John Robertson (2002) ‘The ambiguous embrace: Twenty years of IT (ICT) in UK primary schools’.
Ed Smeets (2005) ‘Does ICT contribute to powerful learning environments in primary education?’
Robertson’s article is set against a background of narrow use of, and underachievement in, ICT in Scottish primary schools at the end of the 20th century. Despite clear political purposes regarding ICT, it remained “a marginal force”.
There has been considerable funding to introduce and enhance ICT in primary schools and also much research into the justification behind this in the early stages. David Hawkridge, for example gave four rationales for bringing computers into primary schools, based on computer awareness, vocational study, computers helping to teach, and computers changing learning for the better. Robertson points out that the adoption of IT was embraced in a way no other educational initiative has; everyone seemed agreed on its value.
Robertson explores the area of ICT’s role in education; he points out that many studies concentrated on whether, and not how, ICT could be valuable in schools. There was a large gap in it’s early use between the potential it gave for autonomy and the reality of “drill and practice” software.
This is an aspect that concerns Ed Smeets, who asks whether ICT contributes to powerful learning environments. This is the way of looking at ICT use that I believe to be most productive: Philosophy has evolved from deciding whether ICT should be in schools, to picking ways it could be put to most use, to actually considering the potential it has for adding to learning. Like Robertson, Smeets contrasts the two main approaches taken by computer software:
- Skill-based transmission, which relies on practising and passive learning
- Open-ended constructivist software, which is used as a tool for learners to build knowledge.
Unfortunately, Smeets claims that the former is more prominent in primary schools. I would classify these two approaches as
- Learning about ICT
- Learning through ICT
Both Smeets and Robertson explore the factors that can lead to effective use of ICT to enhance learning. Robertson mentions headteachers’ expectations, guidance, technical support, resources, staff development, clear government guidance on its place in the curriculum, and a focus on ICT in initial teacher training. In contrast, Smeets places the responsibility of ICT use firmly with teachers. He looks into teachers’ views on ICT and claims that these effect how they, and their pupils, use it. He also points out that teachers’ views may not necessarily correlate with their practice. Teachers were more likely to use skills-based computer work if they were confident in their own ICT skill, feel ICT contributes to independent learning and differentiation, if they had a bigger class and a computer room. Teachers were more likely to use open-ended computer work if they ‘create powerful learning environments, have more computers available, if they feel ICT contributes to autonomous and active learning, and if they are confident about their ICT skills. Confidence in ICT skills, then, seems to lead to more ICT used in all, however the teachers that create the powerful learning environments are those that use more open-ended computer tasks. The learning environments Smeets refers to as especially powerful have the following features in common:
- Rich contexts
- Authentic tasks
- Active, autonomous, co-operative learning
- Differentiation
These features do point to the use of open-ended activities, although I can understand how teachers may find it more straightforward to differentiate skills-based tasks. Smeets’s research highlights the value of interrogating our own views and attitudes towards any subject, because it is in recognising these that we can investigate what we teach and why, with a view to improve practice.
A concern brought forward by Smeets’s article is that “the methods employed by teachers to adapt education to the needs and abilities of the individual pupils… seemed quite limited”. It is not clear what is meant by ‘limited’, but I would argue that ICT should be able to really assist with this: Further, with enough computers, activities and feedback could be tailored entirely individually. Smeets looks at differentiation through ICT but only for ‘slower pupils’; I would have thought that ICT could hold tremendous potential for stretching higher ability groups of children. In an open-ended and autonomous activity particularly, ICT can provide opportunities for pupils to go further. It is thus a shame that only a minority of teachers used open-ended computer applications.
I would like to address this issue but, as Smeets reveals, their schools’ instructional targets often push teachers to sideline innovative learning concepts such as this. He highlights that it may be harder than we think to pursue new ways of doing things because of the risk and the pressure to meet standards. This seems to me to be a conflict between short-term and long-term gains: On the one hand, schools need to be able to prove that their pupils can perform certain tasks now. An alternative way of looking at primary education is as taking a much more preparatory course, that is, equipping children with concepts and learning tools that they need, not just with superficial knowledge. After all in ICT in particular, all knowledge is temporary in any case: Technology is changing so quickly that it seems futile to coach children in specific and non-transferable skills that will be redundant in time anyway.
Children deserve the best we can do for them and if a new technique, or a change of attitude, will help them, perhaps this should come first. I would like to see us as teachers trusting children a lot more. Even if they ‘learn’ a little less but find this out for themselves, they will be more likely to remember, and be able to use, this anyway. It occurs to me that this accentuates the difference between teaching and learning. Teaching everything ‘on the list’ does not mean we can tick it off: We can only do this when it has been learnt.
The focus of both Smeets’s and Robertson’s articles, and the concept that each of them leaves me with, is that ICT needs to be scrutinised with reference to its capacity to enhance learning environments. We have included ICT in primary education; we have thought of numerous ways to include ICT in primary education; we now need to move away from seeing technology as an end in itself and focus on the learning we hope to achieve and how ICT can enhance all aspects of this.