August 11, 2008
I read this article, which looks at how behind schools ( in this case American schools) are when it comes to technology within the classroom.
I agree with the sentimet that classrooms are often a bit slow on the uptake as far as using and responding to technological advances and the technological literacy of the students.
I saying that there are some advances in Australian schools.
For example Smart boards are becomeing available in schools.
The problem is not every class or school has them and most teachers have limited knowledge, a(nd even less time to learn) on how to best use them in the classroom.
The answer has to be on opening up technology and allowing for the education and understanding of it by educators who find this kind of thing alien and scary.
I think that the multimodal way that our students use technology is something we have to understand if we are going to engage our kids. The Question is how to teach old dogs new tricks.
November 5th, 2008 at 4:20 am
The other major issue which you start to touch upon Brucey, regarding technology in the classroom, (and we as new teachers are going to be the crop that put the Rudd technology revolution into practice) is most teacher’s havn’t developed their teaching pedagogue to ensure they can keep control of the students pc usage.
In classes of more then 4 children when the teacher is unable to give the individual attention they’d like to, it so easy for students to become off task with their files of photos from the weekend, or any other program loaded onto that computer. This is remarkable different to the practice of “open your books and start working on a new page”, that will change the nature of classroom behaviour maintenance.
When faced with this, I discovered the following methods were successful:
* Design the classroom so the tables are in three rows corresponding with the 2 side walls and back. This way, the teacher can move around the classroom without having to turn their back, and has a better vision of the class.
* Be specific with instructions – “No, leave your laptop lids down”.
* Also, behaviour monitoring will become easy – 12-18 year olds can’t hide their facial expression when they are doing something they enjoy, as opposed to classwork.
We’re not the old dogs who need the new tricks…we can arrive with all the tricks pre-loaded into our own pedagogue.