Learning and the Tech Rev
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I would like to start with a little story. One of my sons chose himself as the stroke of a crew of four who were to row down the river in a tub. He set himself the task of getting the length of his stroke established, and of keeping the strokes even, and started off. Before long he was happy with his achievement and turned around to see how the others were going...
Those of us who have been involved in the use of computers for some time often turn around - sometimes to see where we are all going, often to see what the others are doing, and sometimes because we realize that it is not always true that everyone else is out of step.
I would like to take this as my theme. Where are we going? Can we afford to assume that someone else will know, will be waiting at the crossroads to direct us? Who is qualified to make the decisions? Who does make the decisions? What decisions should we be making? Is there a new r5ace of decision-makers upon whom we will rely?
In an attempt to confront some of these perhaps even
to suggest answers to some, I propose to talk a Little bit from my experiences, to share some of the experiences which have made me feel warm and fuzzy about the enterprise, and to take a surrogate walk into the future so that when we arrive there we will not feel vulnerable and ill-prepared.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO USE TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION?
It does not mean computer literacy - in the short term it is true that we have to make people (adults and children) comfortable with the technology which has entered their lives, at least where they are aware of it.
Many people do not know to be scared of their cars, washing machines etc. because they do not realize that these are computer controlled. Women shy away from explicit technOlogy and retreat to the kitchen where they drive microwave ovens, e
dishwashrs,...
Soon, all the children who enter our schools will know about
technology in the way they know about bicycles, lightening, and so on. Have you stopped to think that almost, all the children who enter schools from now on will leave after the year 2000? They belong to the technological era and we have a certain responsibility to help them shape that world.
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In fact, product was put aside in favour of teaching the writing process to children, and yet now we are witnessing the seduction of the teachers back to product in a very powerful but insidious way.
The point of this argument is that teachers do have the skills needed to evaluate educational practices but perhaps they don't know how to evaluate what is happening around them (many teachers are, for the first time in their teaching careers, the object of massive advertising campaigns financed by monolithic foreign corporations).
I believe that teachers can evaluate the new teaching tools, but they are not used to allowing the children the freedom and control which these tools introduce into the classroom.
Teachers are not used to working with children whose skills exceed their own, who ask questions for which there are not prepared answers. That's what parents do all the time, and even though many teachers are parents and play this role successfully at home, they were not trained to conduct their classes in this way.
There are many teachers who recognize the benefits of having classrooms which are like extensions of a rich home cultural environment, but even so they cannot manage in such circumstances. Justifying what has happened :in the classroom is a concern for many teachers, even though in oul hearts we all know that not all children can be actively learning all the time in even the best classroom.
So I would say that one of the big challenges for the educational systems today is how to give "electronic" classroom evaluation skills to teachers, and how to help them to make the changes they choose to undertake.
I am pleased to say that the three year computer education programme in Victoria has produced one legacy above all others: teachers may have learned a bit about computers, but they have learned a great deal about curriculum development and many skills which are associated with active research into their own classroom practice.
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RITING THE NEW CURRICULA AND MANAGING THE CHANGES IN EDUCATION.
Trying to understand the changes and the implications for-education have placed pressure on teachers and decision makers. Our task here is to attempt to find some strategies and goals to help cope with this pressure.
Where do we start? Only teachers can make judgements about educational values. Whether we are concerned with the use of computers or any other teaching aid, the same criteria must apply. Is this exercise increasing the children's potential to learn? Are the elements of the hidden curriculum those we would choose?
All of these questions should be tackled in the same way as they always have been, but somehow we see teachers who lack faith in their judgement, who think the rules have changed, who are seduced by the technology, or even the purveyors of the technology.
As a result of working on the team finalizing the National Evaluation of the Schools Computer Education Programme (the Australian three year federally-funded computer education project) I have become convinced that many teachers have cheerfully abandoned their values in favour of a culture which has crept into Australia in plastic boxes and not been recognized until it has reached plague proportions. Australian teachers do not use drill and practice methods to teach history or writing, but somehow there are many who will stand proudly beside a computer which does use this method. I can only assume they do not recognize what is happening.
Let us take writing as an example. The process approach to the teaching of writing is well established in Australia. The word processor (which come with computer technology) offered the final opportunity for teachers to practice their skill in this area: when children don't have to rewrite their whole story to correct the spelling, they will tackle the task cheerfully (and perhaps change a few words along the way too).
But now the teachers are being seduced along a path they may not have chosen to follow. Desk-top publishing (the ability to get a machine to print a very polished looking version of the text and graphics, perhaps even using a laser printer) might well destroy all the benefits that came with the computer_ It is very difficult to look carefully and appreciate the need for improvement in a document which really does look as though it came from a book. Draft versions do not look like drafts in this new form.
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nd more - children's school bags will not clutter buses for ever - a single lap-top computer will contain the reading/writing work for school and all those books will not be necessary.
Mathematics and science: these by definition should be static in character, if explosive in content. But this is not true. Scientists are no longer prepared to use the so-called scientific method; they are threatened by their discipline's success and speaking out more and more in favour of the role of humanitarian values in scientific work. This is not new - it perhaps started with the dropping of a bomb forty years ago, but has become more pressing in an era of in-vitro fertilization.
Mathematics is not the same: using a computer and a mathematical language which depends on computer power for its essence, mathematicians are able to solve simply many problems which have plagued them for years. Such things as the correct list of prime numbers - why? well one reason is so banks can offer their customers secure plastic cards.
Young children are already interacting with complex mathematical shapes and ideas which were -postponed- in traditional school curricula because the children could not be given concrete representations of these concepts. This has changed; dynamic representations have replaced formal mathematical definitions and the language of mathematics is becoming more and more natural (see Logo).
Is this good or bad? We don't need long division skills the way we used to, but we need far more acute estimation
skills. Children still need to know their tables, but so they can wisely interpret the garbage in the advertisements on television, and so they can explore the meaning of algorithms they meet for the first time.
Science and mathematics are about creative thinking, and this does not develop where children learn to use a collection of established methods of solving prototype problems: children need the problem solving strategies and the skills to control the use of those strategies so they can actually solve problems.
These are only some examples of the changes which are already with us.
IS TECHNOLOGY JUST AN ALTERNATIVE? ARE WE REPLACING TEACHERS, BOOKS, SOCIAL INTERACTION WITH MACHINES?
IBM sent a representative to a Conference in Australia several years ago. She was clearly there to reassure us about the future with a friend like Big Blue. Her story was about a group of orphaned children who were gathered together for pastoral care. These children had for many years shared a "granny" when IBM came on the scene with computers. Now the children have a room full of bean bags into which they can sink to listen to taped stories from an electronic "granny"
If we find ourselves throwing out the baby with the bathwater we must stop and think again.
What are the changes the technology makes which are worth supporting? Let's concentrate on the educational arena -after all.
Books - yes, they will be replaced by electronically published materials. One compact disk can hold a whole bookshelf full of books, and costs far less to produce. So much cheaper is laser disk publishing that people are being given the computers so they can access the publications. Books are different as well - no longer is there a fixed beginning and end. The characters in a story can be directed by the story-reader: inter-active stories allow the reader to choose whether the hero should fight the dragon or wait for another occasion.
Books are better because of the technology: cheaper (you can always obtain hard copy if you want it, but who will be able to afford the paper, or want to see another forest destroyed?), interactive (multi-dimensional), public (not necessarily for reading in isolation), extensible (the reader can improve the plot, animated (dynamic).
What does this mean for young children who need to learn to read? Often it means they have already gathered a number of reading skills before they enter primary schools, but it also changes what reading is. Text which can move, be changed, is coloured and interspersed with animation is not what we learned to read.
And no longer is writing different from reading. There are a number of projects around the world with titles such as "the write to read project". The new reading materials are teaching writing.
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The way children learn has not. changed - can we make the way we teach more closely match the way they learn?
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I would like to make some suggestions to you as principals.
Ask your most educationally-critical staff to help you with introducing computers into your schools. There is no merit in having the technology per se, it should only be in your school if it improves the curriculum offering in your school. This is a question for those concerned with education, not the computer buffs on staff who were into hi-fi once, and will probably move on to something else in a few years.
Consider carefully what your school looks like now, and make sure that computers will not create a social imbalance (computer literate elites and the rest). Classrooms are often places where many activities evolve around carefully chosen themes which are relevant to the children. Use the computer to enhance this approach, but not to replace it.
Keep out a watchful eye for the hidden curriculum - is the message one which carries equal opportunities for all, are the children improving in terms of self-esteem, creativity, enquire and problem-solving skills - because if not, if they are becoming slaves to the computer, or the computer has become a reward for the smart, an identifier of the weaker, a baby-sitter for the middle-of-the-roaders, perhaps you should sell it and buy pogo sticks.
To achieve the right mix of in-service teacher training and computer integration, make sure you buy a computer which offers educational activities which you want to support in the long run, and of which you will be proud in the future. Identify your cultural biases, nominate your priorities, choose your software, and then buy the computer which provides what you want.
CONCLUSION
-LEARNING AND THE ELECTRONIC REVOLUTION"
There is no revolution unless we turn back to something -I'd like to think we use the computers as a catalyst to turning back to good educational values - even if the practice looks different, as I think it will.