(ICT in secondary Eduction Assignment 1C)
Recently my son, who is in year 6, wrote a letter to the principal of his school about a prestigious award he’d received. I was shocked by the poor quality of his writing! As one example, he had not capitalised the “I” personal pronoun. When I questioned him about it, his response was “Microsoft Word automatically makes it capital for me. So I never bother using capitals”. Ok, it’s great for us that student learn how to type, as typed material is much easier for a teacher to decipher when marking. However at present, students are still required to sit for exams such as their VCE. How does 12 years of typing essays help you in an exam? When do students master the basic skills of English formatting and spelling? When do students master and continue to use legible handwriting?
The Victorian Government puts a lots of money into equipping our schools with computers, because they believe it is vital that all students should know how to use them. Recently, I read an article in The Age titled “Computers ok? Not in Silicon Valley”. It is particularly interesting that the parents who send their children to this kind of school are very often those who work in the information technology field. They are experts in this area, yet they believe that children acquire computer skills so easily that they will pick it up quickly when the need arises. Most of the software on the market is so user-friendly that it is hard for students to break the application. So as long as students can try things and learn from their mistakes and their curiosity, they will find learning new applications to be quite easy.
In the past, when students searched for information on a topic, it usually came from newspapers, encyclopedias in the library, or books they might have. With the availability of the web, students can find anything with the click of a button. As a teacher, the challenge of teaching in this modern environment is to manage how students use this powerful and yet dangerous world of technology. Careful consideration needs to be given to the outcome we want our students to achieve. How best to achieve this outcome? Is it ok to just copy and paste from an article? How do we know whether the student learned anything from copying and pasting?
At my placement school, all Year 7 students have iPads. As a result, students don’t have to buy text books. The school has also tried to reduce the amount of printing and paper used. As a result, teachers have a limit on how much they can print, and students are required to have their iPad or laptop ready for class. All students and staff have access to the school’s wireless network. The challenge for teachers is to find material for students to use, to deliver it to students in order for it to be ready when the class starts.
Over-reliance on technology can have a real cost. One day in a Year 7 class, my mentor teacher wanted the students to work through a particular worksheet. She assured me that the students already had it in their iPads because it had been downloaded at the beginning of the unit. When the time came to use this worksheet, student were not able to find it. They had so many notebooks in their iPad that they couldn’t locate the one they needed. This meant that many students claimed that they did not have it. Students were told to download a new copy from the “Drop Box” website, which was stored on a server outside of the school. This became a problem because the service that allowed student to access outside the school was down. After losing 10 minutes of class time, there were only three students in the whole class who had managed to find and open the document. I decided that there was no point waiting any longer and proceeded to write all the questions on the board for students to use.
In this particular instance, the iPad was performing the same function a text book. It did not increase student engagement. It did not allow students to explore concepts and ideas in a way they could not have with a text book, pen and paper. In fact, it caused more problems then having a text book. I now prepared 5 hard copies of the necessary material for every lesson I give, just in case of technology problems. In the end, I have used more paper than I would have in a classroom with text books.
Use of technology in secondary schools is not all bad. In my placement school, students and teachers use Wikispaces to share and archive work. Recently I attended a professional development session on gifted education at the school. To support the session, the teachers had made a wiki page with all the resources and useful information. Other staff members were encouraged to add information that they thought was useful to share. In Year 9 IT class, students had a page where they could show the work they did in Flash and Photoshop. Sharing the work they did provides students with ideas of what they can do in their own projects. Copying an idea from a classmate still requires the student to have an understanding of the skills required to create the same result. Since students are assessed on the skill they develop in Flash and Photoshop, rather than the story line, it is acceptable for them to exchange ideas. In fact, collaboration is very healthy as some students are strong in some skills and not in others.
In Mathematics, Prianyka and I also explored the idea of using GeoGebra to help student visualise the idea of angles in a circle for our assignment 2. GeoGebra is useful for visualising other Mathematics ideas such as gradients, y-intercepts, dilation, understanding where π comes from, the idea of parallel lines and parallelograms, and so forth. The list is endless.
Tools such as MS Word and Powerpoint are also very good tools for students to learn to explore. When student want to add a new feature but do not know how, it is a safe environment for them to try different things on the tool bar to see what works. It lets them build their knowledge without fear of being laughed at, and can give them confidence that they can problem-solve. These are all valuable skills to work on as part of their personal development. However, it must be used appropriately and in moderation just like many things in life.
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