By: Pete Hall

Pete Hall — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:29:23 +0000

I love what new technology can do for us, and I really know your frustration in seeing it go to waste. There are so many personalities in teaching that each need to be led to the power of good ICT practice. Still, I get an awkward lump in my throat when I see videos like the one in your latest post. I can’t shake the vivid memory of working with some incredible teachers who didn’t use ICT at all really. But they were great teachers. No. They were STUNNING. I would personally drag a classroom full of laptops to the lower field and watch them burn to have any child of mine in their room. I listened to poorly informed rumor about their poor IT practice and felt frustrated.
I’d love to see a video like that that really celebrates teaching, even more than the technology. There is magic in good teaching, and magic in good teachers. That always shines no matter what the tool. I’ve no doubt that with your insights you know your teachers well and are thinking of ICT as the tool their good skills would put to use, but the shininess of technology is often bright enough to blind those less skilled in seeing how good application is made. Some are happy to push the tool first believing good practice will follow. I wonder if that works? I’m really not sure.
A pedagogically vacuous teacher with 30 laptops open may just as well grab a pack of marshmallow and come to field with me to warm their hands.
Please share your successes with getting those tools up and running. Change is a mongrel.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Sat, 16 May 2009 00:59:55 +0000

Reading therough your post I am pretty certain that the questions you have posed really should be statement of belief from you Strung together (without the question marks!) they frame pretty much the eLearning journey of more than a decade I have been on in my own school, and more recently with the cluster. I have visited and worked with schools through the country and some overseas, and I feel confident that where you see eLearning embedded in 21st century eLearning environments, AND student achievement outcomes being raised, there is a school vision, strong leadership from the top, foundational shared beliefs about how the 21st century students in this particular school learn best, and an intentional explicit school-wide pedagogy underpinning how this is to occur.
Too prescriptive you ask? It is too easy for teachers to forget that these are other people’s precious children they are dealing with and if we have used our professional integrity as a staff and developed a pedagogy (and have evidence it is effective) then it jolly well should be prescribed so that ALL students benefit from it and not just the lucky ones who have teachers who are prepared to engage with it.
I had similar sentiments in response to Pete Hall’s latest post too.
Oops, Saturday here, enough said, back to house cleaning

Comments on: eLearning Expectations?

By: Pete Hall

By: Dorothy