Educational Origami

I have watched the brilliant video “Pay Attention” many times. (Jordan School district) It quotes the work of Marc prensky and Ian Jukes and a number of other leading advocates of ICT. But one comment within it  always interested me “Whenever I go to school, I have to power down”. During some research I was recently doing I came across that quote in an article in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/may/08/elearning.schools).

The article in the true traditions of best journalism is broad and wide in its comments and of course thin on actual facts but it does raise some interesting points and these are worth considering:

1. “Outside school, I’m using much more advanced skills, doing many more interesting things, operating in a far more sophisticated way. School takes little notice of this and seems not to care”

2. “At school, you do all this boring stuff, really basic stuff, PowerPoint and spreadsheets and things. It only gets interesting and exciting when you come home and really use your computer. You’re free, you’re in control, it’s your own world.”

3. “Most kids probably cannot tell you whether they are actually learning anything from that freedom and control, from the hours spent playing computer games, joining in chat forums and (for the more adventurous) setting up websites. But isn’t that where the education system should take over and work out what the golden nuggets of learning might be?”

4. “Those educators to whom YouTube, MSN and Nintendo Wii are a closed book need to start by understanding what it is that children are doing in their spare time.”

5. “Schools may be missing out on their most valuable resource: the experience, skills and interests of their own students. Anything that children can be so passionate about, and feel so comfortable with, merits at least some understanding by the high priests of formal education.”

These comments are insightful, inflamatory, interesting and argumentative. For me they speak most about  structures and processes that are not reflective of our world. (By our world I mean the one in which I teach, a technology rich and enabled world. For the majority of the world’s students this is not reality.)

Does our curriculum embrace these technologies? Do our staff understand these? Have they ever been shown the potential of these tools? Are they given time to play and experiment?

Are we limiting our students creativity by not embracing these technologies? Should we who have these tools at our finguretips be allowed to ignore them?

For the digital native these technologies are ubiquitous, there cell phone does more than my computer of 10 years ago (It takes pictures, videos, has text based chat in synchronous and asynchronous modes, it has a calculator, calendar, allows synchronous and asynchronous voice and video messaging, browse the web, takes notes, plays games, upload/download and plays media etc). Are we as teachers tapping into the power of these technolgies or their fluency with them?

What about when they use a computer? A proper computer, not just their cellphones. How many teachers, schools and districts encourage and use the students skills in developing, presenting, designing and publishing in web based mediums? Look at bebo, myspace and the host of other social networking sites they use. Do we utilise their ability to network and communicate?

More often we focus on the negative aspects. How many times have schools had a Internet safety presentation to parents, but have you ever run a session on what you can do with the internet, a sessions discussing the potential of the internet? Our curricula, schools and districts are better at “banning” than implementing. Banning is easier, implementing requires thought, vision, planning and direction. Banning requires a statement, implementing and adopting starts with a statement and builds.

For teachers to learn, adapt and adopt technologies they to must be given a chance to play and experiment. This is after all how out students have developed their skills. They must have the tools and technologies easily available to them and be given the time to use them. How often does bureaucracy get in the way of this?

So what is the way forward?

1. Accessability to technologies – we need the resources to do this be it time, money tools or rights
2. Vision of what we want to achieve and why. what is our core business? EDUCATION. How will these tools and technologies enhance EDUCATION? Clear goals that are achieveable, simple, straight forward and realistic.
3. A plan this shapes our direction and provides framework
4. Incentives for the teachers, schools and districts to adopt and adapt these. These could be improving learning, simpler workflow, better student engagement ….
5. Time and support to provide staff with the skills to use these tools.

But, most of all there must be the WILL to change