Don’t be technophobes, says Russell
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5 average rating | Comments (5)
Last Updated:
4 May, 2012
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News
Embrace pupils’ use of technology, don’t discourage it, he urges
Education secretary Michael Russell has told schools and local authorities to get over their technophobia and make smartphones and the other gadgets that pupils carry in their pockets a normal part of classroom learning.
It was “absolutely extraordinary to encourage use of ICT in schools but discourage the way individuals might access it elsewhere”, Mr Russell said.
There was palpable frustration among delegates and speakers at this week’s Learning Through Technology conference at the timorous approach by officialdom that was holding back many teachers. One prominent former education director branded the situation a “disgrace”.
Mr Russell described blocking the use of smartphones and tablets in school as “artificial” and said it put up barriers between children’s behaviour in and out of the classroom. He called on educators to “bridge the gap between home and school”.
“We should never limit and turn off potential,” Mr Russell said at the event in Edinburgh.
One delegate challenged Mr Russell’s support for Glow, the intranet for Scottish schools, arguing that it was a barrier to children accustomed to Facebook and Twitter.
“That’s a profound problem,” conceded Mr Russell, but he insisted that the forthcoming new version of Glow would have “an approach much closer to that open type of platform”.
He also promised that Glow would be opened up to further education colleges, after John McCann, director of next practice for Scotland’s Colleges, said: “One of the enduring moans of the college sector is that we have not been part of Glow.”
Access to technology at school level was being inhibited by a “draconian reaction” at national level to a handful of incidents where civil servants had lost laptops, East Lothian Council web officer David Gilmour told Mr Russell.
The education secretary said he too was sometimes frustrated by security levels and would prefer a “much more proportionate response”, including less complex password entry to Glow.
Websites popular with young people - such as Minecraft, LittleBigPlanet, Moshi Monsters, and even sometimes the BBC - were too often blocked, said Bruce Robertson, who spoke on behalf of Engage for Education.
“It’s a disgrace that public bodies are blocking learners’ access to these sites; that’s something that has to be addressed in the new generation of Glow and in our IT policies,” he said.
IT giant Apple was represented at the Holyrood Events conference by Janet Wozniak, a member of its worldwide IT and learning technologies group, who cited Harvard research identifying three steps to becoming a “digital school”: substitution, augmentation and redefinition.
Schools should be wary of substitution - doing the things they have always done but channelled into technology such as the iPad - as this added nothing to teaching and cost more.
But some schools adapted very quickly and reached the “redefinition” stage in two weeks. “Once teachers become digital teachers they can’t go back to being analogue teachers,” she said.
henry.hepburn@tess.co.uk
Sites to behold
The following sites should be accessible in schools, according to former education director Bruce Robertson:
LittleBigPlanet is described by its makers as “the manifested embodiment of your perfect dream world”. Initially created for the PlayStation 3 in 2008, the emphasis is on user-generated content.
Minecraft was created by Swedish independent games developer Markus Persson in 2009. Players use blocks to build “anything you can imagine”. In its “survival” mode they must fend off monsters and find food to stay alive.
Moshi Monsters is a social networking online game, targeted at primary-age children, which allows players to adopt their own monster. Each one has a unique personality that develops according to how it is cared for. The game was created in Britain in 2007 and has been described as “Facebook for kids”.
Original headline: Russell tells schools to get over technophobia
Comment (5)
Very true. Why ignore something which interests children and has the potential to stimulate and deepen their learning?
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12:47
27 April, 2012
btb07169
I'm just wondering, and perhaps I'm just too old at 32 to get 'it'. Whatever it may be, but what actually are kids learning by playing games 'fending off monsters and finding food to stay alive'? What is this preparing them for?
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18:19
27 April, 2012
readyfortheweekend
If only Bruce Robertson had been this keen to unblock websites when he was a Director of Education.
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22:59
27 April, 2012
chandler
readyfortheweekend is quite right to be sceptical. It's very easy to make glib statements about the use of different devices and access to popular websites being a good thing. But the basics haven't changed: what does the teacher want the student to learn as a result of this use of technology? The soundbites don't always get beyond criticising authorities for blocking social media sites and don't make enough of a case on learning and teaching grounds. Can't the same things be done in other ways, without the risks inherent in the approach being advocated at the conference? We have to move cautiously here.
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19:35
28 April, 2012
Robert Sim
Typical of Mike Russell, rush in like a reckless bear and tar everyone with the same brush, ignoring many of the positive ICT projects going on in our schools and LEA's. While I have no doubt that making suggestions like opening up Facebook access for a pupil's iPhone will score political points, the reality of how this actually 'greatly' benefits a child's education is up for debate.
My LEA has many examples of positive practice with ICT and we are rapidly embracing mobile technologies (both school owned and pupil owned). However, unlike Mike Russell we are working hard to ensure the hype matches the expectation and business need. Our pupils security and personal privacy are also key issues for us - it appears that these factors are something that Mike Russell seems to want to brush under the carpet.
The business case to prove that constanly being hooked to a tablet or smartphone througout the school day greatly enhances education is still to be proven. It's also a very dangerous strategy to take a very blase approach to the deployment of technology and the various implications that can arise - no doubt any fall out from this will be the 'responsibility' of the LEA's to resolve.
In general terms, I'm a big supporter of new technologies in Education and the benefits that can be derived. However, the business case has to be proven and tangible evidence provided to backup the hype and ultimately any expense to the tax payer.
It's time Mike Russell stopped acting like a geek drooling over the latest tech punted to him by corporate friends at Apple, MS, Google, and in turn paid much more focus to the business of education and how to apply these new technologies properly.
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15:51
1 May, 2012
glenthedog