Technology changes rapidly – significant change is often a slow process in schools. Teachers are busy – learning how to effectively use and integrate new applications takes practice and experimentation. Access to information is easy – assessing its relevance and making sense of the information requires a wide range of skills. Students need to learn the basics - students are often more engaged by a media rich and hands on curriculum.
Addressing these tensions is at the core of the action research project I am undertaking. How do we best support students and teachers to manage (and embrace) the change brought about by new technologies such as the school portal? Put another way, how do we facilitate the shift to teaching and learning for the 21st century where our students are using technology to access information, communicate, build new knowledge, collaborate with their peers and present their understanding in visually appealing and interactive media.
David Warner, in his book Schooling for the Knowledge Era is critical of the slow pace at which governments and many schools appear to be responding to this change. He speaks of the shift which has occurred in society, largely driven by the rapid growth of the Internet, from an industrial era to a knowledge era, one in which people have increased access to information, communicate globally and the ability to learn new skills quickly dominates.
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One of the messages to come out of the Digital Education Revolution
information sessions held early this month at various capital cities around
Australia was the lack of a driving
force to change teacher pedagogy. Schools are not as susceptible to the same
market pressures as other industries which have leveraged off technology to
improve their efficiency, compete and remain profitable.
Poorly funded public entities like schools, libraries and
hospitals have been left to gradually make use of technology while the private
sector, driven by market share and profit, has made substantial use of technology
and in doing so created a divide between the two sectors.
The Rudd government now has an agenda to reform education so
we now have in play a driving force from the top level of government that is
fuelled by the promise of substantial funding. I’m still concerned that there
is still a lack of driving force at the
grassroots level for your average teacher. And even if they wanted to digitally
revolutionise their teaching practices, with what allocation of time would they
do so and with what support and with what equipment – oh and you’re only going
to pay me how much!!!
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