Teaching And Learning And Ict’s: Alan Amory Sarah Gravett Duan Van Der Westhuizen Faculty Of Education

Teaching and Learning and ICT’s Alan Amory Sarah Gravett Duan van der Westhuizen Faculty of Education

Preparing students for a rapidly changing world: “Learning to be”

• A “world without stable meanings:

– uncertainty, ambiguity and contestability come to the fore” (Barnett & Hallman, 1999: 145)

• Develop their capabilities for “seeing” and thinking in effective ways (two types of learning): – learning about - facts, concepts and procedures (tacit knowledge – answer what question) – learning to be – knowledge, skills, values, solve problems (explicit knowledge - answer how question) • Knowing is a process, not a product • Education is not about transmission-of-knowledge

From information to knowledge • Higher education is viewed – a production of little living libraries and “info-delivery”, – learning as “info-consumption” – assessment as “info-replication”

• Learning takes place when one acts on the content, shapes it and forms it – – Content is the clay or medium of knowledge construction

• Learning experience leads to personal knowledge • Education should foster of deep and meaningful learning and learning to be (personal knowledge)

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Teaching as a Learning activity design: Foster deep learning

View students as individuals Teacher beliefs influence the way they teach Support educational practices Foster social cognition Define goals (content or technology) Emphasise the importance of context Create learning activities Provide support or tools Create opportunities for students to reflect Encourage dialog

Assessment of and for learning

• “… that it is not the curriculum which shapes assessment, but assessment which shapes the curriculum and embodies the purposes of higher education” (Brown & Knight, 1994:12) • Assessment that supports meaningful learning – – – – –

Be planned as an integral Show congruence Include tasks that are authentic Provide feedback to students Provide opportunities for peer and self-assessment • Bloom’s taxonomy

Digital natives • Grown up digitally – For example computers, cell phones, music, video, games, interactive TV, Mix-It, Facebook, bluetooth

• Today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors • “Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures” • “Likely that our students’ brains have physically changed – and are different from ours”

Digital natives (contd) • Students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet • Immigrants: turns to the Internet for information second rather than first, reads a manual rather than assuming that the program/device itself will teach you how to use it • Problem: Digital Immigrant teachers speak an outdated language and are struggling to teach those who speak an entirely new language.

Digital Immigrants • Believe learning takes place step by step, or sequentially • Believe learning can’t take place while the TV/IPOD is on • Don’t believe learning should be fun • Believe old teaching methods are still valid • “Smart adult immigrants accept that they don’t know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate. Not-so-smart (or not-soflexible) immigrants spend most of their time grousing about how good things were in the “old days”

• So: – Change thinking about METHOD of teaching – Change thinking about content

ICTs in Teaching and Learning

• Learning to speak digitally:

– Fosters skill development and nonlinear thinking, navigation in incongruent spaces, negotiation in complex environments, and complex story-telling (reflections)

• Learning to teach digital natives: – Students who grow up with digital tools and cultural artefacts (for example cell phone applications, virtual game worlds, and music sharing systems)

ICTs in Teaching and Learning (contd) • Learning to imagine by: – metaphor, multiplayer online games, simulations • construction of something new, and thereby transforms both the individual and the world they live in

• Learning to network: – Social networking in a complex tasks in order to solve a common problem

• Learning to share: – Rip and burn approach to music sharing is an example – Open Access-Open Source-Open Content movements provides that are based on individual freedoms that support human liberation

ICTs in Teaching and Learning (contd) • Information stream: – The delivery of learning resources and other necessary information pertinent/relevant to learning, research and administration

• Communication: – Both synchronous and asynchronous modes that make use increasing intelligent devices

• Collaboration: – Provide support for social networking and community building

ICTs in Teaching and Learning (contd) • Transformation: – Information transformed from one, or many, information streams into more meaningful individually or group constructed knowledge

• Professionalisation: – The use of technological tools associated directly with a profession (for example, the use of Computer Aided Design software by architecture students)

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Emerging Technologies Web 2.0 User Created Content – Audience listening and creating – Create collaborative, learner-authored resources open to public feedback

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Social Networking – Connect with friends, colleagues, or even total strangers who have a shared interest – Opportunity to contribute, share, communicate and collaborate

• Mobile Phones – Gateway to our digital lives and learning – Encourage creativity and mediamaking

• Virtual Worlds – Chance to collaborate, explore, role-play, and experience other situations in a safe but compelling way – Learn through simulations and role-playing

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Massively Multiplayer Educational Games – Engaging and absorbing but difficult to produce – Develop leadership and management skills and supports collaborative complex problem solving