My Experiences of ICT in Primary School

I have just completed a week in a Primary School where I will be doing my first school based training in January. I was very excited to see how ICT is used in the school. I was happy to see large evidence of ICT around the school, in the form of digital cameras, music players, DVDs, IWBs and computers. Personally, the best use of ICT that I saw was the digital pictures of pupils on school trips, pupils' work, and activities. These pictures were on display all around the school combined with examples of art and written work. I think it really brightened up the walls, and could really motivate the children to carry on producing great work and enjoying school life.

There were four computers in each classroom. These were mainly used as rewards and as an activity in 'choice time.' I didn't see any structured ICT teaching at all during the week, although my class teacher mentor told me that there is usually an hour a week of ICT, which is taken by an outside person. I was told that the Year 2s were currently working on word processing, which is obviously an essential skill to learn. However, I was dissappointed that the children had little 'hands on' structured teaching in ICT as there were only four available computers.

The IWB was not used as much as in other schools I have been in, but when it was used, it was used well. It seemed to motivate the children to take part in activities and to answer questions. I would like to use the IWB as a way of sharing my learning objectives and success criteria with the children, which was rarely done in this class.

Reflections on, 'In class I have to power down.'

This article by david Puttnam paints a pretty dim picture of schools nowadays and their failure to keep up with the times. In a conference in San Francisco, one child said that in school he has to 'power down.' This comment highlights the fact that children today are often using more advanced equipment, doing more interesting things and operating in a more sophisticated way out of school compared to in school. This reflects the fact that the education system has seemed to ignore the fast changing world and many teachers are reluctant to move education forward in keeping with the 'digital age.'

Shouldn't school be a place which exhilarates children and expands their skills so that they reach their highest potential?? Unfortunately, in many schools this is not the case. Schools seem to have ignored the fact that the world is moving faster than ever before and that teachers have the duty to prepare children for life in a technologically advancing world. As Mark Prensky claims, digital natives' minds are programmed differently and the traditional education system no longer challenges or excites the digital native.

So let's not ignore the fact that children today are more stimulated by computer games, youtube, and web2. Instead, as teachers we need to embrace new technologies and find out how best to incorporate it into our teaching in order to bring back that spark to education that unfortunately has been lost in many schools...

A Critical Summary of Mark Prensky's 'Do They Really Think Differently?'

In ‘Do They Really Think Differently’ by Marc Prensky, the theory that Digital Natives’ brains are physically different and that brains can be retrained to think in different ways, is discussed and scientifically backed up. He then applies this knowledge to education and suggests new ways of teaching Digital Natives in the digital world.

Research in neurobiology has proved that stimulation of various kinds can change brain structures and that these transformations going on throughout life. This constant reorganisation of the brain is called neuroplasticity. Furthermore, social psychologists believe that the environment and culture determines many thought processes. Scientists have discovered that it is possible to ‘rewire’ a brain, and that it takes ‘sharply focused attention.’ The fact that many children sharply focus their attention on a number of different digital technologies, such as computer games, TV etc… means that their brains have been physically retrained to deal with digital media. Through this, many new thinking skills have emerged: multidimensional visual-spatial skills, mental maps, inductive discovery, attentional deployment etc… therefore, one can see that the new generation has a very different blend of cognitive skills.

So what are the implications for education? Prensky suggest that educational computer games are the best way to teach Digital Natives because they are in their ‘digital language’ and represent the fast moving digital world they have grown up in. the fact that children spend so much time playing computer games, if they were educational, a lot more learning would be done – which is obviously the most fundamental purpose of education. However, despite scientific evidence and research, the traditional education system is reluctant to change their ways. Digital immigrants need to realise that they have to communicate their valuable knowledge in the world’s new language and mode of digital technology.

Personally, I feel that educators have to face up to the fact that children’s brains are wired differently to ours, based on their digital upbringing, and amend their teaching methods accordingly. I definitely see the advantages of educational computer games, and feel that they can be a valuable way of teaching children. If they are designed well, children will want to play them all the time, and learning will take place in their spare time as well as at school. However, I do not believe that computer games can replace all teaching, because a huge amount of valuable learning takes place through social interaction, between teacher and pupil, and between pupils.

Wikis in Schools

Here is an article about the educational value of wikis in schools:

http://www.pgce.soton.ac.uk/ict/NewPGCE/PDFs/Wikis_in_Schools.pdf

For those of you new to the term 'wiki', it is a website which allows its members to add and edit content. The best known example of a 'wiki' is http://www.wikipedia.org/. The philosophy behind a wiki is that collective knowledge is more powerful than individual knowledge. Currently, the students on my PGCE course belong to a wiki, and I am confident that it will be a great place to share ideas. In a classroom context, wikis can support group collaboration and also motivate children to write and to take responsibility for their written work, because they know their writing has a potentially large audience. Due to the fact that you can edit the content, it can be a powerful tool to introduce children to the editing process.

Furthermore, the fact that the world is changing so dramatically - faster than ever before - means that we need to prepare children for jobs that do not yet exisit! This is a scary thought indeed, but instead of being too scared to change the curriculum, we need to embrace new technology in schools so that children are best prepared for the 'information age.' The nature of wikis encourgages children to access information and reflect upon it at a quick pace, and in a medium in fitting with the technologically advanced world in which we live. Therefore, wikis are becoming increasingly recognised as important learning tools in schools.

Wikis can be seen as another form of social software and although we must promote the advantages of such software in schools, we must also teach children about the dangers. We must not simply ignore the fact that increasing numbers of children are members of social networking sites. Instead of shying away from this fact, we should educate children of the dangers of sharing personal information on the web. In a school environment, I would not allow children to post any personal information on the wikis.

The article backs up its thesis that wikis have significant educational value, with research in the area of communities of practice and knowledge-building networks. This research suggests that children learn best in social situations and through collaborative work because they construct meanings together and further their understanding by learning from each other's ideas. This is in fitting with the constructivist view of education which underpins majority of education in English classrooms. Furthermore, the research suggests that in order to maximise learning, the children's work must be set in a 'real' context and have a 'real' purpose. When a piece of work is handed in only for the teacher to read, there is no real incentive to produce a great piece of work besides the teacher's approval. But if a piece of work is done that has a potentially worldwide audience, suddenly the incentive to do well soars!! I feel that this is one of the most powerful arguments for the use of wikis in schools.

The only disadvantage I can see, and also what came up in the findings to the investigation in this article, is that children could use the wiki as a place to publically slate somebody's work or opinions in a malicious way. However, I think this kind of problem can be resolved by having some 'cyberbullying' work shops, and some discussions about the appropriateness of what to write on the internet.

Despite the fact that there is not a lot of research into the use of wikis in education, I feel that there are many advantages to support its use. I will certainly be encourgaing the use of wikis in my classroom.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants – A Critical Summary

In ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,’ Marc Prensky highlights an important notion, that he feels educators today are ignoring – the fact that the children they are teaching today have fundamentally changed from the children they were teaching twenty-odd years ago. This change is not a change that occurs with every decade, for example, clothes, slang, music etc… but a fundamental discontinuity. The children of today have been brought up surrounded by digital technology, and therefore they think and process information differently from their predecessors. Prensky therefore believes that it is necessary to change our language and methods in order to teach these children effectively.

Prensky describes the difference between those who have been born into the digital world, and those who have had to adapt to the digital world at a later stage in their lives. He uses the term ‘digital native’ to describe those people brought up surrounded by digital technology. Characteristics of digital natives include the ability to parallel process and multi-task; the preference of hypertext and games; and they thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. In contrast to this, the term ‘digital immigrants’ is used to describe those of us who were born before 1985, and have adopted many aspects of the digital world later in life. Characteristics of ‘digital immigrants’ include, the tendency to work in a linear way; to print off emails; and to bring people physically into your office to show them a website, instead of sending them the URL. Prensky describes these characteristics as ‘the digital immigrant accent,’ and explains that this accent can never fully be lost.

The difference between digital natives and digital immigrants has important repercussions for education. Prensky believes that digital immigrants are having trouble reaching digital natives, because they are not speaking the same language. He insists on the importance of changing our language and teaching methods in order to communicate effectively. It is important to make education as fun and stimulating as the fast moving digital world, or children will simply switch off. If educators want to grab the attention of digital natives, they need to go faster, less step-by-step and with more random access, than what they are traditionally used to. Furthermore, the content of education needs to be changed, in order to combine important fundamentals such as reading, writing, arithmetic etc…, with ‘future’ content such as ethics, politics, sociology, software etc… This will enable the children to flourish in a fast moving technologically advancing world.

Prensky suggests that inventing computer games to teach children even the most serious content, will successfully overcome the problem. We have to accept that children now learn in different ways, and therefore educational computer games will reach digital natives, in ways that the old education system cannot.

Personally, although I agree that the children of today are different due to their digital upbringing, and that it is necessary to change the education system in terms of methods, pace and content, I do not agree with the extent to which Prensky believes ICT should play in education. I think a lot is lost when people only communicate through digital means. If I want to share an interesting website with a friend, I am definitely more likely to show them in person than send them the URL. This may be an embarrassing indicator of my ‘digital immigrant accent,’ but I nonetheless prefer to experience the website together, so that we can share our thoughts and feelings, and participate in personal social interaction - a quality that computers will never be able to replace. With the invention of the telephone, the amount of face to face communication decreased, and then with the invention of e-mail, oral communication decreased, and the intonations and emotions portrayed in voices, was lost. Children who spend more time in front of a computer, than interacting with the world, are less likely to be able to cope in social situations in the future. I am not saying that there are not many advantages to these technological inventions, but I think it is important to limit them in our lives, and to remind ourselves of the most fundamental part of existence – human interaction.

A brilliant internet safety site for primary school children

Internet safety is obviously a very important part of ICT education in primary school. I am very eager to find out ways in which to encourage children to use the internet safely. I found this website, http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/5_7/ which introduces children to internet safety in a fun and simple way. I like the way in which the serious issue of internet safety is presented in an accessible way. The animations are fun and the language is easy to read. There are a series of cartoons which are really fun and engaging, which expose the dangers of talking to strangers online and giving out personal information online. The underlying message on the website is to always tell an adult that you trust if you see anything that upsets you on the internet. It also gives childline's number and encourages children to call it if they are worried about something and don't know who to talk to.

I will definately be introducing this website to children in my classroom.

Educational Blogging

Here is a very interesting article about how blogs can be used in schools and their educational value:

http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/EducationalBlogging/40493?time=1224856527

This is the hyperlink for the PGCE ICT website for the University Of Southampton:

www.pgce.soton.ac.uk/ict/NewPGCE/

Primary Blog

http://primaryblog.wordpress.com/