013)
Jobs of the Future
“By 2030, what we do in every job will change.” (The
Foundation for Young Australians (FYA), 2017) . This is quite a bold
statement, one though, that is not so far-fetched to imagine. We only need to
look at how work has changed in the last 20 years or so to understand that much
more change is possible. FYA (2017) discuss in their
report the skills that our children will need in order to successfully navigate
the future workforce such as being able to constantly respond to new
information and new technology when making decisions, and; being problem
solvers and communicators as well as drawing on technology knowledge (p. 7) .
With the disruptions to the workforce due to
automation, Institute for the Future (2011) list virtual
collaboration (p. 12) ,
new media literacy (multiliteracies) (p. 10) , computational
thinking (p. 10)
and cognitive load management (p. 12)
as some of the key skills that the workers of the future will need in order to
adapt to changing work environments (see Figure 1). Without the use of technology
in education, our students won’t develop these skills and we, as teachers will
have failed in our duty to prepare them properly for their own futures.
It is abundantly clear that technology will play a
major role in our lives long in to the future. What is also clear, is that
technology will also change things beyond our imagination and we need to be
sufficiently prepared for these changes as they arise.
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Engaging students
One simple argument for the use of technology in
education is that it engages the disengaged. I know from personal experience
that students seem much more engaged when they are using technology, especially
in new and creative ways. Not only are they more engaged but again, from
personal experience, behaviour management becomes less of an issue as a result.
In Episode 1 of the Leading Change podcast (Arnott, 2017) , Peter Holmes from
Mount Ousley Public School in NSW describes how he struggled to manage the
behaviour of one of his students. When getting to the root cause of the negative
behaviour, it was discovered that the student hated writing. To try and engage
this student to turn around this behaviour, he was allowed to use a laptop instead.
As a result, his writing turned around and behaviour no longer became an issue.
One thing that we need to consider as well is that
technology is a big reason some of our students read. Reading, as we all know is
a fundamental skill but not all students are motivated by physical books (or in
a lot of cases, by reading texts they are told to read in order to ‘move up
reading levels’). We need to take note of those students that are motivated by
technology as it is a good lead in to reading for pleasure (Faulder, 2019) . I know students that would gain just
as much from reading an online comic book or in-game text because that is what
interests them.
Then, of course, this ties in to what teachers know
of technology and if they are skilled enough to provide students with
opportunities that are engaging. Are our teachers able to use technology to redefine
learning with technology as described in the SAMR model (Puentedura, 2006) or, do they have the right mix of technological,
pedagogical and content knowledge as described by Mishra and Koehler in their
TPACK model (2006) ?
How have iPads impacted on learning?
For me, I would be lost without iPads in my
classroom. In fact, I think if I was ever asked to work in a school without
them, I would seriously consider not working there (unless they let me
introduce them). The best thing about iPads is the wide variety of creation
based apps that are free and widely accessible by my students. I am a big
believer in giving students choice in how they present their learning and iPads
allow this to happen. It also gives an opportunity for cross-curricular
learning.
A good example of this was a writing task that I
completed with my Year 3 students in my first year of teaching (2015). My
students were studying a unit on ANZAC Day and they were asked to write a persuasive
text to the Prime Minister of Australia during World War 1 to convince him not
to go to war. They were able to publish any way they liked but I wanted to make
sure they were using emotive language and listening to themselves using it to
see what it sounds like. Some students used an app called Tellagami which
allowed them to create an avatar of themselves as well as take a picture of their
writing and record their voice. This task covered writing, speaking and
listening and digital technologies and had a much bigger impact on their
learning than if they did this simply on paper.
Using Tellagami for Persuasive Texts (Summerell, 2016)
The beauty of using iPads for writing is that
students have such a wide variety of choices in publishing their work. They can
use apps like Keynote, iMovie, Clips, Seesaw, Explain Everything, Stop-Motion
Animation, Book Creator, Google Docs and the list goes on. This gives students a chance to explore other
skills such as video editing, creating for an audience, illustration. It also
gives them a better eye for editing as they have a chance to re-watch their
work. It also opens them up better for peer feedback. It can also better
connect them with world by being able to share work with their families
instantaneously using apps such as Seesaw or sharing to YouTube or a blog.
In my STEAM class, iPads have allowed our students
to create their own computer games with coding apps. They were able to use the
iPads throughout the entire process of immersion (watching and practising with
game tutorials), planning (using Seesaw to design and plan their video games),
creating their games and then presenting them to the school community. They
also used them to reflect on their games using Google Forms. iPads allowed
everyone to be at an even playing field. Majority of students are quite capable
with the use of iPads and therefore, no one is really ‘smarter’ than anyone
else.
HGC GameCon 2018 (Hazel Glen College, 2018)
How Web 2.0 Impacted Learning
Web
2.0 describes how the internet changed from ‘static’ web pages to collaborative
and dynamic experiences such as social media and blogging (Technopedia, n.d.) . This was a real shift for education as
it opened the doors to the world for our students. For the first time, they were
not only able to share their work with the world but they were also able to
communicate and collaborate with others as long as they had an internet
connection.
Blogging
has played a very big role in my teaching career as I have used it to share my personal
learning experiences with others as well as to share the work my students are
doing. It has made everything I do transparent and has created conversations
with others that I might not have had without it. Twitter as well (as a
micro-blogging platform) has allowed me to have rich discussions with other
educators around the world that have improved my thinking about education and
helped me to understand what I value most.
For
my students, I have been able to use Twitter as a platform for them to ask important
questions or wonderings they have about certain things related to what is
happening at school. I have also used blogs in a similar fashion as it has
provided them with an opportunity to form an interactive online community where
the focus is on sharing and learning (Heskett, 2009) .
Web
2.0 opened the doors for student portfolio platforms such as Seesaw which
allows student work to be shared safely with family and friends online and
creates a new platform for communication.
One
of the greatest examples of how Web 2.0 has impacted learning in my context has
been when my students were learning to compare and contrast their own city
community with that of another rural community (I actually wrote about this experience here). Not only were they working on
their mapping and spatial awareness skills by looking at online tools such as
Google Maps, they were also able to use Skype to discuss similarities and
differences with other students over 400km away. What was wonderful about this
learning experience for my students was to see how their perception of city versus
country living changed when they realised children had much the same interests
as they did.
References
Arnott, K. (2017,
February 6). Leading Change: The Technology in Schools Podcast. On Episode
1: Saved by Technology [Podcast].
Arnott, K. (2017,
February 6). Leading Change: The Technology in Schools Podcast. On Episode
1: Saved by Technology [Podcast].
Couch, J. D.
(2018). Rewiring Education. How Technology Can Unlock Every Student's
Potential. Dallas, TX, USA: BenBella Books, Inc. .
Faulder, M.
(2019, February 2). Reading for Pleasure. Retrieved from
www.enablling-environments.co.uk: https://enabling-environments.co.uk/2019/02/02/reading-for-pleasure/#more-158330
Hazel Glen
College. (2018, July 25). HGC GameCon 2018. Retrieved from
https://youtu.be/rEUU8cQS514
Heskett, T.
(2009). Blogging in the Classroom. Westminster, CA, USA: Teacher
Created Resources, Inc.
Institute for the
Future for the University of Phoenix Research Institute. (2011). Future
Work Skills 2020. Palo Alto, CA: Institute for the Future for the
University of Phoenix Research Institute.
Mishra, P., &
Koehler, M. J. (2006). Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A
Framework for Teacher Knowledge. Teacher's College Record, 108(6),
1017 - 1054.
Povey, R.,
Stevens, L., & Summerell, D. (2013, March 24). The Theory of
Multiliteracies as Proposed by the New London Group. Retrieved from
www.criticalliterac.blogspot.com:
http://criticalliterac.blogspot.com/2013/03/multiliteracies-and-new-and-emerging.html
Prensky, M.
(2001, October 5). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. Retrieved from
www.marcprensky.com: https://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Puentedura, R.
(2006). Transformation, Technology and Education. Retrieved from
http://hippasus.com/resources/tte/part1.html.
Summerell, D.
(2013, March 26). New Text Types. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/rF7H81Ap0dg
Summerell, D.
(2016, July 18). Using Tellagami for Persuasive Texts. Retrieved from
https://youtu.be/z51AKdjwDdQ
Technopedia.
(n.d.). Web 2.0. Retrieved from www.techopedia.com:
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4922/web-20
The Foundation
for Young Australians (FYA). (2017). The New Work Smarts. Sydney, NSW:
The Foundation for Young Australians.
Walsh, M. (2011).
Multimodal Literacy. Newton, NSW, Australia: Primary English Teaching
Association (e:lit).
Nice post..
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