Dr Geoff Romeo talks, like Papert, about using technology as the tool or scaffold. He thinks that the teachers who originally encountered technology in the classroom did a great job. However, today and tomorrow’s teachers need to do a lot of work to get it right.
I think one thing that is vital is that schools. like business, need an IT strategy. This should be at State Government level. This should not drive the core business of teaching & learning but should support it. School equipment is often out-dated and poorly maintained. If teachers want to use a particular technology tool they should have IT support to ensure it is available and working for all students and not have to waste valuable time sorting out start-up issues. There has to be a planned yet flexible approach. In many state schools, IT support is a secondary responsibility of a full-time teacher. When they can’t fix the problem sometimes schools must wait for days or a week before a Department IT person attends.
If we want technology use to be seemless, productive and enjoyable then teachers need support. They also need ongoing training (not just pre-teacher training). They have daily planning for up to 5 lessons a day and this must be combined with keeping up-to-date with new technology. It must be made easier and more accessible for teachers.
He really is a very persuasive speaker – “appealingly” logical. He is a mathematician, the developer of the computer language LOGO, a key figure in “Constructionism” (he worked with Piaget).
He asked controversially in 1990 – “We don’t have conferences on the use of paper and education, so why do we have conferences on computers and education?”, and is still explaining this valid question today.
I agree totally with his dilemma about the two sides of thought:
1. What will education be like in 20 years? (Visionary view) VS.
2. But what shall I teach on Monday morning? (Practical View)
We feel this conflict in our BTeach – we don’t even know how to teach our KLA in the current fashion and now we are being asked to redesign the curriculum – a big task … but someone has to begin it and we are in a good position to have open minds. However we still have to get the students to pass the exam… there it is again!
He stresses that you mostly hear HOW we can use technology to teach the same Maths differently… when we need to rethink WHAT we are teaching. This also resonates with Green & Hannon “the mistake of trying to prepare children for today’s jobs” (a great quote).
I had not thought about the current emphasis on the “get information” aspect of computers at the expense of the “computers as construction” aspect. Education should be focussed on active learning rather than retrieving information. This is the heart of the problem of technology and education – by constructing with technology, students achieve “deep understanding” (rigorous thinking). Papert’s ideas help allay a common fear regarding technology and curriculum (see the comments page about SMH’s article “Phone a Friend: the exam revolution”).
He inspires me to look at how we can get students to understand Mathematics in a different way. This is what I hoped to achieve when I enrolled in this course. Practicum surprised me with the rigid, busy curriculum and what a rush it is to cover it – and how students are conditioned for direct instruction.
You just have to read the online comments on their blog to see how controversial this topic is.
I think it has pros and cons.
You should not have to memorise literature in order to answer exam questions. Is this the new “Open Book” exam?
What is the purpose of the exam? Are you trying to test whether the student has learnt what has been taught?
How do they manage the situation where everyone is in an exam room together and some are using phones – how do the students, who are thinking, concentrate with all the noise (or are Net Gen’s used to noise?)
How about students who cannot afford the technology (the Digital Divide, see earlier posts)? Would the school provide the technology for all?
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A new quote to use on the students and children from Claudia Wallis.
“It’s not so much that the video game is going to rot your brain, it’s what you are not doing that’s going to rot your life”. While the children are sitting at the computer screen or texting and so on, they are not outside, they are not having face-to-face interactions, or family time…
Parents and teachers can learn from Gen M about uses of new technology but they must learn from us “that there is life beyond the screen”. This is obviously written by a digital immigrant perspective but some of it is commonsense. We can’t step back and smell the virtual roses.
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The impacts of multi-tasking
This article echoes many of our concerns about the Gen M(ulti-tasking). Can they really do so many things at once? Not according to this article. They will not be successful in the long term as they have only learnt to surface learn. Net Gen/Gen M are very good at finding information but the more “windows open on the hard drive” the more mistakes are made and the longer the task takes. Performing 2 tasks at once can often take more than twice as long as doing them both sequentially.
These are the concerns, but I think the important concept here is that our learners have changed and we have to adapt and engage them with technology and innovative pedagogies. They prefer graphical images to text and collaborative learner-centred work to direct instruction.
We have to teach them when and where to use technology, how to pursue learning deeply, to have mental downtime and get out and experience life as well.
It is an important, worthwhile message to digital immigrant or analog teachers …
…but was it set at that speed and in that boring colour scheme so that digital immigrants not used to twitch-speed, graphical images, multi-tasking, quick pay-off would be able to keep up, not get distracted and understand the message?
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“age is less important than exposure to technology”.
I agree (coming from a computing career to teaching)! However I don’t quite classify myself as a digital native in all aspects – I don’t do IM and I … don’t have an iPod (partly money priorities, partly time reasons).
The Oblingers recommend to ask yourself questions, like:
Are you more comfortable composing documents online than longhand? YES!
Have you turned your “remembering” (phone numbers, meetings, and so on) over to a technology device? YES!
Do you go to meetings with your laptop or PDA? Sometimes!
Are you constantly connected? Is the Internet always on whether you are at home or work? Is your cell phone always with you? YES!
How many different activities can you effectively engage in at one time? LOADS! as long as one is not an essay!
Do you play video or computer games? Well….
So maybe we are allowed to be considered as “part Net Gen”.
I don’t know if I believe Net Gen’s brain structures have changed. Does evolution work that fast? I am one of the first ones to start researching a project via Google or UTS Online Library – it’s easier!!! As Tania says don’t carbon date digital natives. Surely we all use technology when given the time, opportunity and motivation to do so…
… once we’ve picked the Net Gen 1 up from swim training, dropped Net Gen 2 off to Soccer Practice, packed Net Gen 3’s bag for Year 5 camp tomorrow, shopped, washed, cooked dinner …
In their future careers, will the Net Gen’s be glad we have taught them via IM and blogging and reinforced their ‘distractability’ or is it lack of attention span. Depends on their career choice – journalist or IT Professional – probably not, surgeon – hmm?
As one experienced teacher said “they either love you during the year and hate you after the exams, or hate you during the year and love you after the exams”. Once curriculum is not pressured by external exams and we can follow student-directed learning and interests then this will be a lot easier to do. But when you have your department head’s plan for the term with Lesson 1 Place Value, Lesson 2 Comparing Decimals, Lesson 3 Adding and Subtracting Decimals, Lesson 4 Multiplying and Dividing by powers of 10, Lesson 5 Multiplying by Whole Numbers and Decimals,…. What about rural schools vs wealthy city-based schools? I agree with Tracey’s posting on this one – the widening social divide.
The Pros and Cons of Communicating via Instantaneous Technology
I am excited by the prospect of integrating technology into teaching high school students but I believe we also need to teach a new bag of social skills to go with the technology. We all know that teens are Net Gen’ers but we also know that there is a whole new world of social problems out there as a result of cyber-bullying, take for instance the Meier suicide in US.
I have been reading the Teen Culture articles and in particular Oblinger and Oblinger and am reminded of two things.
One, a Net Gen teen tells me how she is tired because her friend keeps texting her after midnight! “Turn off your phone when you go to bed…?” I suggest. One problem solved? Maybe. But this solution is not really appealing to Net Gen teen. Next, the same friend who texted at 1am and woke her is now an ex-friend due to the sleep-hazed terse reply to an invite. “You could try speaking to each other on the phone or even in person. Intonation and body language can help when communicating”…!
IM is useful but it has it’s place – maybe we should teach the Net Gen more about communication and social skills and what forms of communication are appropriate for what purpose. One acquaintance was complaining that she did not receive the SMS Wedding Invite from her friend who was upset that she had to ring her the week before the wedding due to her lack of RSVP!!!
Two, a play given by a public high school drama group at the ArtsNorth Drama Festival 2007 (held at UTS) about all the problems with technology and cyber-bullying – very insightful as students stand in line and get rearranged and depressed or elated depending on their new “friendship rank” based on IM amongst the group.
How effective is the learning when a person’s life is lived as “continuous partial attention” (Linda Stone, 1997 as quoted in Rainie)?
Next problem – we don’t all want to look like Mark Vaile with his cap facing backwards as he skateboards in his tie. How do we, digital immigrants, not look out of place to the digital natives?
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