Educating the Dragon

Let’s be up front- Thanks to all those who posted comments to help me formalise my research.

Well I’m taking a step toward this research thing on skype: Have found this from the Academic Skills Office about writing a report. It states the report format as this:

TITLE PAGE

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. The Background

2. The Purpose

3 The Scope

THE MAIN BODY

CONCLUSIONS

RECOMMENDATIONS

REFERENCES

APPENDIX/APPENDICES

I think this is the main format for a formal piece of research but I might be missing something important, which is why I’m asking for your advice again. Is their something I’m missing? Does it have to follow a different format to this? I know this is just me writing up something that I’m trying to investigate in my classroom but I want it to be worth something when I’m finished and I don’t want it to be screwed up because I did write it up properly.

Having said that I think perhaps the hardest part as Jane and Artichoke mentioned will be to get the question right in the first place.

The key question:

Are internet communication tools (skype + Talk&Write) is potentially an effective ICT tool to use when extending students oral language and writing?

Group A

 

This group were engaged in the use of skype and talk&write technology to communicate with a mentor ( who were 3 years older than themselves)

Group B

 

This group of students worked with a ‘talking buddy’ in class to edit their writing.

There was no teacher content input for either group at this part of the writing programme. The teacher demonstrated the original writing piece as the students prepared their first draft.

At the end of the trial ‘hardcopies’ were compared and recorded conversations were reviewed.

Background

In his book ‘Computers as Mindtools’ Jonassen augues that tools such as Skype and Talk and write can support networked learning ciommunities with other students, mentors, experts or others. Which may enhance their learning. He talks about the social dynamic not as a distraction to learning but as being critical to the learning process.

Through opportunities presented by skype and its plug-in students are exposed to a greater diversity of experience and persepectives.

Conversation over the internet has the same potential for ‘chatting’ and ‘off-task’ behaviour as any regular classroom context. Acknowledging that there is value in ‘open-conversation’ with fellow students in different geographical locations there still needs ot be focused, purposeful learning.

Talk&Write offers students that. The ‘whiteboard’ feature acts as ‘the object in shared workspace’ which Jonessen states as an essential for increasing the length of productive ‘on-task’ behaviour. This whiteboard “…represents, in itself, the fruits of their intellectual labour.” (p.239)

Some observations

• It was difficult to monitor those online.

• The motivation of the group using the technology was visibly higher than Group B.

• The written record of Group A showed a wider use of vocabluary and greater use of complex sentences than those in Group B.

• Listening to recordings of students working indicated that Group A were enagaged in ‘ontask’ behaviour for longer than Group B.

• The technology had a number of issues; sound cutting in and out, skype dropping of on several occasions and the video ’stalling’

Some questions

Though it would be not accurate to say that nothing was learned, it is not possible to draw any confident conclusions.

So:

1. What is needed to move a piece of classroom research, such as the one described above, from informal to formal?

2. How formal does research need to be before it is of use?

3. How do we define ‘of use’?

4. How could this research be conducted with more rigour?

5. What is the place of informal research, such as this, in the classroom?

Reference

Jonassen, D. (2000). What are mindtools? Computers as mindtools for school. Engaging critical thinking (2^nd ed.). (pp. 3-20).
Columbus, Ohio, Merrill.

Mindtools are a way of looking at the use of technology in the classroom. Jonassen’s book ‘Computers as Mindtools’ defines it as being able to use computers and their software in such a way as to ‘free up you mind’.

Using the computer as an intellectual partner allows those engaged to play to their strengths- machines are great at recording and recalling facts and information, the human much better at critical thinking, the creation of knowledge and the ability to reflect on their comprehension and conception of knowledge. ‘Mindtools are a media for collaboratively negociating meaning.’

So, according to Jonassen, how should computers be used in school?

Different softwares and applications come under each of these heading but broadly speaking Computers aid learning in the following way:

Supporting knowledge construction, principally by organising and representing information in a useable format.

Exploration, accessing and comparing information, much like the advance search features on Google and Yahoo.

By Doing, simulating real-life senarios or providing students with the ’sandbox’ to experiment with what can be done.

Enabling communication and collaboration, I immediately thought of wikis, blogs, skype and eliminate as online resources.

Reflecting, this is what I briefly mentioned in the opening where the student engages with the computer as an intellectual partner, freeing the student from the mundain to focus on the higher order work.

This use of technology blends well with constructivist theory, but having software used in this manner does not guarentee more effective learning environments in schools. Much pedagogical awareness by the teacher is required. Using technology, Brown (2000) argues, can sometimes can even be counter productive and destract from the construction of generative knowledge. It is insufficient for technology to simply expose students to large volumes of disorganised information. By take such information and constructing new understandings that impact upon one’s view of the world, only then does it become generative knowledge. There are broader pedagogical issues and classroom management considerations to take into account.

Let’s face it, it still always comes down to the teacher and the way they choose to engage with the technology.

Brown, M. Learning in the 21^st Century: Being critical, going deeper and thinking smarter. Computers in New Zealand Schools, 12 (3), 3-7

Jonassen, D. (2000). What are mindtools? Computers as Mindtools for school. Engaging critical thinking (2^nd ed.,pp3-20). Columbus, Ohio: Merrill.

For those who signed up to my twitter you’ll know I’ve been thinking about ICTPD. Well here is my full thought….. 

There is a huge difference been ‘training’ and professional development. Even so many years through the ICTPD model in
New Zealand there seems mch confusion about the two terms and they remain in the minds of most as synonymous. But that is not strictly true. Sure there is some overlap, and some need for both aspects but when training (as in the ‘how to’ aspect of ICT) is called professional development it often. In my experience anyway squeezes out the true PD ( as in the ‘considering classroom pedagogy’)  

It is often argued ‘upskilling teachers will mean they will begin to use this technology with their classes’ – this maybe true but will it have the maximum desired outcome? I think not- A class’s use of technology after such training of the teacher will remain ‘low level’ – skills oriented level. Where as the desired outcome should be  a ‘higher level use of ICT for learning’.  

Having said that if the focus is purely professional development – the teacher is more likely to be reliant on the ICT literate students to problem solve the applications.  Which may be fine for classes of older students but with juniors their use of ICT will naturally involve explicit ‘skills’ teaching.  

My thought is that the facilitators of ICTPD clusters must take a serious look at what they are providing. Perhaps it needs to be more balanced. Perhaps the balance that needs to be redressed is on a school by school, teacher by teacher basis? But having said that there still needs to be a professional development element that goes beyond up-skilling and into the heart of classroom practise.  

So I would like to leave it there for now.  

What is the most effective ICT professional development you’ve ever had?  

How do you, in your school, go beyond upskilling/ just in time training?   

What does the ‘changing pedagogy’ really look like in New Zealand schools? Or around the world for that matter?

And is there a natural desire with ICT for professional development or is ICTPD seen a ‘you must!” storm cloud of negativity?

I may have quit my course but my brain is still working overtime. Over the next weeks you may have to read through my ramblings about the things I have learnt. 

I want to talk about Explorers, I feel we are all explorers in new ICTs. We’re the ones experimenting in the classroom. The edublogosphere is filled with cases of people explaining and reflecting on their ever changing practises with ICT in their classrooms. We’re dealing with real experiences, real students, real observations. But what makes our observations valid? Are we engaging in critical thinking and and reflecting in the right way? Jane Nicholl’s work on Oral Language and podcasting is perhaps a good example. Many of Vicki Davies reflections are critical in nature. But much of our, mine most of all, observations and reflections are low level and classed by academia as ‘anecdotal’. My concern lies in the fact that we are all at the cutting edge, where today’s technologies meet today’s students. But the quality of our reflections, perhaps, needs to go up a notch as Falloon comments “ there has been little conclusive empirical research to prove” (Falloon, 2003, p. 23) that ICT enhances outcomes for students. If academia is dismissing our contribution as ‘anecdotal’ then that filters through to policy makers and curriculum designers. We have an opportunity to drag the educational perspective out of the industrial age and into the 21^st century, as noted by David Warlick , and others.

So do we need to be thinking about our practise in terms of Jonassen’s Mindtools, or Atkin’s papers? How relevant are these theoretical perspectives? Do we need to consider such things to draw our experiences out of the micro level and up to a macro level? Is that our job or is someone else going to pull all this anecdotal material together for us to present the 21^st century classroom perspective?  

If not us, me, then who?

Falloon, G. (1999). Developing exemplary practice: Why are some teachers better at IT than others? Computers in New Zealand Schools, 15 (1), 19-23.