Thai Educators Network

Employing Technology in Teaching
Harvey Taylor
ses-edu.com

Harvey Taylor, former network and systems engineer turned educator, presented a multitude of practical ideas on the use of IT in the educational arena.

Beginning with the evolution and incorporation of technology into mainstream teaching, Harvey’s talk led the audience through

• problems and dangers
• technology in education
• tomorrow’s world

Following a brief IT history, Harvey touched on social, moral and legal considerations related to children using adult technology and rules for teachers.

Among questions asked, Harvey dealt with whether teachers should give out mobile numbers or let students add you on Facebook? Harvey’s answer to the later was to suggest that teachers should only let a student add them on Facebook after they have ceased being a student and have left the school.

Dangers

In terms of dangers, Harvey talked about the unfortunate trend towards ‘Cyberbullying’ “use of the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones by a child, pre-teen or teen to torment, threaten, harass, humiliate or embarrass another child, pre-teen or teen” (UNESCO)

He then presented some rather shocking statistics that in the UK, 22 per cent of children and young people claim to have been the target of cyberbullying, while it is closer to one-third in the USA: (Pew Internet & American Life Project 2007)

Harvey added that teachers can also be bullied, as witnessed, he suggested with the very popular site: ratemyteacher.com

He then continued his journey into problems associated with IT and moved into plagiarism and IP violations citing some rather alarming statistics, “almost half of Britain’s universities (out of a survey of 64 institutions) reported plagiarism” Tysome, T. (2005) Fraud booms worldwide Times Higher Education 5 August "On most campuses, 70% of students admit to some cheating. Close to one-quarter of the participating students admitted to serious test cheating in the past year and half admitted to one or more instances of serious cheating on written assignments." McCabe, D. L. (June, 2005) CAI Research Center for Academic Integrity http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research.asp

Can you remember when you actually wanted to research something, or check something? Where did you used to go:” Harvey asked, and then answered, “I am sure we all used to go off to the local library, take some books down off the shelves and look through them for the information/facts that we needed. Now, everything is available at the click of a mouse and a couple of taps of the keyboard to find Google and Wikipedia

With these sites using the same sources, he continued, how reliable and balanced is the information and does it come with any hidden agendas we as teachers need to know about and ties directly to the idea of a devaluation in the currency of knowledge.

IT as teaching tools

The use of technologies such as the Internet as a teaching tool in schools is not the issue now, rather how to employ technology and new opportunities to promote positive learning experiences.

In providing tools for inquiry, internet makes it possible to find sources of information suitable to a task, working to understand resources and how they might relate to a task, and if possible how to use this understanding. The Internet enhances acquisition by assisting students access to resources including experts, thus exposure to the external world helps students to face an ever-changing world.

In providing tools for communication, internet is a tool for rapid communication and can involve communication with students and professionals in different countries cultures.

In providing tools for construction, internet promotes learning through authentic learning activities. For example students can demonstrate conceptual understanding by building products such as web pages. In these activities learners control their learning progress based on their experiences and expertise. Learners can access resources at their pace and enjoy interactions with information.

IT for Teachers

Harvey then reviewed benefits teachers can gain from IT and an ability to use IT, in terms of the multitude of administrative work most teachers find boring and repetitive: keeping attendance, report writing, test administration and marking and talked in detail about ‘Moodle’ a free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvCIv5KCbeE&feature=player_embedded#

IT for students

Students, Harvey shared with us, based on his own experience, enjoy Podcasts and Vodcasts and are great for lectures, presenting material and for revision.

Harvey also talked about clickers, a hand-held device about the size of a TV remote control allows instantaneous electronic "conversation" between students and instructors using technology to transmit and record student responses to questions.

Providing non-confrontational method for students to show they are engaged and for the teacher to know if students understand what they are trying to teach, Harvey wondered when the might arrive in Thailand.

Twitter could be used in an academic setting to develop interaction about a given topic and could prove useful as metacognition, the practice of thinking about and reflecting on your learning, has been shown to benefit from comprehension and retention.

As a tool for students to compare thoughts about a topic, Twitter forces users to be brief, an important skill in thinking clearly and communicating effectively. In addition, Twitter can provide a simple way for students to share thoughts about particular sessions and activities with others.

Wikis, web pages that can be viewed and changed by anyone with a browser and internet access allow students to make changes to whatever content they want and then see the results of their actions almost instantly. http://www.pmwiki.org/

An interesting talk, it became very clear Harvey knows IT, education and how the two can be combined to help students learn and more importantly, enjoy their learning.