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Especially for Teachers - Resources
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A
forum for teachers hosted by Dr Helen Nixon
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This is an edited transcript of the discussion that took place on the ALEA Technology Special Interest Group Forum. The discussion was hosted by Dr Helen Nixon, a Senior Lecturer in Education in the School of Education at the University of South Australia, Underdale campus. Helen teaches postgraduate students in masters and doctoral programs in literacy education and does research into literacy education at the Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures. A highly respected teacher and researcher, Helen has published widely in the area of Information and Communication Technologies.
Participants in the forum included primary and high school teachers, school leaders, academics, consultants and curriculum officers from many parts of Australia.
The discussion has been edited to make it easier to follow. We think you will find it absorbing to read in its entirety and a valuable professional learning tool. You will find a number of hyperlinks to other sites within the discussion. You can read the discussion on the web or download it as a Word document. (Click here to download the Word document - 96k)
The main topics of discussion are listed below. To go straight to a section that interests you, simply click on the hyperlinks below:
Helen’s
introduction
The literacy-technology
nexus: Durrant’s and Green’s
3 dimensional model
5 stages of
ICT practice (Leask and Pachler)
A discussion
of professional learning
The ITLED school-based
research findings
Access and Disadvantage:
the argument of Burbules and Callister
ICTs and literacy
New understandings
of text (Birkerts and MacCabe)
A framework for
integrating ICTs into learning areas
(Bruce and Levin)
Communication webs
(Gunther Kress)
ICTs for creative
and communicative purposes
The work of Julian
Sefton-Green
Helen’s
References
Helen
Nixon
Over the last few years I have become increasingly interested in how children's and young people's interests in popular culture and ICTs can be used to generate more inclusive curriculum and produce successful outcomes for students often considered to be 'at risk' in mainstream schooling. I have also become convinced that in these changing times teachers working in all educational institutions need to do more than merely use new ideas or new 'tools' to do the same kind of literacy teaching they have always done. This may well provide educators with significant challenges, but it may also provide exciting possibilities for imagining things differently.
As this forum begins I'd be interested in hearing your views about new (and old) issues of access and disadvantage that arise as our society becomes increasingly focussed on ICTs. Here are some discussion starters:
-
What dilemmas of provision of access do you face in your school and
classroom?
- What
factors other than 'getting connected' seem to affect teachers'
and
students' participation in ICT-related activity?
- How
does or could the spread of ICTs outside schooling affect your classroom
practice?
- What
possibilities do you see for the use of ICTs in inclusive curriculum
in your context?
John Travers
I think the introduction of ICTs presents teachers and principals with some confusing challenges. There is the need of learning how to use the hardware and software - relatively clear skills development. Then as soon as you feel a bit confident there are people like me telling you that you need to discover the potential for the new technologies to allow a more student-controlled, investigative, more open, and of course constructivist approach to learning.
I can't remember a previous curriculum development where you have to do so much skills learning before and during the process in order to be able to engage with the planning and development process.
I agree entirely that the new technologies present challenges on a number of levels as you have described. I find Cal Durrant's and Bill Green's formulation of the literacy-technology nexus as 3 dimensional helpful in trying to think through what this means for curriculum.
They conceptualise a model that has the dimensions: (1) operational, (2) cultural, and (3) critical. They argue that while all three come into play at once, in practice at any one time any of these three dimensions may be foregrounded. The operational dimension of technology-literacy curriculum refers more or less to what you have described as the 'learning how-to'. The cultural in Green's formulation refers to matters to with the discipline or the 'subject culture', for example, ways IT is used in or useful for say, geography. The critical dimension refers to the more distanced view that can be applied to these operations and taken-for-granted ways of working with IT that are commonly accepted within that "culture" or community of practice. To read more about this see Durrant, C., & Green, B. (2000).
Judith Lill
I am always staggered by the ability of students to quickly learn what it is necessary to know about technology - in its many shapes and forms - in order to have fun or to fill an immediate need. My guess is that there are many teachers out there who, on a daily basis, top up their technology knowledge or skills base through watching and questioning the kids in their classes. In other words, I am far less concerned about the development of skills - both students' and teachers' - than with finding challenging and purposeful uses for them. The issues of effective searching, sourcing, mediation of available information, critical reading and finding motivating and authentic uses for communicating information 'found' consume a lot of my thinking time. All of these are factors which would be shaping up the what and how of using learning technologies in the classroom.
I agree that we adults learn lots from watching children and students. But it's only when teachers begin to 'play' with what they know and can do that they seem to move to another phase of operation. Leask and Pachler (1999) suggest that: not only are students very different in their attitudes to ICT use, but teachers too are at different points in the ways they relate to ICTs and that any individual teacher goes through predictable phases in their use of ICTs in classroom teaching. They cite findings from the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow project - a project designed to build educational technology into schools- that found that there are 5 stages a teacher needs to go through when taking on a new ICT practice. These 5 stages are described as:
- entry
- adoption
- adaption
- appropriation
- invention.
Leask and Pachler explain it like this:
"At the entry stage, teachers find themselves unable to anticipate problems in ICT environments, particularly with respect to discipline, the environment, technical issues and software management. In the second phase, adoption, teachers are able to anticipate problems and develop strategies for solving them. During the adaption stage, teachers start to use the technology to their advantage in managing the classroom by developing techniques for monitoring pupils' progress, developing new materials, and using the medium for differentiation. The technology starts to become integrated into the teacher's practice. The fourth stage of appropriation is viewed as a 'milestone' and demonstrated by a change in a teacher's attitude to the technology: 'old habits are replaced with new'. The final stage, invention, is characterised by teachers experimenting with new instructional patterns and ways of relating to pupils and other teachers, including initiating cross-curricular projects."
(Leask and Pachler, 1999, p. 37)
Christine Topfer
Provision of access to computers at our school has improved dramatically over the past twelve months. We now have two networked computers in each classroom from Prep to Year six. However, our teachers constantly battle with the equity of access to students in their room. They have experimented with many options, most settling for a roster basis; others have introduced a "buddying" system where a new skill is taught to a small group of students who then "buddy" other students in their acquisition of the new skill. One of our main issues is WHAT the technology is used for in the classroom.
I agree with Judith that searching, sourcing and critical reading are strategies that need to be taught. What I find is that frequently CD-ROMs are all that are utilised. Teachers need to see the importance of the computer as a research tool and extension of a notebook or exercise book, so that the full potential of the technology can be realised. In order for this to happen teachers need professional development and time to experiment with packages such as Inspiration, FrontPage and Word to name a few. Our teachers have had three after school workshops on FrontPage in the past three weeks. What they now want is time to practice and work with others to enhance the skills they have developed. We envisage that once classes have their own homepage on our intranet we will be providing a wonderful avenue for students to share their work, not to mention the possibilities that we have not yet discovered.
Each day that we work with the technology in the classroom we learn new possibilities, but without time for an ICT coordinator to work with teachers to assist the integration of this new technology, progress in some classrooms will be slow. In relation to Helen's question about other factors affecting teachers' participation in ICTs, I would suggest confidence, knowledge of programs on offer and time spent practising the newly acquired skills greatly affect a teachers' willingness to participate.
Irini McMaster
Technology in schools is indeed exciting as there is so much potential out there for some really brilliant activity. I recently attended a workshop for English teachers and was enthused by a simple idea. Two classes in different schools are emailing each other. Recently, each class designed a monster; individual students emailed a written a description of the monster to their partner in the other class. The task was to draw the monster according to the information provided. We see great potential for many similar activities.
Another activity I ventured into was pairing up my class with a colleague’s class in a different part of the State. We had our students communicating with one another for a period of time. Unfortunately, our communication fell down after a while - my colleague’s students had only three computers to access and I had one for each student. Nevertheless, it was a worthwhile activity and my students are eager to do it again.
We find that we don't use CD-ROMs much because we haven't found anything that we feel is worth parting money for and they often don't network very well.
My Year 10 students’ negotiated research projects this year have been interesting to observe. Many students feel that the only resource worth using is the internet. I have observed students struggling to find sites when they would have been much better off going to the old fashioned library! It got to the stage where I was actively discouraging students to use technology. That, of course, is not to say that many students found brilliant materials they would not have found in the library!!
Helen
NixonIrini raised two very interesting and related points. The first is that students of middle school age are often very interested in exploring and using the 'communication' capabilities of ICTs. The second is that there is a lot of work to be done helping teachers find ways to help students establish how and when to best use the 'information retrieval' and information 'synthesis' capabilities of ICTs.
Roslyn Teirney
I find myself more and more including technology choices within my unit planning for English. I find many kids enjoy the personal aspects of emailing journals to me, especially the privacy it affords and then the response. Many share concerns they hesitate writing about in books. I also rejoice in the easy links to author information on the web, sites where stories can be read and the opportunity for isolated kids to add their comments to discussion on student web forums. This technology can help less able students present their work to a wider audience. This does lots for their self-esteem.
We too email other classes. Currently, I am setting up a WEBCT module to enable grade 6 kids to be in contact with grade 7s and another as an extension module for faster workers. Of course, the issue so often is to do with the availability of machines rather than what one can do with them.
Helen
NixonThis is another example of the 'communicative' aspect of ICTs that can be used to great effect with some students. It's interesting, though, that this kind of 'personal' response to students can take up a lot of time and make 'online' teaching more labour intensive than many people realise.
During the past month, I have been working with a group of English teachers in an urban high school. The purpose of this work has been to introduce teachers to the material on the Department's English Website and help them incorporate this material and ICTs generally into their teaching programs.
The teachers are experienced, talented people who are keen to try new ideas - teachers you would love to have teach your own children! What surprises me is the amount of time it has taken for them to become familiar with the material and begin to feel comfortable about using it in the classroom. We began with an introductory half-day session during which I introduced the site and gave people time to explore a range of ICTs. Teachers were varied in their experienced - some were still pretty much at the operational stage - but they could all see positive ways of using the resource.
I returned last week to spend a day with the group. We hoped that during the day, each person would re-develop a unit of work or sequence of lessons that incorporated some ICTs. However, it quickly became clear that the teachers needed more time for exploration and the opportunity to talk things through with their colleagues. Some focussed on a particular technology (eg PowerPoint; others explored a range of ICTs, including book raps, student web forums, on-line teaching units and WebQuests. By the end of the day, they felt they were at last ready to re-develop some of their units and work sequences. I will work with the group again in a couple of weeks to facilitate this process.
I think what I have realised is that teachers need time and support to move around (not necessarily through) the operation/cultural/critical stages and to move through the five stages of entry, adoption, adaption, appropriation and invention. I think the teachers I am working with are at the adoption stage and ready to move to adaption. This requires opportunities for discussion, reflection and collaboration ("buddying"). Initial excitement about ICTs quickly disappears unless there is time for this to happen.
It will be interesting to see how far we get next time. I am also really interested in the appropriation/invention stages. I think we have only begun to explore the creative possibilities technology offers us.
John Travers
Just a quick response to Charles's comments about teachers needing time to work through the use of ICTs in the classroom. I couldn't agree more. This is the challenge for me, to help people see the process as a process of skills input, using, trying out, more skills, etc.
Anne McNamara
Like Charles and John, I am very aware of the time needed for teachers to take up the ideas and I am interested in what Charles has said that teachers may not necessarily move from stage to stage. I wish every school could access the kind of support that Charles is offering. At least through this forum, perhaps teachers can reap the benefits of a mentor and guide. There seem to be so many layers of need for the teachers, ranging from quite simple to very complex.
I am concerned with all aspects of ICTs from the decisions on purchases of hardware and software to decisions on the multiple use of ICTs to meet different purposes, to providing sufficient technical support to keep the machines operational and the kind of PD that will best help teachers. It would be very useful to know what has helped teachers the most and how do they like to be helped. As they gain competence would they mind becoming coaches or mentors for others (if they were given the time to do this)?
The question of how do we tap into what the children already know is such an interesting one because many children start school already knowing a lot, but for others it is new world. It is clear that using ICTs is an excellent way to develop leadership skills, responsibility and caring in students.
Teachers working in teams also seems to be a useful way of sharing the workload, the ideas and the expertise and tapping into the creativity of the students. I hope that there will be documentation of teachers and their students' small (and large) victories in this area.
Ross Bindon
Could it be that working with ICTs accentuates the situation that exists with students in the learning areas: that they bring to their learning an incredibly varied patchwork of understandings and skills? However, working with ICTs, at least in an operational or procedural sense, is more tangible than how one reads or goes about solving a mathematics problem. As a result, we as teachers are compelled to consider how we're going to meet the extraordinary range of needs that exist.
This would explain Charles' comment about teachers (also read students) needing 'exploration time'. It would also be elaborated by Anne's notion that the experience that a learner brings is 'layered'. For example, teachers tell me about students being enthused about their use of a digital camera, but being hampered by the fact that they have had limited experience using a conventional camera. Other students can manipulate every bell and whistle of PowerPoint, but have not been taught how to synthesise information into key points that flow logically from one to another. I think a major challenge is helping teachers recognise what constitutes authentic communication (purpose, audience, genre, structure...) and discussing the role that ICTs can play in facilitating and enhancing (in a deep, not surface way) communication.
Jan Senior
Two schools that I have worked with or am currently working in have addressed the training and familiarisation of staff and students with hardware software skills, processes etc in different ways.
SCHOOL 1
The school budgeted to employ a consultant/teacher .6. There is a network of 15 computers in the library as a Lab and each class has 2 computers networked to the Lab. There are also 5 laptops available for teachers to borrow to practise their skills at home. Each week the Assistant Principal & Principal gave each class teacher 1 half hour release with half of their grade to go the Lab for an intensive 30 minute teaching/hands on session with the Consultant. The teacher & the students then go back and run peer & teacher small group sessions with the other individuals in the class to teach the new skill, which was practised during the week. The next week the other half of the class go for the lesson. They started with simple skills and when I saw them last the Grade 3s were learning to develop their own Home Page. The consultant also ran a 'catch-up' for those teachers who needed more, one lunch time a week. The consultant and other knowledgeable teachers in the school are the 'trouble shooters'
SCHOOL 2
The school has a three-year plan committed to Learning Technologies. Each teacher has access to a computer at home provided by the school (programming and reports are all done on computer). Each classroom has 5 computers as well as 10 in the library - all networked. The school also has a class set of laptops with radio cards (meticulously stored in a metal cabinet with wheels, and maintained by each class who uses them) for whole class lessons. They have 3 scanners and 4 digital cameras - 2 of the newer floppy disk ones. They have several staff members who are very competent in assisting in trouble-shooting. The AP has one or two time slots allotted to assist with Learning Technologies class lessons. They also have a consultant who comes in once a week & teachers book time in their release to learn particular skills, sometimes booking individual or pairs of children in if there are time slots available. In addition, they have a computer technician who comes twice a week to fix any problems with the system (and there are plenty).
Inspiration, PowerPoint, Kid Pix, Web Page construction, spreadsheets etc are taught and used as part of the their integrated programs. Children at this school are the best teachers of the skills and processes! At the moment, one Year 3 teacher is pairing with the other Year 3 teacher (little computer knowledge); the knowledgeable teacher is conducting a class lesson on PowerPoint and then buddying the children and the other teacher with someone on a laptop and using 5 children from the grade who are competent to assist him to help all the other learners. It's interesting to see how they have to hold their hands onto their clothes so they don't take over the mouse when they are helping!! Every fortnight the staff have a compulsory LT Professional development for an hour after school, conducted by AP & Consultant.
As you can see by my descriptions I am a person who is still a learner. This type of staff access to equipment & training is what we'd all like to have available. But availability of time to play and explore is the big factor for teachers and students! The fact that the students at this school have so much exposure makes them great mentors for peers and teachers. It is a concern when you look at the enormous financial commitment that is needed to just keep up with change!! What happens to those schools without access to funds - does this become another area where they are disadvantaged?? What happens if you are a remote school? What happens if you don't have a 'computer whizz or whizzes' in your school?
Charles Morgan
Following my recent experience working with the high school teachers on ICTs, I am convinced of the importance of teachers' learning about their use in the context of their work. In my case, it was a group of English teachers who, in spite of "ongoing training", were fairly unconfident and unconvinced users. When they worked together with their colleagues to explore the possibilities offered by ICTs within their English programs, they began to engage in significant professional dialogue. The operational difficulties became less important. This happened partly because they were able to make individual decisions about what was useful and manageable to them and partly because they were working collaboratively with people who understood their pedagogical needs.
Pat Minton
I run workshops for teachers and parents of special need children and primary school children, showing software and discussing ways of using it, as well as alternative input devices. Much research and many observations have shown how children with a range of learning difficulties have benefited from using ICT in the curriculum providing the computer is used well. Good websites for articles and information are:
http://www.becta.org.uk
http://www.inclusive.co.uk
http:// www.semerc.comIf appropriate software is used, children can cognitively access the curriculum. For example a talking word processor such as Talking Textease does enhance all primary children's learning and enables many to make faster progress than they would do so otherwise. It is so easy to use but also powerful so children can concentrate on their writing. As it is also a multimedia, DTP and HTML program the possibilities for a wide range of use are many. It is quite amazing how children who can't see their mistakes can hear them and from then on really begin to make much better progress. It also seems to give them confidence.
An overlay board (A3 size) enables children with difficulties to write more and produce work of a higher quality. More recently 'on screen grids', as an alternative to an overlay board, have been developed to provide support for early learning as well as for older children. I notice that special needs teachers often use multi-media software to support a child’s writing and writing and allow a child to cognitively access the curriculum. They also use programs which incorporate content, such as Granny's Garden and Teacher's Cupboard 2000. Software like can lead to excellent learning outcomes because the children are motivated. Yet they are using higher order thinking skills without realising it.
I have been interested in the diversity of topics raised in this forum since I introduced the topics of 'access' and 'disadvantage'. I'd like now to respond to the point about 'professional learning' and teacher support raised by Charles Morgan and others. I want to tell you about some of the findings of school-based research undertaken by my colleagues and I at the University of South Australia in collaboration with the Commonwealth Literacy Program Team, Equity Standards in the Department of Education Training and Employment (DETE). This research was known as the IT, Literacy and Educational Disadvantage Project or ITLED.
The research focussed on the gradual take up of ICTs within mainstream schooling and literacy education. It was undertaken between mid 1998 and mid 1999 in six South Australian schools serving communities living in poverty. University researchers worked with teacher and student researchers to explore and document what happened when teachers designed a curriculum that attempted to link together and address issues relating to the new technologies, literacy and educational disadvantage (Comber & Green, 1999).
Some of the findings from ITLED extend and confirm the findings of a DEETYA National Children's Literacy Project reported in 1997 as Digital Rhetorics (Lankshear, Bigum et al, 1997; see also Lankshear, Snyder & Green, 2000). All the evidence that we have from both projects suggests that for teachers new to using ICTs in the literacy curriculum, there are several common themes. In the ITLED project it was reported that when teachers begin to work with ICTs:
- New issues of behaviour management arise
- The demands of classroom organisation change
- Difficulties are caused by unreliable hardware and networks
- Teachers' and students' work changes in unpredictable ways
- The pedagogical relations change between teacher and student and between student and student.
- That they knew very little about the relationship between literacy acquisition and ICTs
- That they lacked knowledge about the most appropriate uses of IT in different school subjects
- That they needed increased access to ICTs and professional development in how to use them
- That they were uncertain about where they could turn to find answers to the questions they had (Comber & Green, 1999).
This school-based research focussed on the new and complex challenges facing teachers in schools today, particularly those working in the public sector. However, it also raises complex and ongoing challenges for researchers and educational administrators. First there is the problem of finding the resources required to address teachers' uncertainties and needs. Second, there is the difficulty of actually carrying out further research into the questions teachers have. The research itself is expensive and time-consuming. It requires financial and personal commitment. It is complex and there are few precedents. Participants are often working in difficult circumstances in unpredictable conditions. The entire collaborative research enterprise is challenging for both teachers and university researchers because we are living in a period of uncertainty, instability and transition; our work has become increasingly intensified; and we are constantly battling the effects of dwindling resources. This makes the work at once exciting and anxiety-producing (Nixon, 1998). I'd be interested to hear how individual teachers and researchers have been dealing with such challenges in their recent work.
Brendan Hodge
In response to your question of how remote schools deal with LT and IT, the short answer is that we (in remote Aboriginal communities) have more funds that we can poke an IBM approved 'mouse' at. Most of the remote Aboriginal schools I am aware of have funds to gain a vast array of LTs. It all varies from Principal to Principal in how they will spend those funds, and how much interest they have in LT and IT. At my school we have approx 20 students and 13 computers. The school is networked. We have two digital cameras, colour printers and scanners. The main issue arising from this is accessing PD (without breaking the budget), and constant follow-up. We seem to share a lot of the same problems that many of the other mainstream schools are experiencing (Teacher acceptance and utilisation of LT and IT). One main gripe I do have though is how to link CD-ROMs in with the teacher's programs. As I see it, you either revolve your program around the CD-ROM, or you use it totally externally, and then it becomes simply a fill-in between activities.
I want to summarise some of the key points that have been made by participants in response to the introduction of the topics 'access' and 'disadvantage' and then suggest other topics we might explore.
I'll begin with the topic of 'access'. It seems from people's posts to the forum that when we talk of 'access' we refer to more than mere 'access to machines'. We also refer to the need for 'access' to technical support and professional development that can assist us to make our use of ICTs in the curriculum challenging and purposeful. Most often mentioned were (a) time for teachers to explore and practice, (b) time to share ideas in the context of teachers' work, and (c) the need to have good technical support.
I am reminded of Burbules and Callister's (2000) recent argument about the complexity of 'access' in relation to ICTs. They argue that there are four 'levels' of provision of access. These are:
1. technical access: to a computer and internet connection (including dilemmas of cost);
2. the development of skills, attitudes and dispositions that are necessary for the effective use of that equipment (people have different orientations to machines and different levels of tolerance for uncertainty, frustration and trial and error);
3. practical access: conditions and criteria or sets of circumstances that differentiate, in practice, who can actually make use of the new technologies and who cannot (some groups are systematically advantaged on the basis of social class, occupation, sex, race, the amount of discretionary time they have, and so on);
4. issues of form and content in relation to computing and the online environment that affect people's use (certain modes of thinking are privileged by computer programs, not everyone responds well to the lateral lines of association of hypertext, the openness of the internet may expose people to harassment, unwanted solicitations, and offensive material).
Burbules and Callister begin from the assumption that as ICTs become "more important for educational opportunities and economic, political, social and cultural participation, exclusion from this realm will mean severely limited life chances of many sorts". However, they suggest that the challenges of the first two levels of access are so complex and costly that they doubt whether it is a price that society and educational institutions are truly prepared to pay. And the third and fourth levels of access raise other issues and paradoxes that, they suggest, "may not be 'solvable' in any apparent way". That is, they argue that it may be that the goal of universal access can never be achieved. I believe this is a very provocative argument and one that is rarely engaged with in educational discourses.
I turn now to questions of 'disadvantage'. Some people pointed out the clear gains that have been made when teachers use ICTs with students living with various forms of disability. Many people also pointed to the varied skills, dispositions and knowledges of students and teachers in relation to ICTs. This has meant that new pedagogical relations between teacher and student and student and student have been established in some classrooms. However, these varied skills, dispositions and knowledges of teachers and students, when combined with variations in levels of access, mean that we may also need to be on the lookout for the ways that current conditions may be producing new forms of inclusive and exclusive practices - and hence new forms of advantage and disadvantage - both inside and outside schools.
I'm now hoping to turn the forum discussion more directly to the topic we might call 'literacy'. I'll list the points made to date in the form of new questions that people might like to respond to:
* How is the spread of ICTs changing the texts we read and write and the ways we communicate with others?
* What kinds of reading, talking, listening and writing goes on around the use of ICTs and the production of multimedia texts?
* What might 'authentic' and 'deep' communication using ICTs look like?
* How and why might literacy teachers tap in to what children already know and value in relation to ICTs?
Helen, you have posed very good questions about literacy and ICTs. I know I am grappling with the answers and have very superficial ones which bothers me. I think the answers connect to your earlier statements about access. I am noticing different outcomes for students related to the access they have and the skill of the teacher. It would be pleasing to see us taking the understandings we have about literacy learning and pedagogy and incorporating ICTs, but at the same time being sensitive enough to see how they interact and what changes or needs to change.
Helen
NixonI think this is the clue: we need to try to think these things together, all the while acknowledging that this will be difficult as it involves new ways of conceptualising technology, literacy and teaching. With so many things changing at once it is very difficult to 'step outside' and think critically about how textual practices and reading and writing might be changing very drastically now that ICTs and new media are part of everyday literate practice.
Anne McNamara
I recently watched a group of primary students composing letters for parents and community members which needed to include a table of information. They helped each other with wording and with technical detail. The conversation went along the lines, "I tried that at home and my dad said....." The speed with which wording and the table could be changed was very satisfying and the students were impressed with the quality of their final presentation. Much editing and proofreading occurred during the process rather than at the end of the process and students with different abilities were able to make strong contributions during the process. When the access is relatively easy and the technical side is under control great things happen. There are so many aspects to the questions Helen has raised.
Carol Myers
I agree. I am very interested in the point Helen raised from the project around the implication for literacy learning and ICTs. I don't think we have had a great number of conversations about this, globally. I have just returned from looking at a Canadian middle school project. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The access and range of technologies I saw is every teacher’s dream - interactive white boards, editing rooms, recording rooms, PowerPoint projectors in every room, surplus of computers etc. The political nature of these schools aside, the teachers are doing a wonderful job utilising the technology and are being inserviced (system as well as school-based), but they are really not talking about the implications of how we teach and how students learn as a result of ICTs. How has text changed? What counts as texts in our classrooms? How is reading and writing different on line? How does that change the way we need to think about education for the 21st century?
From there I attended an International literacy conference in America. There was little talk about these issues. How do we start these conversations? How do we get beyond the 'how to' of ICT and look at the implications of what this means for us as educators in the 21st century?
Like Carol I am keen to participate in conversations that "get beyond the 'how to' of ICTs". Like her, I think that this is not very easy to achieve. In an attempt to get this going, I want to make a short contribution about literacy and ICTs by referring to a book about 'text' and 'reading' that has recently come to my attention. While I'm going to make only two relatively small points, I think they hint at the potential enormity of the implications for 'literacy' of the integration of ICTs into everyday life.
Firstly, I want to draw your attention to what Birkerts (1998) describes as the different 'spaces' or 'subjective cognitive environments' created by book technologies and electronic technologies. What does he mean by this? Birkerts argues that when we occupy book or print space we are 'pledged to a single purpose' and 'refined in our attention'. It is clear where the 'book stops and the rest of the world takes up again'. This is in part due to the form of the book as technology: 'we hold the shell, the weight and mass of the volume as an anchor’.
In contrast, we perceive the space of electronic information as 'bottomless'. He writes that in this electronic space: 'a track ends not of its own accord, but when one decides to stop following it.' Here, unlike in the space of book technology: ‘There is no clear sense of a ledge. Knowledge, or any contents, are not figured as existing in space (on page 68, second volume, third edition) but retraceable only as a set of coordinates, commands. One does not find things again so much as they are recreated - brought back into being — upon demand.’
‘One effect of this is that we are always aware that: screen contents, those representing and serving knowledge are part of the larger stream of all digitised information ... always adjacent to everything in the way that the contents of bound volumes simply are not. This adjaceny is, of course, merely potential, but the awareness of potentiality has everything to do with how we process information.’
The second point I want to make from the same book is made by media theorist Colin MacCabe (1998). He argues that while 'text' may operate in isolation in terms of print culture, in today's 'screen environments' that are multimodal, 'text' is always placed in a field of other media. One effect of this is that whereas in print culture students engage with 'text' that is linear, demarced and fixed, in screen environments students engage with mixed audio-visual and textual forms that comprise some 'new zone of interaction that teachers can only partly control'.
Patricia Corby
The query of what now constitutes text in our classrooms is a very interesting one. I find the idea of the width and breadth of the net being greater than the parameters of a book really rather splendid as it can encourage kids to constantly seek more - learning is a life long process, we never stop being a learner.
I want to open up once again the topic of how we might be able to broaden the 'access' to, and cater for the diversity of, the widest range of students in our literacy-technology classes.
Bruce and Levin (1997) have helped me conceptualise aspects of the complexity of what we are working with when we try to bring together literacy and technology in the classroom. They write that educational technologies of any kind, including ICTs, work in at least four ways: as media for inquiry, for communication, for construction and for expression. I find this useful on a number of counts. It provides a framework that could help teachers rationalise how they might integrate ICTs into the learning areas. Second, it provides at least four ways of conceptualising the kind of 'learning' that we might want students to engage in when using ICTs. Third, it provides descriptors for the different ways that different students might work best with ICTs. Finally, it highlights two aspects of what we traditionally think of as part of the literacy and English curriculum: communication and expression. Several important questions follow: How might we encourage the diversity of our students to use ICTs for communication and expression? Which of these activities requires different skills or produces different products than communication and expression in print?
In this context I also want to raise Gunther Kress's (2000) concept of 'communicational webs'. Kress argues in today’s media saturated world we experience communication in new ‘communicational webs’. These communicational webs have implications for how young people become literate, and for how educators might need to design future curriculum. Kress illustrates his notion of communicational webs using a description of the communication and literacy practices of a 12-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister. He writes:
‘The 12 year old boy who spends much of his leisure time either by himself or with friends in front of a playstation, lives in a communicational web structured by a variety of media of communication and of modes of communication. In that, the ‘screen’ may be becoming dominant, whether that of the TV or of the PC, and may be coming to restructure the ‘page’. The visual mode may be coming to have priority over the written, while language-as-speech has newer functions in relation to all of these. The media in this web would be TV, PC, playstation, magazine, book, talk and Internet web sites. The modes of communication would be, probably dominantly, image, then writing, then talk. In contrast, the 12 year old’s 10 year old sister is likely to live in a quite differently structured communicational web; yes TV and PC figure, but quite differently. Instead of the books on science fiction (derived from playstation games) or books on games themselves, there might be much more conventional narratives, and the magazines might be absent. Talk would figure more prominently, as would play of a self-initiated kind.’ (Kress, 2000, p. 143)
Kress points out that the communicational webs of school and beyond school would also differ, perhaps more so for the 12 year old boy than the 10 year old girl. I want to make two points about this. Both pose challenges for the development of inclusive curriculum. Firstly, the communicational webs Kress describes are experienced outside rather than inside school. They are largely centred on the world of popular media culture, including digital technologies. Students will be differently positioned in relation to these worlds because of a multitude of factors. Secondly, Kress’s suggestion that communicational webs might be different for children of different ages, and for boys and girls, alerts us to the possibility that there may be different manifestations of age and gender inclusion and exclusion in ICT-mediated and learning contexts than there have been in traditional classrooms. The question is: should teachers - and if so how - try to take into account some of these facets of 'diversity' when they design curriculum?
Thanks for this, Helen. In response, I would like to share what happened to me last Friday when I was working again with the teachers I had talked about earlier in the forum. This is the group of wonderful English teachers who have been planning units and sequences of work incorporating ICTs. Again the teachers worked really productively, but ended up using the web mainly to find teaching ideas and resources to incorporate into their work. They did not fully explore the possibilities of using ICTs for creative or communicative purposes. They had great conversations about educational intentions and pedagogy and came up with some terrific units and sequences of work. I wondered why they again did not really exploit the ICT possibilities. Part of this had to do with the school internet line which operated as though immersed in sump oil. But it was obviously more than this. When I read Helen's message, I think I may have found a possible answer! What was missing I think was a framework to help them rationalise how they might integrate ICTs. I really find useful Bruce and Levin's conceptualisation of ICTs as working in 4 ways: media for inquiry, communication, construction and expression. I think teachers will connect with this framework. I also think that what Kress is saying about the different "communication webs" used by the girl and boy (and students at different ages) in his research is really important. I think we must seriously consider these facets of diversity when we design literacy curriculum. All this presents a special challenge to those of us who work in professional learning.
I think the ideas of Bruce and Levin and Gunther Kress contribute importantly to our deepening understanding of the pedagogical challenges and possibilities that come when we incorporate ICTs into our work.
Helen
NixonI have to say I have only met the Bruce and Levin’s concept in theory and I'm only suggesting it as a possibly useful framework. I haven't seen it in operation. However, I am hoping to work with some middle schooling teachers next year on how they might explore 'communication and expression' using ICTs.
Yesterday I spoke with a consultant at our SA Technology School of the Future (Lee Sansom) who has been working with upper primary students and their teacher on the Mystery Under the Microscope Program which teachers in this forum may know better than I do .
The topic was "Water Catchment" and students had to follow up the regular clues that are provided as part of this program to 'solve the mystery'. It sounds like a fun way of providing students with scaffolding to do guided research. Anyway, for their final presentation - the communication of an argument using ICTS - I saw the product they had made: a video using digital camera, integration of sound and drawing, maps, and so forth, all designed around a theme of a 'mission impossible’. The 'story' line they used was the setting up of a 'mission' which was to go 'back in time' to the year 2000, find out how people had allowed the local water catchment area to get into such a mess, and tell them what they should do in order to avoid it becoming the disaster it had by the year 2050.
Obviously I can't do the process justice as I was not involved. However, having talked to Lee and having seen the product, I can say that when given support students can devise very sophisticated ways of using ICTs to 'communicate ' what they've found out, and to 'persuade' others of the value of their findings or opinions. Part of this support is familiar to all teachers: assistance for students to do their step-by-step planning and to articulate what they are trying to achieve and why and how they might go about doing it. Another part of this support is less familiar to many teachers: how to assist students to use ICTs to carry out in practice the great ideas they can imagine using the technologies for as part of their learning.
For some of the work done at the Technology School of the Future see: http://www.tsof.edu.au
Charles Morgan
I would like to share two ideas to help students use ICTs for creative and communicative purposes.
1. Portrait Gallery: This project was open to all Tasmanian students and was also part of Literacy/Education Week. Students undertook a self portrait and emailed it as a .jpeg file to an Online Portrait Gallery. The image had to be accompanied by a written statement not exceeding fifty words, addressing the key questions: Who am I? Where am I now? Where am I going?
2. Media Postcards: This is an ongoing statewide Arts initiative in which students produce a short video which explores a theme. Students produce a video not exceeding 3 minutes and share their work with other participating schools around the state. The initial theme was: "Who are we? Where are we now? Where are we going?" There were some stunning videos produced about the towns in which students lived. A lot of schools in settings of poverty were involved. Last year's theme was "Tasmanian Icons - a postcard to the new millennium". This year's theme is "Tales and Truths for the 21st century".
Once videos have been submitted, they are compiled onto master tapes for distribution to each participating school. Students and staff are then asked to view the work critically and complete a voting form. An awards ceremony is held in which "Posties" are awarded to successful schools in each category.
I think there are wonderful possibilities here for teachers to incorporate ICTs into their work. I am more convinced than ever of the need to bring the Arts, English and Literacy closer together!
I strongly agree! I want to end this forum by pointing to the work of teachers and artists who have been working in the area of digital arts in the UK . This work is collected in a book that I have read and enjoyed that shows teachers and artists working with students across the year levels and across the learning areas using ICTs.
The book is: Sefton-Green, J. (Ed.). (1999). Young people, creativity and new technologies: The challenge of digital arts. London and New York: Routledge. The URL associated with the book is:
http://www.challenge-digital-art.co.uk/
Also see the web site of Sefton-Green's workplace where you will find short pieces of young people's digital art work created in out-of-school courses. There are some interesting connections to be made with the Online Portrait Gallery task that Charles described.
Sefton-Green works at:
WAC Performing Arts and Media College
Interchange Studios
London NW5 3NQ
The web site is at: http://www.wac.co.uk/jsgFor Sefton-Green's excellent and recently published rationale for thinking together new media and English education, see: Sefton-Green, J. (2000). Beyond school: futures for English and media. English in Australia (127-128), 14-23.
I am now off on sabbatical for a few months and will be in London based at David Buckingham's Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media at the Institute of Education, University of London. I also hope to see Sefton-Green's Performing Arts and Media College in action. From there I will continue to follow the ALEA tsig with interest.
Many thank, Charles, for inviting me to host the forum and for providing such an excellent resource for teachers.
Johanna Scott
Helen, thanks for leading this forum. I think I speak on behalf of the many who have followed this discussion without actively contributing when I say that I found the forum thought-provoking and liked the way it challenged us to examine ways ICTs are and can be used to enhance learning. There are many leads for us to follow. All the best for your sabbatical. Sounds wonderful.
Charles Morgan
I would like to take the opportunity to endorse Johanna's comments. On re-reading the discussion from beginning to end I must say I am greatly impressed by the quality of the contributions, the natural ebb and flow of the conversation and the user-friendly style that is so characteristic of this medium. This was made possible through Helen's deep understanding of the issues and her highly professional and supportive approach. She is clearly an outstanding educator.
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