The business of this blog is the business of my job: software and digital media for learning.
I work for the e-Learning Team in the New Zealand Ministry of Education, and I manage a bunch of projects that contribute to building and sharing a picture of what effective teaching practice looks like using ICT.
At this early stage, I’m thinking this blog will focus on several of my keenest interests.
First, I’m interested in the effects that technology is having on young people outside school: the way they organise and connect with their friends and networks, the way they access information and research what’s important to their lives, and the way they consume and produce digital media.
I’m interested in the benefits that young people gain from their use of technology. I figure this might help explain why we in education should be concerned the rapid uptake of social networking sites, remixed digital content, video and image sharing, and any number of other emerging (and established) technologies.
This is my second interest: how we can bring these technologies into the classroom – in the words of Ewan McIntosh – to make learning even more extraordinary.
Through examples of what teachers and students are doing with ICT, I’m hoping to explore the characteristics of the learning that is occurring in these classrooms and understand the contribution it makes to fulfilling the vision in the New Zealand curriculum of young people who are confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners.
Finally, my third area of interest is what the adoption of ICT means for teaching practice.
I’m interested in the new practices and possibilities for teaching, but also in the dilemmas and tensions that need managing when teachers work with technology in the classroom.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a bit about the consequences and effects of our technology choices. This has come about mostly as a result of adding blogging, podcasting and other social software tools to the catalogue of software products on the Software for Learning website.
I’m convinced that technology is not purely instrumental – simply a means to an end. Technology forms us just as we form it. Neil Postman says (and thanks to Artichoke for drawing my attention to this quote):
New technologies alter the structure of our interests; the things we think about. They alter the character of our symbols; the things we think with. And they alter the nature of community: the area in which thoughts develop. (Technopoly, p20)
If technologies do these things – and I think they do – then technologies, consciously or unconsciously, engineer or promote certain social effects and relationships. When we use technology, we are implicated in those effects.
To make informed decisions about selecting and using ICT in the classroom, we need to ask ourselves how the design or ‘affordances’ of a technology will support the learning purpose and also what limitations or barriers it might create.
More on that in future posts …
Photo c Nathan Donaldson
This blog is very well designed. Great job!
Great to see this blog established Sarah – I’ll read with interest! Welcome to the blogosphere.
How fabulous to have a blog where we can have more focused conversations about technologies :) As a mother and a teacher I grapple with the effects of technologies on children and how they can be best used. at home I take control of technologies in an effort to bring the family into focus with simple ways of communicating like sitting down and talking with each other, which I believe is something that is being lost in the translation of technologies. A tactile way of communication. Yet I find it amusing that we as a family could be in different parts of the house and we can simply send each other a text to convey a request… “turn the music down please” :) with out having to remove myself from what i am doing :). As a teacher I relish in the fact that students can teach me so much, their ability to have a few simple instructions and run with their inquisitive minds exploring every aspect that technologies have to offer and they enjoy showing the teacher, the parent what they manage to investigate and manage.I find as a parent that it is imperative to take control of technologies at home as technologies can isolate people? I look forward to reading other peoples views and ideas on these topics :)
Hi Irka, Thanks for your comment! I think technology gives us a lot but it also does ‘take away’. Because it alters our environment and the way we communicate and even the way we think, there will always be benefits and disadvantages. Some research has just come out from the World Internet Project (of which New Zealand is a part) about the impact of the internet on social relationships – it’s interesting reading and I’ll put the findings up in a blog post soon. Cheers – Sarah