ICT: Further Possibilites

While writing up my research report, I spent a considerable amount of time writing to friends and coursemates of Facebook, and I was not the only one. A friend and I decided that, over the course of a week or two, we could easily accumulated 6000 social networking words, so why was our fluency blocked when it actually counted?

I started thinking more seriously about the potential of these sites for Primary schools. Firstly, could I set up an anonymous group for research purposes? It could be a good way to elicit views and guide discussion in an environment that is secure for the child: Perhaps one of a very few ways to conduct a totally anonymous (and not just confidential) interview. Secondly, could it be a way to move away from only assessing only what pupils produce, and their responses to questioning, to include their pure ideas and inferences in an environment in which you write whatever crosses your mind?

Of course, alongside these there are questions that would need to be considered first:

• How could I ensure that pupils without the technology at home would not be excluded?
• How would I encourage students to access this alternative, anonymous, account and respond to me as well as chatting to friends on their regular account? Would it, perhaps, need to be a subject they cared enough about and thus wanted to give their views?
• If I was to monitor a group like this, children would need to be made aware that I was doing so: Would this cause them to hold back? How would I encourage openness without deception.

These are only questions, but are just some of the questions I will be exploring in my own classroom at some point in the future.

Robertson and Smeets summarised (Final DA)

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 20^th 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:

1. Skill-based transmission, which relies on practising and passive learning
2. 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

1. Learning about ICT
2. 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.

Monteith (2002): 'What has ICT got to do with Literacy?'

Monteith's argument is in line with Evans's: The nature of literacy is changing and ICT is a stage in its development. She advocates early access to computers. Word processing can increase motivation and perhaps overcome the negative connotations that struggling with handwriting can give to writing in general. She also encourages teachers to be patient as children learn computer skills, which can seem laborious but should therefore be practised, not avoided. Children do seem to pick up word processing more quickly than handwriting, presumably because they are older when introduced to it and because they have the background of handwriting to support them. This makes me wonder whether switching the order, and learning to type first could help children to learn to write.

Monteith promotes ICT as a stage for collaboration and, indeed, much technology could provide opportunities for children to work together. I am not convinced that computers do, however, or at least not naturally. In my experience, when two children are sharing a computer, for example, they tend to be in competition more often than collaboration. There is only one of anything and only one of them can use it at any time. Neil Mercer has looked into using computer software to enhance speaking and listening, with positive results. However, I do think that children looking at each other, rather than all at one screen, would promote more of an atmosphere of collaboration.

Monteith envisions 'Mass Literacy', of which there are four factors:
1) Full literacy is needed for economic and social reasons
2) There are government initiatives in place to promote Literacy
3) The use of ICT is transforming it
4) Literacy is an indicator of the Human Development Index

Here, factors 2 and 3 are actual supports, but the first and last points refer to us needing or wanting people to be literate, which, I would argue, is nothing new and cannot in itself change anything.

What I would take from this article, is the need to work with new technologies, to make the most of the new literacies they can bring us, but not to assume they can solve every existing problem

Evans (2004): 'Literacy Moves On'

When children aged 3-11 were asked what their out of school interests were, the majority mentioned multi-media activities and reading and outside play bearly featured. Evans argues that technologies influence children's activities, which in turn influence their Literacy. New literacies are emerging and schools are not keeping up. In particular, children aren't being prepared for a changing world. I think that what children are taught in school has to relate with what is happening in the world, otherwise all we are doing is topping up their non-transferable, unusable, irrelevant knowledge.There is no longer one rule for anything; children need to know how to adapt themselves to different situations.

Digital technology is no longer in a box with a lid that is opened when it's taught and then closed: It is an integral part of life and children are actually living their lives "with and through" it. If this is true, then why did many children I saw in ICT lessons struggling with the software? I think that children are immersed in technology, but only as far as they are allowed. Often, children's work with computers, for example, is not quite complete: Computers are already set up for them, or are on; if a problem arises, pupils are by no means encouraged to try to fix it. Additionally, software used is often a Primary package, which is so simplified it doesn't quite transfer to real usage.

As technology is changing, Evans puts forward, so is Literacy. The definition of text is evolving to include chunks of discourse, television etc. Classroom Literacy needs to recognis new forms of text and give them definite place in the curriculum.

Lastly, the use of popular culture in class continues to be debated. Many teachers are against it, feeling that children 'get enough at home'. Perhaps we should ask ourselves why children study what they study anyway.