Ewan’s message rocks- Are you sure about that?
This is a comment Bronwyn made on my blog post “Ewan message rocks” - I’m publishing it not because I totally agree with what she said but because it is an important conversation that I believe we should have and I didn’t want it to get lost in my ‘comments from last week’ - never to be viewed again.
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Sorry but I’m with Paul. There’s real confusion between entertainment and education here. I certainly found Ewan’s presentation entertaining and - thank God - he actually had some understanding of the realities of the classroom which is more than you can say for most IT presenters/consultants who are miles away from large classes, excessive workloads/ indifferent resourcing, tired and and sometime drugged teenagers… I was really taken by the clip of the undersea French discussion made by the kids but it’s not hugely different from the past when kids did the same thing with tape recorders or by acting in a play. The important thing is that they were demonstrating that they could use a foreign language. That’s the real learning - not the mode of presentation. I’ve been to loads of ICT conferences this year and once you cut through the hype what you see are good teachers using ICT as a tool to support learning BUT we are constantly urged to admire the product rather than asking the tough questions like when they had all that fun did they learn anything? What? How do we know? Was it what we meant them to learn? Can they transfer that learning to other contexts? Too often we are asked to assume that because the kids appear to be having fun they are learning. This does not necessarily follow.
If you read the cognitive scientist, Steven Pinker (How the Brain Works; The Blank Slate) you’ll note that he argues that much human learning is intrinsic because we have evolved innate brain strucutres that make some things easy for us eg language, basic number, some psychology, physics as related to movement … BUT beyond that we don’t have innate abilities so we have to press into service other brain structures and that’s hard - things like reading and algebra require effort.
We have proven this to some extent in New Zealand because we damaged a cohort of youngsters with the assumption that all kids would “catch” reading if they surrounded with enough written language. NO! It worked with middle class kids who were getting constant “teaching” from their parents but a generation of working class kids who didn’t come from language-rich homes missed out. The Literacy Project is about teaching reading much more deliberately. Similarly, when we get all excited about the digital age when students will choose their projects of work we should remember that one of the big problems NCEA has thrown up is that given a free choice, teenagers are inclined to do as little as possible (80 credits and that’s it!). Sure there are some students who will find something that interests them and work single-mindedly on that but it would be a triumph of hope over experience to design an education system for Einstein.
The worst thing about this is that most kids will never know what they are really capable of because learning pedagogies are being replaced with a new vision that has the teachers as entertainers and the kids’ best friends not as a grown-up who is responsible for ensuring kids learn and who may not be an expert on Youtube but actually know a hellava lot more about life and learning than a 14 year old does. The uncomfortable thing is that teachers are jettisoning this, not because it’s better for kids’ learning (there’s no evidence whatsoever of that - it’s a classic example of the Goebbels technique )but because they want to be liked and valued and the people who produce and sell ICT hardware and software and the consultants who support the industry are telling them this is how they can become revered public figures. Who wouldn’t want that? We’re selling kids short if we continue to promise them that they will never have to struggle and sweat to get up the mountain because we are going to helicopter them to the top. The view is just as good so that’s all that matters, doesn’t it?”
My teaching role has never been, nor will it ever be, the entertainer and the kid’s best friend. I use ICT and it’s tools in my classroom because it’s embedded in my teaching practise. It’s not about using the flash-bang wizzy things that make learning “fun” - it’s darn hard work to be in our classroom and we learn, in some cases, via each other. The teacher isn’t the fountain of all knowledge and I believe that if my pedagogy is sound then students will learn no matter what “vehicle” we are using. What matters is that the reality is we need to be teaching students for jobs that don’t exist yet. Are we doing this if we’re not using Web2.0 tools in an environment that they will most definitely be working in, in these jobs that don’t exist yet, with people who are in another country not an office down the hall?
I disagree with Bronwyn. Society changes, our interaction with the world changes and our learning styles will change. You can not view students today in the same way we were viewed at school (1980’s for me) in the same way that when we were at school we would not have responded to the 1920’s method of teaching. The development of technology is exponential and therefore students are going to adapt and change at a similar pace, it is their world and we must prepare them for it.
As for Goebbels technique, the biggest lie is what schools teach us; the better we do in exams the more money we will earn and the happier we will be.
I firmly believe that everyone is entitled to their opinions and I accept that someone’s opinion may differ from mine - and that’s fine. Reading this post I was provoked - I believe this is a good thing,now there is a flurry of thoughts whirling round in my mind that I feel compelled to share. One of the the key things that keeps coming to mind is that Ewan said that it was about the “teach” not the “tech” - so to my mind this suggests that the importance was being placed on the teaching and the learning that is taking place, and not on the bells and whistles. The message I got was that they were tools to be used to enhance the teaching/learning taking place in the classroom NOT that they star attraction. I think though, that motivation is a critical part of learning and yes, while there are “know a hellava lot more about life and learning than a 14 year old does.”, this does not necessarily mean that the kids they teach are learning any more from them. Even in the 80s when I was at high school I was taught by teachers who were experts in their fields, had masters degrees, knew a lot - but they bored me to tears, I was not motivated to listen or pay attention, I would switch off and then “teach” myself when I went home later using books, documentaries, what ever was available - and I WAS a motivated and highly intelligent teenager - so I can’t imagine what it was like for those who weren’t. On the flip side, I had teachers who “got” kids, they understood where we came from, they were interesting, motivating and dare I say it some of the strictest teachers I had - so they sure weren’t there to make friends. However, I learnt a lot from them, was always engaged when in their classes and they are the people who made me want to become a teacher myself. So, I guess my point here is that what I got from Ewan was that these new and emerging technologies are motivating and relevant to our learners. I think he was also trying to make the point that it is important for us to “walk in someone else’s shoes”, in other words to understand the world that our kids are coming from. As for asking the tough questions, well I know I sure do. I use various technologies in my classroom - my kids know that content is more important than pretty, they are given rubrics and criteria to guide the learning process and the main thrust of these is the academics and the learning, presentation “the pretty” stuff, is on their but is not the be all and end all. Ewan talked about a wider audience, this is the beauty of things like webpages, podcasts, blogs, etc - the children have the opportunity to share their work and ideas with a larger audience, possibly a global audience. They can get feedback from this audience and what I really like is that they can connect with other kids from all over the world. This gives meaning and purpose to their learning as they are doing it for someone other than “just the teacher”. To me this was another of Ewan’s key messages. I have to say I find it a little insulting for it to be suggested that I incorporate technology into my classroom programme because I want to be “liked and valued” - that suggests that we’re shallow and do this because we need our egos stroked! I do what I do for the kids that I teach. I weigh up everything I do in terms of its value and how it will contribute to the learning of the kids in my class. Further more, as a mother I can see it from a parents point of view as well - let’s just say that my own child, who finds it difficult to form letters correctly and was frustrated because he was highly intelligent but was limited by the mechanics of writing when it came to getting his ideas down, has been freed up by being able to use technology within his classroom. He has the choice to use it or not use it and he doesn’t always, however, he is much happier in school and to my mind I was more concerned that his ideas be heard then that he used a pencil and piece of paper to get it across. I guess it’s all about meeting the needs of your class and the individuals within it.
I really could go on, but I won’t as this reply is long enough - I was provoked, I have shared my opinion, and without the marvels of technology this particular discussion would not have taken place within the global context that it has.
It’s good to see my colleague, Ewan, doing what he does best: provoking debate.
There’s a lot to get into here, but I will confine myself at this stage to just a couple of comments.
The easiest way to criticize something is to set up a ’straw man’ and pull it straight back down again. That saves you the bother of arguing against the fundamentals and the actual points being made. When this writer states that “…most kids will never know what they are really capable of because learning pedagogies are being replaced with a new vision that has the teachers as entertainers and the kids’ best friends..”, this is most definitely missing the point completely. Forget all the nonsense comparing ’sage on the stage’ with ‘guide on the side’ - the difference today (not tomorrow, today already!) is that kids need teachers who are willing to accept that they are all learners, and that they can learn together. The teacher can bring wisdom, experience and guidance to the relationship, but he or she should also bring some humility in the face of the abundant access to information that we all have now if we are connected. The teacher can simply no longer be the fount of all wisdom (I don’t believe they ever could, but they got away with it because access to information was so restricted).
And, I also believe it is profoundly patronizing to dismiss the importance of storytelling and literature as against the reductive concept of literacy for any kid, never mind which side of the tracks they come from! Any teacher who really thought kids could simply ‘catch’ reading should perhaps not have been teaching; but equally, to reduce reading to the functional process that the various ‘reading programmes’ promote is to forget what reading is for in the first place. There is no point, of course, in taking a purist stance on one side of this particular debate or the other, but to shift the weight of teaching reading decisively to the reductive demands of ‘literacy standards’ is to diminish the purpose of reading to a mere tool for comprehension.
I want to give this the time it deserves, but am caught between two planes on the way home. Bronwyn’s comment is spot on given her understanding of what I said - if all we were doing was changing the mode of presentation to make things fun, then we’d be all bells and whistles and no substance at all.
Unfortunately, though, she’s misrepresenting the whole message of the presentation I gave, and I’m glad for the public forum these new technologies give for others to put the record straight while I’m internetless in the sky.
I’d like to take the time to respond, and will do later this week, but in the meantime find the comments of my peers here sum up more or less what these *transformative* technologies have on offer.
As John says, a keynote should provoke debate. The next time I’ll just have to make sure I do it without so much smiles
Is that what it takes to be taken seriously?
Some touchtyping and I’ve managed to squeeze this out before I get on the plane:
The animation is not hugely different from the past when kids did the same thing with tape recorders or by acting in a play.
It is hugely different. The play, unless filmed and broadcast, would be seen by those who chose to turn up, most often the other kids taking part in a foreign language theatre festival. Even if large audiences turn up to a performance, this will never surpass the audience of something placed online, and will never make possible a two-way communication between performer and audience via comments.
The mode of presentation is not the ‘real’ learning - you’re spot on - but it is another vehicle towards getting that language, an alternative to acting in a play which, incidentally, the kids also do in the form of film. Take some time to explore the links from the talk and you’ll see that.
“Once you cut through the hype what you see are good teachers using ICT as a tool to support learning BUT we are constantly urged to admire the product rather than asking the tough questions like when they had all that fun did they learn anything? What? How do we know? Was it what we meant them to learn? Can they transfer that learning to other contexts?”
Again, take a look at what I was presenting as a whole and you will see that the process involved is more important than the final product. I was showing final products but I was also showing the process in there (the girl who built up her text through a blog over time, in order to improve her writing, for example). Process is always more important than product and, with emerging technologies such as blogs and wikis, you can argue that the product is never really ‘final’. Just take a look at this keynote which has become an extended conversation to see that.
We have proven this to some extent in New Zealand because we damaged a cohort of youngsters with the assumption that all kids would “catch” reading if they surrounded with enough written language.
Taking a look at some of the work of Tim Rylands, mentioned in my conference notes on my blog, you’ll see that ‘catching’ language is not something any languages teacher worth their salt would do. He’s using technology to teach grammar and structure in more exciting ways than I ever did at school.
I don’t see the use of technology “to be liked” as something worth debating. It’s not what it’s about, it’s not what I’m about. “It’s not about the tech, it’s all about the teach” is a reminder to us all that even with the technology, it’s our skills and attitudes as teachers that will make learning happen.
Time to get on a plane again…
Great debate and I feel that as we got a mention from Bronwyn too (people who sell software and hardware) that I should have my cent’s worth.
“The uncomfortable thing is that teachers are jettisoning this, not because it’s better for kids’ learning (there’s no evidence whatsoever of that - it’s a classic example of the Goebbels technique )but because they want to be liked and valued and the people who produce and sell ICT hardware and software and the consultants who support the industry are telling them this is how they can become revered public figures. Who wouldn’t want that?”
We and many other suppliers in the education sector are committed to furthering teaching and learning. We spend a lot of time looking at the research and trialling product in schools before we go to the market to ensure that exactly what Bronwyn is talking about doesn’t happen - that the products are not gizmos and gadgets and toys for entertainment but can really contribute to the classroom. We also provide training for teachers to ensure that the technology can then be fully embedded into teaching, aiming for the technology to pretty much become invisible.
We aim to work in partnership with schools, not con them into buying things for the sake of it. This relationship between teachers and business is vital - product cycles are getting shorter and shorter and more often than not we the suppliers have to make decisions on what to market based on our own experience and that of the schools we work with. There isn’t time in today’s market to wait for a ten year longitudinal study (which is a whole other fascinating debate).
I also feel that teaching is about preparing students for the workplace - as Chrissy says for jobs we can’t predict. However we can predict that there will be technology incorporated into the majority of those jobs and we should be exposing students to realistic scenarios that will apply to a future workplace e.g. science: students should be using data loggers and digital microscopes or in geography and related subjects students should be using GPS etc etc. And this is where teachers who don’t keep up with the technology in their field are selling themselves and their students short. And for language teachers that does mean all the new media of communication allowing engagement with an online community/audience of potentially native speakers.
The comment re. businesses selling product with promises of making people revered baffles me. We do support teachers who use our product to go to conferences and do workshops. At U Learn we even had a teacher help us on our stand but that is for the insight that they bring - they know better than anyone how that technology can have a positive impact on teaching and learning. For us it is all about passion not egos and education not entertainment/popularity. And for most of the consultants I know I can say the same.
I’m afraid wild generalisations about the business arm of the education industry don’t help anyone. Practical suggestions on what you would like to see developed, what training and support you require, do.
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