Reflecting on this week’s explorations, many aspects of the Connected Self and its disconnect in current educational practice have concerned me. In “Why School?” Will Richardson articulated the need for “different” education, not simply “better.” This stood out to me because I have witnessed a myriad of Ministry or administrative mandates regarding “integrating technology” in the classroom that all seemed like add-ons or poorly applied band-aids.
For example, in my school next year Grade 8 students, who once had an IT course, will now have a handful of sessions in the computer lab learning word processing and Power Point. Their “lessons” will be one period in the computer lab, separate and isolated from “the curricular” learning they were experiencing in Humanities 8 or Math and Science 8. The philosophy is that then students know how to use the tools and can utilize these skills in their future classes when the need arises. To me, this is a prominent example of the disconnection within the education system of the cognitive, cultural and technological dimensions of the connected self. For me, I believe that the cognitive dimension of the connected self is so disconnected within our schooling system that we are not unlearning and learning as our knowledge era reality requires. In TeachThought’s “How 21st Century Thinking is Different,” it is clear that “in an era of brazen technology,” in such new contexts as “digital environments that function as humanity-in-your-pocket—demand new approaches and new habits. Specifically, new habits of mind.” Currently, our education system is not adequately addressing these “new habits of mind,” and instead seems to launch into practices without the cognitive dimension as a guiding compass.
Furthermore, at the precipice of week one’s conclusion I find that the need for a concerted effort to integrate “The New Literacies” in the use of and through technology is very important to me. We opened class with a discussion of social media in education, and this is an area I would like to investigate as the course progresses. I think that many of the emerging literacies are involved in social media, and I would like to collaborate to explore how social media can be utilized to broaden perspectives, deepen understanding, develop a more unified cognitive, cultural and technological connected self within the classroom.
Michelle, I could not agree more with you about the general disconnect that we are experiencing in our education system. Everyone has written up a document on ICT integration – Ministry of Education, BCTF, each school district – but no one seems to be doing anything about it. There are plenty of great ideas, high ideals, and inspiring possibilities, but many teachers are barely able to find a blog online let alone create and curate one of their own. Not to mention, the ministry and school boards are unable, despite their best efforts, to provide equal access to the necessary technology. So, what do we do with our big ideas and our good intentions? As you say, technology needs to be fully integrated into the curriculum. If the grade 8s are assigned a PowerPoint presentation on life in medieval Europe, they should be learning and adapting their skills through instruction and good old trial and error to put that presentation together. Learning needs to be meaningful not just purposeful. Maybe, we’re not currently in the position to integrate ICT into the curriculum to its fullest potential, but we can make sure that when we do make use of technology, we do so in a way that helps our students to develop the new literacies of our world. Thank you for presenting a very thought provoking post.
You mentioned that next year, grade 8 students will now have a handful of sessions in the computer lab learning word processing and Power Point. Sometimes I think a course for grade 8 students on learning how to use word processing and Power Point is almost too easy…there is a great deal of underestimation about the vast knowledge base that students know about technology. Management has understood that students need to be tech savvy, so they’re telling teachers to teach them to students without any guiding resources. Teachers, some unfamiliar and technically challenged themselves, feel uncomfortable, confident and “lost” in teaching something they aren’t very sure about themselves. This is somewhat of a problem, especially for the person who will design and teach the sessions.
The success of those sessions depends on how it is instructed. If the students are learning the “old fashioned” way, reading from a textbook on how to use word or ppt, or copying notes, or listening to a teacher talk, a student in that class will be bored immediately and feel tempted to surf the internet… and if they are caught for “not paying attention” then they be punished, so they sit there and daydream and hate class and not learn anything. Why not teach more “advanced things” like computer programming, web page design, learn about networks (LANs, WANs) and video shooting and editing, etc and other multimedia?
It is almost as if the field of education was suffering from some form of multiple personality disorder! Policy initiatives at the highest level of non-government (OECD, UNESCO, ISTE, AECT) consider the incorporation of ICT into education as a high order necessity. Government acknowledges the importance of fostering ICT competencies in a knowledge-era economy, and seems to understand this involves a change from industrial-era educational schemes. However, when it comes down to actually implementing ICT initiatives, there has been very little consideration for what it actually means to bring ICT into learning activities in educational institutions: 1) learning to learn ICT; 2) learning to learn ICT cognitive, cultural, and technological dimensions of human existence (codes of conduct, digital citizenship, learning online); 3) ICT curriculum and ICT pedagogy related instructional design and 4) power relations and digital technologies. The technological disposition of district level ICT implementation has been technologically deterministic and instrumental: build it they will come. Teachers have been caught in the middle of these competing, contradictory policy conditions.