Monday, March 20, 2017

Is Tech a 'Toy' or a 'Tool'?

I started thinking on this topic from one side and finished up on the other side.  I was looking at how if not engaged with properly, Technology in the classroom could easily become a distracting 'toy' as opposed to being an engaging 'tool'.  This seems like a statement of the obvious, when a piece of technology is used for entertainment how can it become a serious teaching and learning tool?

I think back to our first years of running a 1:1 Notebook program when we banned teachers from allowing Notebooks to be used to play games in classrooms.  The assumption was that a game would always be distracting from good teaching and learning.  Could we have been more wrong!  The engagement from educational 'games' has been widely documented.  A blanket statement about the good or bad for any particular part of the technology picture is very much like any generalisation and shouldn't be used to rule out anything.

As I thought through the best way to describe my thoughts about the 'toys' versus 'tools' arguments I was planning an argument around books and how they're used.  I then realised as I reflected upon my own school life and how I was learning with books as I grew up, I could easily make a good argument that even when used for non educational / recreational purposes learning is often enhanced.  The reading of non-educational material was key to my reading skills developing.  I was hardly ever engaged by the text books we had to read as part of the curriculum.  However, when I was reading 'Biggles' (Note 1)for days at a time over the holidays I was more engaged with reading than I would have been otherwise.  I wan't reading with a vision to become a pilot or aeronautical engineer it was purely enjoyment of the story.

Is there a similar effect from entertainment or even social networking on technology?  When students take home their particular piece of technology and then engage with the technology to meet their entertainment needs they are still learning something.

Can non educational use of technology be seen as enhancing the skills needed by students in the 21st century?  Of course it can, the non classroom use of technology which will allow our students to better engage with the opportunities and benefits delivered by technology.  The responsibility for making sure the classroom use of technology is su
pporting teaching and learning remains with the teacher, the same way teachers would have to ensure I was reading supplied texts and not my Biggles books whilst in the classroom.

Technology doesn't cause problems and can't fix them. When engagement with technology is well designed, classrooms are transformed and that will deliver amazing experiences for students.

(Note 1) - http://www.biggles.info/


Monday, March 13, 2017

Technology may be too good to be true!


I have been concerned about the degree of 'Due Diligence' being carried out by schools since teachers started developing their own programs using amazing online resources such as Google classroom, Edmodo and OneNote Classroom.  I worry that much of the fine print on educational sites and in apps is ignored as they are such fantastic resources.  

Is the responsibility for ensuring the suitability of sites and apps is purely left at the teachers discretion? There is a huge potential for problems with inappropriate management of student information and activity if that’s the approach schools are taking.  

I’ve worked with a school Integration Team to create a process ensuring the School approves of the educational resources for teachers to use.  This should be seen as vital in all schools to ensure acknowledgment of the risk web and app based activities could present for teachers and students in particular.  

The process decided on means the school, through the Integration Team, takes responsibility for assessing and documenting appropriate education resources for teachers to use in their classrooms. The first stage is making sure any teaching resource provides an educational value which is not being met by other systems already in use.  The system is then assessed to ensure the technical, legal and ethical values of the School are met before any educational resource can be used in the classroom.  This standard is then applied to any service or system which requires a student identifies themselves.

When we started developing the standard it quickly became apparent this was going to be a significant undertaking.  As soon as we started looking at the fine print in those user agreements, which sometimes were very long and not necessarily written in easy to understand English, it became obvious that this was something which was badly needed.

The most important part of this procedure was defining responsibility for assessing all of the important decisions ensured teachers didn't have to assume someone else had looked at it.  I feel sometimes the assumption that all apps and web sites are compliant with Australian privacy legislation is a very dangerous starting point.  


It seems to me that all schools and governing bodies need to take far more responsibility for the implications of technology programs.  The online services and apps deemed as appropriate for teaching and learning need to be better understood before schools push them to student devices or send student there as part of their learning.