Monday, July 21, 2014

What does the 'C' in ICT stand for??

I know it's been a while since my last blog - I am acutely aware that it is probably too much time and far more time than I had planned! But the habits of a lifetime are difficult to change. Sitting on a computer reflecting openly about my own teaching practices doesn't come naturally. It's easier to sit passively and watch TV, or to play mindless games on my iPad, or to plan another class, or mark an assignment, than to sit and think about the things I do! Note to self: more self-discipline about reflecting (just like I tell my own students! Walk the talk time).

In my last blog I flagged that I was taking my students out of the sheltered university environment into a real primary (elementary) school, to put into practice some of the things we talked about more conceptually, from the safety of a uni classroom. This blog focuses on what that experience demonstrated.

My pre-service teachers, and I, spent an afternoon each Monday for three weeks, teaching with technology to children in Grades 1 and 2. The 25 students were split into five classrooms, where they were asked to enrich some existing curriculum with digital technologies. The curriculum in question was the Integrated Curriculum unit that focused on Community, specifically focusing on people in the community who help us, such as doctors, ambulance and fire services. Using a combination of iPads and netbook computers, often shared between two children, my students:

  • used Popplet to brainstorm what the children knew and what they wanted to learn
  • asked the children to use Popplet to plan and storyboard ideas for a video
  • guided the children to use Bitstrips for Schools to create comics about different emergency services; they used Skype and smartphones to bring in people from beyond the school to talk about fire fighting
  • helped the children create short iMovies, some with costumes, props and role play, others where the children interviewed each other about emergencies, others using digital photos taken on a recent excursion to the local Fire Brigade.
  • used Google maps to plot where all the children lived.
During this time I had the privilege of wandering between the five classrooms, checking in on how my students were progressing, what problems they were encountering (and there were many!) and how the students and teachers were responding to what was being taught and how. Importantly, I was able to observe what was happening in each of the classrooms. So what did I see? What did the 'c' in ICT stand for in this school?

I saw some wonderful examples of how placing technology in the hands of the learner can have a powerful and positive impact on learner engagement. In every classroom I saw children willingly, actively and, often excitedly, participate in the activities my students had designed. I wonder though, how much of this was a novelty factor - the novelty of having a team of new teachers in the classroom coupled with the novelty of having access to technology that wasn't really used very much in these classrooms?


The school, a fairly average school in many ways - size, academic standards, socio-economic status of families who send their children to the school, as well as access to technology - has invested in technology across all year levels. For the times my students were teaching, each class had access to 24 devices - either iPads or netbooks. The classes usually had access to either 12 iPads or netbooks, however, it became clear fairly quickly that the devices were not used commonly, other than as an activity for early finishers. In one of the classrooms, devices regularly had flat batteries and the teacher wasn't sure where the cables were to re-charge the devices. In some cases, the devices had not been configured for internet searching capability, but were restricted to 'edutainment' apps of limited educational value, but which kept the children occupied. The teachers in question didn't know that the devices could be used for searching the internet! It was perhaps not surprising then, that the children in these classrooms were highly engaged when my students asked them to use the devices to create things, rather than to more passively use the pre-loaded content on the devices. To me, what I saw reinforced the idea I frequently stress with my students that technology in the classroom is best used as a tool for creating, rather than a tool for consuming. And when children are asked to create things, they are usually highly engaged. So that's the first 'c' - creating.


children working on iPads in pairs, communicating with each other about their workAnother thing I saw was children talking with each other about their learning. My students had children working in pairs or small groups on creating their products. In each classroom I saw, when children were engaged in creating movies or cartoons or popples, they were also talking with each other. I saw them talking about the apps they were using, about the processes they were following and about their ideas for what might be in their digital creations. They were helping each other learn how to use the various apps, but importantly they were also talking about the content that went into their digital creations, providing my students with ample opportunity to assess their understanding of the concepts that lay at the heart of these lessons. I also saw some of the children using technology to talk to people who were beyond the classroom - real people who had fought horrendous bush fires in places not all that far from the school. The children were intrigued and captivated. They asked intelligent and enquiring questions and listened to the answers, then incorporated ideas from this conversation into their digital creations. So another 'c' - communicating.

When the children were creating their iMovies, they took turns filming and acting, then they took turns editing, all the time giving each other (unsolicited!) advice. They offered advice on how to make the devices work and were proactive in ideas about how to improve their ideas. The talk in each classroom was inspiring and evidence that, when coupled with engaging activities, digital technologies can be a catalyst for cooperative and collaborative learning. Two more 'c's - cooperating and collaborating.

The digital creations also provided evidence of the extent to which the students were developing their understanding of the concepts being taught. I often put forward the argument that digital technologies offer many students an alternative mode of communicating what they know and understand that doesn't privilege the written word. My students saw this in action. In one particular example, a new student had recently enrolled at the school. He had virtually no English language, and his teacher was having trouble including him in many of the planned learning activities, the majority of which were dependent upon fluency in spoken and written English. However, in making the movie he was able to contribute by helping to film his peers, by acting in the movie and in editing the finished product. My students were amazed at how happy he seemed to be when he was able to make a contribution. They commented on how much more confident he became in the classroom after this activity. There's another 'c' - confidence!

This all sounds almost like Pollyana - everything coming up roses, to mix a pair of metaphors. But not everything went to plan. Sometimes technology the students had tested at lunchtime failed in the moment in the classroom, for no apparent reason. Sometimes batteries were flat, or cables were missing, or classroom procedures ate into time my students had planned. Sometimes logins wouldn't work when they had worked an hour earlier. Sometimes, the curriculum just didn't really lend itself to more inspiring and authentic ways of integrating digital technologies. My students commented frequently that they would have loved to have had more time for the students to explore other digital apps but were constrained by the nature of the curriculum and of the classrooms they were in.  They felt, and I agreed, that we were simply layering some bells and whistles onto a very traditional, teacher-centred curriculum. They wanted to experiment more and have the students lead the learning, with more independent use of digital technologies. They felt that prior to our involvement at the school, the children had used technology in very limited ways, meaning that more time than they had planned was spent in showing the children how to use the devices, although not as much time as the classroom teachers thought would be needed.  One of my students remarked that integrating technology is messy! And indeed it is. But my students responded positively, showing their adaptability and flexibility in dealing with the unexpected that happens so often in a classroom. My students learned about the complexity of planning and implementing technology-enriched curriculum in the real world of the classroom. There's my final 'c' for now - complexity.

The process of organising site-based experiences for pre-service teachers is also complex. Trying to coordinate timetables and schedules between a university and a school is difficult. Trying to find a school where there is adequate technology and teachers willing to open their classrooms to preservice teachers is also difficult. Encouraging my students to take risks with their practice was a risk for my own practice - would they step up and do a good job? Would they acquit themselves to an adequate standard in the classroom? Would the technology the school claimed actually be available and working? Would the classroom teachers allow my students to take control of their classroom? Would they want us to come back?

So was it worth it? As a teaching strategy for me, definitely. As a learning experience for my students - absolutely. It allowed my students to put into practice some of the principles and theory about technology integration I talk about, in a safe and supported way.  Whilst they weren't always able to do as much as they wanted to do, they did enough to walk away with enormous confidence in their ability to tackle technology integration on their own. And as a catalyst for technology integration at the school - indeed! In weeks 2 and 3 of our program, ICT student leaders from Grade 6 joined our classes with the express intent of learning about some new apps, and to take that learning back to their own classrooms. Some of the teachers who allowed us into their classrooms have been seen to be using the apps our students showed their children!

And what come next? At the request of the school leadership, I return next year with another group of pre-service teachers, in different classrooms and with a more open-ended curriculum that my students get to design from scratch! Can't wait!









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