Abstract
In the current climate of educational change where wave after wave of initiatives such as GLOW and ACfE wash over the teaching profession, it would be worthwhile to consider whether it is justifiable to implement such changes.
Many educationalists claim that new technologies provide enhanced opportunities for today's young people. Educators face enormous challenges to bridge the generation gap and provide a more current experience for today’s digital natives. One reaction to this challenge was to set in place a national educational intranet called GLOW.
At the same time A Curriculum for Excellence (ACfE) one of the largest educational reviews in Scotland is being launched with the premise that it will allow more creativity, flexibility and collaboration to equip the pupils of today to be able to function in the evermore technological global society of tomorrow.
Provided with an outline of what is to be taught and why it should be taught, teachers will have a greater say in how particular outcomes are taught, ACfE hopes to give greater scope to tailor lessons to meet particular strengths, weaknesses, interests and opportunities as they arise and give our learners a greater chance of reaching their full potential.
GLOW with its ability to target news, organise, store and present data as well as facilitate live discussion may provide many of the tools to enable and enhance the delivery of ACfE, a new curriculum that puts more responsibility on the teaching professional, but trying to do all these things without alienating and disenfranchising a large number of teachers will be a challenge.
GLOW
GLOW is the name given to visible part of the Scottish Schools Digital Network (SSDN); it is a schools intranet which will link Scotland's pupils and teachers in every Authority. GLOW is not an acronym but a term that was coined to give the rather grand message of “lighting up learning”.
Most of the hardware and software is now in place with extensive trials completed by some Authorities and their designated GLOW Mentors, leading up to a proposed full launch in August of 2007.
Teachers and pupils of both the primary and secondary sectors will be provided with an individual email address and access to a virtual learning environment (VLE). Teachers will be provided with the tools to control curriculum resources for their classes and assess, mark and return work to pupils, as well as check their current performance against previous performance in the assessment section.
GLOW members will be able to join manage and create "GLOW Groups", where contributors with a common interest can share tools and communicate with a wider body of peers than may be possible in the classroom.
There are a vast variety of other features in GLOW such as Chat-rooms, newsgroups and instant messaging built into the system, along with Marratech video conferencing, which allows text, voice and video conversations between users across the intranet.
ACfE
A Curriculum for Excellence (ACfE) is going to be the new Scottish curriculum for the 3-18 year age group and is planned to replace the current 5-14 curriculum, Standard Grade courses and the National Qualifications. The current timescale given by the Scottish Executive expects ACfE to be in place at least in part by session 2009/2010.
ACfE outlines 4 broad capacities (successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors) in six stages or levels of achievement from "early" in pre school or primary one to "senior" level in fourth to sixth year (while allowing fast tracking for some). ACfE also proposes to allow more vocational options helping pupils progress into further qualifications for work.
The curriculum review group said that not only attainment would be valued but there would be more emphasis and recognition of achievement in areas such as sport, music, dance, drama, sustainable development and enterprise, and other activities that the ACfE curriculum review group claim to "broaden the life experiences and life chances – of young people" (Peacock. P and Robson. E.).
Elearning and collaborative learning
Elearning is claimed by some to have the potential to provide a convenient and effective platform to facilitate collaborative learning.
There has been a lot of investment in ICT in schools in recent years and these costs need to be justified. I though it appropriate to quote the people who we are directly accountable to in order to give some background to what might be expected of teachers today.
Effective use of ICT enhances the learning experience by providing a collection of learning and teaching materials that make lessons more attractive and visually or aurally more stimulating than many more traditional forms of resources. Effective use of ICT enriches the learning experience by exposing learners to a wider range of learning opportunities and modes of study than heretofore available. Importantly, effective use of ICT by learners encourages independence in learning. However, inspectors also found many examples of the use by teaching staff of ICT where there was no clear educational gain.
(HMIe 2007)
Her Majesties Inspectorate of Education Scotland(HMIe) imply that we can have the bells and whistles, and by all means make our lessons stimulating and enjoyable, but not at the expense of relevance and appropriateness. Media-rich, multi-directional, interactive environments may lead to effective learning for some individuals on some occasions, sometimes not. We need a principled understanding of why this is so. Therefore it is important to be aware of research findings concerning individual differences in styles and strategies of learning and in attitudes and approaches to learning. We need to be aware of the danger of masking poor learning and teaching behind the smoke and mirrors of interesting multimedia experiences.
To give some insight as to how I think the educational landscape is being shaped, I want to touch on some themes highlighted by an educationalist who seems to be very much respected and active in Scotland today and for that reason has a significant influence in the sphere of Scottish education: Heppel (2007) states his philosophy on how in the past as part of the post war baby boom generation, there were so many children that they were sat in rows and processed in some sort of “ghastly model of industrial education", he goes on to explain how it did not matter if people departed from the education system "completely mindless" because that matched the need to fill the "mindless jobs" that were available in abundance at that time, jobs like fitting offside wing mirrors, the type of job that consisted of repetitive tasks that can nowadays be performed by robots. Rather than creating human automatons, today's society needs to produce the kind of creative talent that can work in teams to perform the kind of careers that are available today.
Heppel goes further to say that new technologies are actually democratising and denies the claim others make by using the term "digital divide" and compares and contrasts the days where a full set of Encyclopedia Britannicacould cost many thousands of pounds totoday wherethe equivalenton a DVD would be left untouchedat ninety nine pence in a supermarket store, as their is so much free information out there. Heppel does however take care to point out the dangers of marginalisation of those for whatever reason whether it be circumstances or behaviour etc. are left out of the educational system, but also goes on to explain that digital technology can provide some solutions for these people too.
A main thrust of skills teaching is to prepare students for the world of employment, however, because the world of work is changing so fast, few students will have a 'job for life' and graduates will have to be adaptable and be willing to become 'lifelong learners'.
(Chalkley & Harwood 1998)
In today's society the rapid information growth requires an increasing need for sharing and collaboration to ensure learning and success. The actual knowledge becomes secondary whereby the ability to work in new situations becomes a priority. There are many recorded benefits to the kind of learning where individuals come together and share their ideas and practices.
Collaborative learning fosters the development of critical thinking through discussion, clarification of ideas, and evaluation of others’ ideas, if the purpose of instruction is to enhance critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, then collaborative learning is more beneficial.
[Anuradha A. Gokhale et all,1995]
There are also potential dangers in that an individual’s views and ideas are not heard clearly as they are drowned out by the group as a whole. A variety of delivery and teaching methodology should be used to provide a successful learning experience for all group members. The sheer effort and hard work in creating an effective collaborative environment with its various online facilities should not be overlooked, though It does remind me of the time when I was involved with the introduction of email to teachers, and the reluctance and scepticism It was recieved with by many staff members at the time, I would doubt many of these teachers including those that have since retired would fail to see the advantages of email today.
Changes in the developed world are increasingly moving away from traditional industries and moving towards industries which depend on new knowledge economies that have materialised as a result of new innovations, technologies and new ways of utilising the potential these technologies bring.
Clay Shirky (2003) used the term "Social Software" to describe technologies that facilitate group communication. Internet discussion forums, social networking sites such as MySpace that allow people to represent and create social relationships, Wikis and even online dating sites can all be seen as social software.
Students are already using a vast and wide variety of new technologies to communicate and collaborate with one another, more well known examples include YouTube , Bebo or MSN Messenger, Blogger and Wikispaces.
teachers and students need to develop new pedagogies and modes of learning in the new information and multimedia environment. This could involve democratization and restructuring of education such as was envisaged by Dewey, Freire, and Illich, in which education is seen as adialogical, democraticizing, and experimental practice.
[Douglas Kellner - et all 2004]
Ask most groups of young people today if they use on-line social networking tools and you will quickly find that these tools are very popularways of communicating. In a recent survey by the Virtual Global Task force (VTCMySpace 2007) more than 12,000 people under 18 years were surveyed and 56% of these young people said they choose to share their personal details and publicise their social networking profiles on such social networking sites as MySpace and YouTube. I feel duty bound to mention that there are serious issues of security and Internet safety that need to be addressed here.
The majority of teachers I talk to do not use these social networking tools tools, even more worryingly parents I have talked to are unaware of what is happening in their own homes. It is important that our society protects its young people by keeping abreast of the Internet culture our children are immersed in. I would urge parents of younger children to educate them on how to use the Internet safely and the dangers of having enabled computers in rooms that are not easily accessible to parents and other members of the family. Parents and teachers should try to stay informed so they can discuss and work with their children on issues of Internet safety before their online habits put them in harms way.
Local Authorities often ban social networking sites in a need to maintain their security policies, which through fear of litigation generally need to err on the side of caution. This often results in an educational on-line environment that is weighed down with web blocking and the administrative lock-down of applications.
Striking the correct balance between the supervision of online behaviour and nurturing independence is difficult because every situation and individual is different. What might make a difference is how we approach supervision and becoming partners in tackling issues that affect us all while submitting information online. This approach could provide a critical role in whether or not young people buy into the idea of internet safety as a good thing for all of us, rather than adult supervision and control which can be seen as something which is imposed and may damage trust.
Young people have increasing opportunities to access the internet through a variety of portable devices, short of locking them in a lead lined room without any digital devices they will always find ways of circumventing imposed internet restrictions, strengthening the case for selling the benefits of internet safety as a good thing for all of us.
Unfortunately there will always be some individuals who will insist in putting themselves in harms way, but by explaining and demonstrating potential dangers most of us will err on the side of self preservation and discuss and reflect on these risks and reach agreement on what would be deemed suitable or appropriate. It may be beneficial to strike start a dialogue and reach a consensus, it may also be possible to get children to agree on what level of boundaries and monitoring would be suitable or acceptable, and these boundaries should be clearly defined.
Used appropriately and effectively, social networking tools and the potential benefits of such a rich multimedia experiences, can inspire creativity and learning they may also be a way of tapping into the youth culture bringing relevance and meaning to their classes and give them platform to display and discuss their works. It also gives young people the skills for life to work in an international world.