Opinion Editorial: The future is here

Traditional teaching methods are fading as new technologies provide compelling, interactive, tailored lessons that engage tech-savvy students. Jane Mackarell showcases the skill of two award-winning teachers.

As published in the Spring 2009 issue of EQ Australia

As the Digital Education Revolution takes hold in Australia, we are at a critical turning point with technology on the cusp of transforming education in the same way it has transformed the business, entertainment and communication sectors. No longer is the debate centred on access to hardware and software for teachers and students, it is now about the use of ICT to develop course content and learning resources, and how it is an enabler of good pedagogy. The classroom of the future is here!

The most effective way to integrate new technologies into classroom practice is to encourage and support classroom experimentation with new applications, to enable collaborative teacher and student learning and to encourage inter-school cooperation.

Technology is transforming traditional teaching methods
There are already a number of Australian teachers leading the vanguard when it comes to ICT integration. South Australian teacher, Mark Sparvell was recently named Australia’s most innovative teacher when he was awarded the annual Microsoft Innovative Teachers Award for Australia for his inventive use of technology to help teach values and understanding among his students.

This award is a global program recognising teachers who have fused technology with progressive teaching methods to enhance student learning.

Imagine a group of high school students in South Australia explaining to a group of kindergarten kids in Western Australia what they understand ‘respect’ to mean. Imagine students from a primary school in South Australia explaining what makes a situation ‘fair’ or ‘unfair’ to students in Western Australia.

Mark, through his project titled Connecting Thinking, developed a unique learner management system, which enabled a community of learners and students in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia to share new learnings, explore values and grow understanding. By uploading existing tools, such as PowerPoint, to an eCollaborative environment called CENTRA, teachers and students could share, debate, question and confirm their thinking.

Mark organised an online discussion about fairness called, ‘A Fair Go’. The students were presented a video feed of Mark as convenor and a digital learning object from The Le@rning Federation about ‘rules’. The event began with the students adding ideas on a virtual whiteboard about what they thought ‘fairness’ means and they considered examples of when they felt something was unfair. The students collectively talked their way around to considering that sometimes individuals and groups are treated unfairly in order to achieve an equal outcome. It was the power of technology that allowed for the exploration of different scenarios, which helped Mark’s students strengthen their ability to see others’ points of view.

The development and nurturing of face-to-face and online professional communities like the one established by Mark, creates a professional discourse that helps build teacher confidence and develops a shared understanding of powerful pedagogies.

Queensland’s 2008 Innovative Teacher winner, Jason Evert, a teacher from Yarrabah State School was also recognised by being named ‘Best Change Agent’ across APAC in the same awards for his ‘Digital Dreaming’ project. Jason has been evolving the ‘Digital Dreaming’ project over the past seven years to engage his students and improve their learning and literacy skills.

Digital Dreaming
Technology is allowing a team of his students and teachers to record and animate Traditional Legends of the Gungandji and Yidinji people of the Yarrabah district in far North Queensland. The recording and animation of each story has been a significant learning experience for all involved, with students visiting sacred locations being mentored by both teachers and professional artists.

In its current form, Digital Dreaming is a Microsoft networked interactive software package that appears on the desktop of every computer in the school.

This project has benefited teachers as well as students as they strengthen their technology skills by supporting each other. Peer coaching is an educationally and cost effective mode of professional learning in ICT curriculum integration and the development of new pedagogical approaches.

It has also given Jason’s students huge insight into Indigenous culture and means that the collected stories have been recorded for posterity to share with future generations of Indigenous learners in the community.

An important element of the Innovative Teachers Awards is the recognition of the achievements of pioneers in education who work tirelessly to integrate technology into the curriculum and classroom. As the digital education revolution continues to build in momentum, projects like the ones completed by Jason and Mark will begin springing up in more and more schools across Australia.

ICT is a tool, not a subject!
New South Wales is laying the foundation for a new era in education as it announced in April 2009 the upcoming rollout of netbooks for its students and teachers. These devices are tools that allow students to tap into a wealth of information as well as accessing a rich variety of learning products. The power of technology lies in the fact that it can make learning interactive and fun, with students becoming so absorbed they don’t even realise how far they are advancing.

There are thousands of education focused software developers in Australia and around the world who create a rich variety of learning software products that any Australian school will be able to access once it is digitalised. Sabi, for example, is a US company that is infusing gaming with 21st century learning skills. It demonstrated one such game, Itzabitza, at the 2009 Interactive Learning in the Early Phase Conference in Australia (www.itzabitza.com).

Demonstrating that digital learning starts young these days, Itzabitza is a unique interactive drawing and creative thinking game for younger children. It gives children the power to turn their own drawings into interactive art while also enabling them to improve their reading comprehension skills. Children are able to connect that they read and what they draw.

As the expectation upon teachers to increase their IT skills and engage their digital natives grows, they will look for more ways in which to tailor and deliver rich, dynamic content to meet their students’ learning objectives. Semblio is an example of a Microsoft technology that offers teachers and students an easy way to author, assemble and publish highly interactive content

(www.microsoft.com/learningspace/semblio). It allows for the creation of rich, immersive multimedia learning materials that are highly interactive while fostering exploratory learning and collaboration. This allows teachers to meet the demand for more customised solutions, while still providing them with control over how the material is adapted.

With technology continuing to develop at rapid speed and permeating every aspect of daily life, it presents great opportunities and challenges for 21st century schooling and the design of learning spaces. It will become increasingly important for teachers and students to create online communities for students to interact and for teachers to share pedagogical best practice. Enrolment for the classroom of the future has begun.

*This article appeared in EQ Magazine’s Spring 2009 edition