Teachers and Innovative use of ICT

1
Teachers and Innovative use of ICT

• A Marriage Searching for Quality
• Elsebeth K. Sorensen
• Aalborg University, Denmark (eks_at_hum.aau.dk)
• Gunilla Jedeskog
• Linköping University, Sweden (gunje_at_ibv.liu.se)
• Daithí Ó Murchú
• Gaelscoil Ó Doghair, Innovative
  e-Learning/e-Tutoring, Hibernia College, Ireland
  (omurchu.ias_at_eircom.net)

2
OutlineAim of paper A conceptual model of
pedagogical quality for thinking about teaching
and learning in the 21st century

• Analytical perspectives on innovation and quality
• Keywords of quality in general practice
• Perspectives of implementation
• Teacher education
• General practice and trends
• A conceptual model......
• Learning in the horizon of teaching
• Quality in learning and teaching
• The model...
• Synthesis
• Teachers
• Time
• Questions for reflection

3

• Analytical Perspectives on Innovation and
  Quality

4
Keywords of quality

• Learning to learn
• Collaboration (knowledge building)
• Team teaching learning
• Learning communities
• Digital literacy
• Lifelong learning

5
Perspectives of implementation(House
McQuillan, 1998)

• 3 different perspectives
• Technological (top-down)
• Initiated from actors outside schools
• Political (?)
• Some level of negotiations with teachers
• Cultural (bottom-up)
• Teachers perspectives in focus

6
Looking to the past - an example from the
US(Becker, 1998)

• 1982 to have pupils program computers using
  BASIC.
• It is the language that comes with your
  computer.
• 1984 to have pupils program in Logo.
• Teach pupils to think, not just program.
• 1986 to use integrated drill-and-practice
  systems.
• Use networked systems that individualise
  instruction and focus on increasing test scores.
• 1988 to do word-processing.
• Use computers as tools, like adults do.
• 1990 to use curriculum-specific tools such as
  history databases and science simulators and data
  acquisition probes.
• Integrate the computers with the existing
  curriculum.
• 1992 to do multimedia hypertext programming.
• Change the curriculum pupils learn best by
  creating products for an audience.
• 1994 to use electronic-mail.
• Let students be part of the real world.
• 1996 to publish students work to a world-wide
  audience via www.

7
Teacher education Status quo challenges

• Education for the future - and the future is NOW!
• If we wish to provide our students with a
  quality education, as previously defined, we must
  consider more than mere transmission of
  information and facts. We must take account of
  what the educational research tells us about
  learning namely that students learn best by
  building on pre-existing knowledge active
  learning learning with understanding and
  adopting a metacognitive approach (Hollingworth,
  2002).
• As the pace of change increases the more
  important it will become to ensure that teachers
  and students acquire a breadth of thinking
  skills and attitudes to keep pace with
  innovations and developments (Sorensen, Jedeskog,
  Ó Murchú, 2005).

8
Teacher education Status quo challenges

• How advances in technology might influence
  teaching and learning must be of special
  importance to all teachers and learners. (...)
  teachers need to reflect carefully and
  professionally on their teaching practices,
  preferably with the benefit of a conception of
  teaching and learning well informed by
  educational research.
• Remember we are preparing students for the
  society which does not, as yet exist !

9
General practice trends

• Innovation and collaboration as a result of
  implementation of ICT are not frequent
• student-student collaboration
• student-teacher collaboration
• innovative teaching-learning methodology
• and change of roles and power structures between
  teachers and learners
• The Elfe project in general confirms this, also
  from the teachers perspective
• integration of ICT had not led to a real change
  in practice and innovation in teaching and
  learning methodology
• or to alterations of teacher authority,
  teacher-student roles and power relationships
  within the learning processes.

10

• A conceptual model of pedagogical quality for
  thinking about teaching and learning in the 21st
  century

11
A double value

• A conceptual pedagogical model for understanding
  and cultivating teachers learning as well as
  students learning (as the same criteria of
  meaningful learning apply)
• A mutual learning process in a shared endeavor
• In a blended environment

12
Learning in the horizon of teaching

• We are social beings. Far from being trivially
  true, this fact is a central aspect of learning.
• Knowing is a matter of participating in the
  pursuit of such enterprises, that is, of active
  engagement in the world.
• Meaning our ability to experience the world and
  our engagement with it as meaningful is
  ultimately what learning is to produce.
• Practice a way of talking about the shared
  historical and social resources, frameworks, and
  perspectives that can sustain mutual engagement
  in action.

13
QualityGenuine learning through collaboration
and dialogue

• Genuine learning is individual, but stimulated
  collaboratively
• It is situationally unpredictable
• It has an extension in time and can never be
  fully finished
• It creates existential commitment (with an
  element of risk) as it has to do with the meaning
  of life
• It is authentic learning

• Collaborative learning is a powerful but at the
  same a fragile process
• Collaboration creates a positive commitment that
  motivates participation and drives the learning
  process
• Collaboration engages the participants in
  learning.

Both emphasize learning as an individual and a
social phenomenon Both argue for shared,
collaborative and democratic learning efforts,
stimulated through participation, engagement,
motivation, and ownership.
14
Bildung with ICT - through collaboration and
dialogue

• Developing global democratic values and
  attitudes
• A critical mind
• Ability to listen
• Ability to consider and/or incorporate others
  views
• Practicing qualifications of modern work life
• Ability to collaborate and teamwork
• Ability to practice knowledge building and
  sharing
• Ability to learn continuously (learning to learn)
  

15
The power of collaborative learning

• A social, collaborative phenomenon taking place
  through negotiation of meaning (Wenger, 1998)
  in the interplay between reflection and
  interaction/dialogue
• A social phenomenon happening when knowledge has
  been applied in critical dialogue with others

16
Web Search
simulations
Instantaneous practical experience with course
Research Papers
Course readings
The Collaborative Dialogue space
The Collaborative Dialogue space
Multi-media based resources
Research Papers
Personal Knowledge and experience
Web Search
Previous dialogue
The MMD Model - A Collaborative Dialogue Space
(Sorensen Ó Murchú, 2005)
17
Features of learning quality

• Awareness We cannot design learning - only
  (V)LEs of good pedagogic quality
• The collaborative pedagogy - POPP
• Problem-orientation
• Transparency
• Cross-disciplinary
• Collaboration/interaction (shared construction of
  meaning, mutual engagement)
• Quality (knowledge building process)
• Reflection, self-reflection, meta-reflection
• Creativity
• Improvisation
• Democratic non-authoritarian process
• Dynamic teacher-student role
• Student-centeredness, participant-driven
• Initiative, motivation, leadership

18

• Synthesis

19
The teacher as the key

• The appropriate role of technology depends on the
  individual educational designers/teachers views
  and perception of the goals of education
• A conscious choice
• Time

20
Time is an issue(Fullan, 2001)

• Three stages
• Initiation
• Being informed
• Implementation (change)
• Fear, risk, etc.
• Pedagogical imagination
• Competence
• Institutionalization

21
A set of questions for reflection

• Learning - the ultimate goal of teaching?
• Dialogue/collaboration?
• The role of the teacher/student?
• Incitement - a result of authenticity?
• Meta-learning?
• Methodology?
• How to balance student initiatives and teachers
  need to control?
• Imagining appropriate assessment models?
• How to use ICT to foster collaboration?