Change, underestimated?

Over the weekend I read a Herald Article “are we getting stupider” I have not been able to find a link to the article but it is something that there is plenty of discussion about on the web. for example this from The New York Times.

In December, the National Center for Education Statistics published areport on adult literacy revealing that the number of college graduatesable to interpret complex texts proficiently had dropped since 1992from 40 percent to 31 percent.

A lot of these articles place blame on Google and in the case of the Herald article NCEA. This worries me, for it seems that there is a push for students to learn facts. I recall having to learn the capitals and countries of the world when I was in a particular class at Intermediate School. This makes me an asset in any pub quiz but as my wife tells me I am just full of useless information. So what are we to do in education do we continue to teach to the test as IB and Cambridge exams call for or is this an opportunity to use the new system and actually have some real change.

I recall this quote that two staff brought back from a differentiation conference “If we keep teaching our students the same way – and many keep on failing, who are the slow learners?”

The following table is copied from Andrew Churches Blog which also includes the tools with relation to Blooms revised taxonomy so have a look at what is available.

In the last week of school I made some comments about computers not really being about the programs on them rather the read/write web as being the future. The implications of the upcoming Microsoft deal with schools, whereby $33 Million will be spent on software over the next three years does get me thinking. Why do we as schools have to pay all this money, not just for Microsoft but also other companies when we are the ones who introduce students to the programs, effectively being the gateway for software companies.

With options such as Google Docs and open office there is no barrier to people having access to these programs for free. I am reminded of this when I see students with laptops doing their homework in word pad or Microsoft works because they cannot afford the upgrade to Office. As Teachers I believe we need to understand the tools available and use them as best we can.

Recently I have been using Freemind. This is Open Source (read Free) software for concept mapping. It also has the added bonus of integrating with Mindmeister which allows anyone with an account to edit the concept map live online.

The following video I came across thanks to Karl Fisch’s blog and is simply more food for Teachers looking for reasons to get Technology involved in their classroom.

When I see these changes in students lives I’m reminded by how different my 7 month old daughter views the world of technology.  A normal phone call for her is through the computer using iChat or Skype.  What will school be like for her?  Hopefully not exactly the same as it was for me.

After a discussion I had last week with PA regarding change in schools I got to thinking about what differences a student from forty years ago would find in today’s classroom. So what changes can we make? The following quote comes from DEMOS titled “Their Space: Education for a digital generation.” (thanks to DWenmoth for the link) this passage brings up two points, that school buildings still look the same and that teacher training has some way to come.

Understanding what drives and motivates young people is also
critical given the unprecedented commitment to the renewal
of our school building stock: capital investment is set to reach
£5.1 billion by 2006, and over the next ten to 15 years every
secondary school in the country will have been ‘transformed’. In
2005 this commitment was extended to primary schools.
Nevertheless, the level of investment so far in school buildings has
not led to consistently fresh interpretations of what schools could
look like. Most new buildings,modernisations and new blocks still
comprise a fairly traditional ‘boxes and corridors’ model of
education, determined by classrooms, in which the teacher’s
station is at the front, storage and computers go round the sides of
the rooms and desks are arranged in rows or banks.Over the last
ten years schools have also seen a massive investment in
hardware, but we have not seen the same level of investment in
teacher training to ensure that the hardware is being used to its
full potential, or in support for schools to really re-imagine the way that learning is organised.

So the challenge then is what can be done to improve in these two areas, is there a better way to set out a classroom or is the whole idea of rows or groups so entrenched in students minds that change is seen as too difficult. For some ideas on alternatives a google search of alternative classroom design turned up some interesting articles and links (NCEF).

The point about teacher training not keeping pace with advances in learning I have to agree with. I just hope that teachers will now be supported by the ICTPD project past three years and it doesn’t become just something we do for a few years and then consign to history.