inDEPTH
WHAT DOES TECH OFFER TEACHING?
Not so long ago, incorporating technology in your teaching may have meant tasking students with internet research. However, portable technology, apps and cloud-based computing have changed that forever. Sam Hart reports
Cameron Law igital literacy skills are fundamental to living and working in 21st century Britain. And, as society races towards an automated and virtual future, teachers are being urged to keep pace by increasing their use of digital technology in the classroom. Yet a 2015 report on the Learning
Technology Self-Assessment Project, commissioned by the Education and Training Foundation( ETF), showed that less than a fifth of colleges deliver at least 10 per cent of their learning online. It also reported that around 70 per cent of teachers lacked confidence in their own digital skills.
The 2014 report of the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group( Feltag) said that while further education providers and practitioners were keen to innovate, they needed a more strategic approach to professional development around learning technology, and to sharing ideas between practitioners and also sector leaders.
“ Staff capability is a challenge,” says Maren Deepwell, chief executive of the Association for Learning Technology, who contributed to the original Feltag report.
“ We now have an ambition to use technology everywhere in all classes, and that requires specialist skills.
“ ICT leads, and learning technology professionals more generally, have a crucial role in empowering teachers to upskill themselves and their learners, and in informing and advising senior management.”
The need is pressing as learning technology has already gone far beyond Google searches or using the occasional app, and is radically transforming the ways in which teaching, learning and assessment are able to take place.
Tony Gilbert, a computing lecturer and the Intel educational visionary and ambassador at New College Swindon, says:“ I strongly believe that the
‘ standing at the front’ teaching method will be gone in a few years.
“ There will still be a role for teachers, but we are going to be more about facilitating learning.”
Jon Cummins, commercial director at the Learning Curve Group( LCG), which has pioneered online and distance learning since 2004, says:“ LCG has seen a steady rise in learners moving away from paper-based to online learning, and over the next 10 years we anticipate that the trend will continue.
“ It can be expected that tools such as video conferencing, video tutorials for practical understanding and embedding of skills, and mobile applications, will be more commonly used in the delivery and assessment of learning.”
However, there are concerns that a technologydriven future will mean the loss of key social aspects of learning. And, of course, teachers struggle daily with students who use their devices for everything except learning.
Behaviour Tsar Tom Bennett’ s recent report, Creating a Culture: How school leaders can optimise behaviour, recommends restricting mobile phone use. He cites a school in Ebbsfleet, Kent, that saw its GCSE results improve dramatically after banning electronic devices from learning sessions.
But, for tech missionaries like Gilbert, any talk of banning phones is swimming against the tide. He argues that there needs to be a radical and rapid shift in thinking.
“ We need to be embracing and working with technology rather than trying to ban it from the classroom. It can be a huge asset in how we plan and assess learning,” he says.
Technology can also aid inclusion says Tom Andrew, the learning technology and innovation coordinator at Aylesbury College.
“ Remote learning and blended learning can be a way to ensure that hard-to-reach young
12 ISSUE 28 • SUMMER 2017 INTUITION