This post is inspired by the online article by Marc Prensky Adopt and Adapt: Shaping Tech for the Classroom which I found on edutopia.org a website created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation.Today there certainly is a strong move towards technology in Luxembourg for instance, where I live and work. But putting computers into classrooms isn't enough. I know that this has been said again and again, but in my view we shouldn't stop saying it to soon.
I have noticed during my years as a teacher and now as an educational consultant, that teachers are most reluctant to give up their assumed role as the one who is in control of the learning process. There are many reasons to this reluctance. One is certainly that they feel being forced to teach to the textbooks or to the tests, which most of the time reproduce what is found in the textbooks.
And even if teachers know or suspect, that this is not the best way to teach anything that students will retain much longer than is needed to pass the tests, they will continue to teach that way as long as the majority of the teachers does. Why? Because when you fail (meaning that your students have bad test results for instance) it is easier to cope with criticism when you did what the "systems expected" you to do, than if you tried to explore new teaching territories without being sure of the outcomes.
Another reason why we haven't noticed a big difference in education, despite the introduction of new technologies, is that teachers have only vague theories about learning. If so, teachers may well think that computers will help innovate or differentiate their teaching, but their vision will be one of doing "old things in new ways" as said in the article. I am convinced,because I have experienced it many times, that teachers will reproduce the same classroom experiences as before technology entered thei school as long as they are not involved - as reflective practitioner - into a collaborative and personal investigation on how learning works, with or without computers, and what it means to the learner and teacher.
And I doubt that technocrats and technology fans or freaks who do a lot to bring or force technology into schools (sometimes for the right and sometimes for the wrong reasons) are rarely the best partners when it comes up to clarify the big questions on education and to scaffolding teacher's or student teacher's inquiries on learning and teaching.
Bonjour,
ReplyDeleteIl est vrai que les enseignants ne se sentent pas à l'aise en utilisant les médias comme l'ordinateur en classe, parce qu'ils ne savent comment le faire. Jusqu'à présent, ils étaient habitués à faire passer le savoir à travers les livres et ont donc du mal à appliquer une autre méthode. Afin de changer cette mentalité, il faudrait leur donner la possibilité d'apprendre à utiliser les médias au sein de la classe. Ceci nous mène à notre question afin de savoir s'il y aurait la possibilité de suivre une formation à ce sujet?
Using ICT in your classroom is a vast subjects and different teachers have a lot of different questions on the matter. Some don't know how to use the computer, some can't cope with situations where children are engaged in multiple activities, and other don't know how to find the time to use the computer, when their main objective is to "get to the end of the textbook". So if you want to take a course on how to use the computer in your classroom, it would be a good thing idea to analyse your situation first. Where do I stand. What should be the focus of the training?
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