Teaching with technology

At present, technology plays a huge role in the classroom. Laptops, computers, internet, PowerPoint, Microsoft office and many other education software packages dominate the ICT component of education. Unfortunately often these technologies are not utilized to their full potential. As Prensky 2005 argues “We use it [technology] mostly to pass documents around, but now in electronic form”. The current use of technology presents a concern a lot of educators are not doing anything new or different, just presenting information in a different medium.

Unfortunately some of the current programs and software being used in classrooms is focused on a passive style of learning. We are using computers and the World Wide Web which enables students to access a mass amount of varied information, however students are not using these tools in a critical manner, they are simply using them to collect and present information. As Watson argues, the majority of tasks focus on “acquiring information as opposed to challenging, analysing and criticising information” (2001, pg 6). Students are presented with research tasks where they all use the same search engines and same websites to come up with the same information which they do not question the validity or credibility of. Research discussed by Watson (2001) discovered that more ICT tasks completed in schools in the UK were pitched at Blooms lower level of learning as opposed to the higher levels. As Ofsted (2001 cited in Watson 2001 pg 6) states “For too many pupils the location of information remains an end in itself, and they present the information unprocessed’’.

Other concerns raised about the use of technology are the impersonal environment that often results from online communication. When information is communicated online, tone and manner are lost and students often find it hard to follow who has said what. As Krasue (2005) points out in his discussion of blogs “Blogs don’t do a good job of helping writers interact..groups don’t acknowledge each other”

There is also the issue of the amount of time using technology can cut from class, setting up, closing down and dealing with any technical difficulties. Technology can also be expensive and the use of it in school can further divide the gap between the haves and the have nots, giving some schools and individuals unfair advantages over others.

- Fiona Perry

References:

Prensky M, 12/2/2005 “Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom: Twenty first century schools need twenty-first century technology?” The George Lucas Education Foundation <
http://www.edutopia.org/adopt-and-adapt > [25/03/08]

Watson, D.M. (2001). Pedagogy before Technology: Re-thinking the
relationship between ICT and teaching, Education and Information
Technologies, 6(4): 251-266