Obviously we need to use ICTs when teaching our students. It is essential in reaching out to their learning needs and preparing them for their digital future.
My professional background is working with children 5 yrs and younger in a childcare setting. It blows me away watching their little hands manipulate the mouse on their shared computer, and work through games with more skill than they have in holding a pencil.
I have learnt from Prensky [2001] that I am a 'digital immigrant' and I can still remember my first horrifying introduction to a computer. It was in year 6 in primary school and the big chunky box with buttons was manned by the principles wife with the aid of coke bottle glasses. We were taken one by one to meet this alien thing and were shown that it could type without the use of a typewriter. Amazing! Oh, and you didn't have to slam the buttons down to make the letters appear clearly on the screen. Of course it wasn't long before we were banned from going anywhere near it..
That was it though. I think that was all she thought it was useful for at that stage. So our school had a brand new fancy typewriter! It probably cost ten thousand dollars and the only interest we had in it was getting inside the 5 meter invisible barrier it was protected by.
Therefore I first learnt how to turn a computer on 6 years after high school. And that was an act of pure survival. I had to learn the language of my new country. Digital Australia. I struggled, had a sledge hammer ready incase it needed turning off in a hurry, phoned a friend and finally after a few months I was beginning to get the knack of it. All of this time I was wishing that we were shown how to play a game on that big chunky box so that I could have developed an interest in something that was going to be so essential in my future.
That brings me to what I've learnt from reading about engagement theory. 'Relate-Create-Donate." Kearsly & Shneiderman [1999]. When I become a brilliant teacher who the children love learning from, I think I'll be using those basic principles of engaged learning. I will be encouraging them to collaborate and hash out a challenge of interest sharing each others individual strengths. I would then be encouraging them to pull it all together, [just say it's a play or a short skit] and present their talent to the world! [Their parents would be cool and give them permission to put it on u tube.] Talk about authentic assessment! I wonder how many hits they would get.
I have also learnt that the use of ICTs in learning can help tremendously in reaching our educationally isolated children, in particular our indigenous children. What I gathered from the David and Grose [2008] article, it is best practice to infuse indigenous perspectives so that they are part of the process with teaching and learning, making it a two way process and hence allowing meaningful engagement. With the use of ICTs more information is available for us to understand and learn about and from the oldest, still existing culture on the planet. This culture being more spoken word orientated than written word orientated could benefit in their learning by listening and watching through ICTs. It is a great way to reach the physically isolated as well.
We can't change the past but we can prepare our Indigenous children for the future. Their survival skill that got them this far are amazing and something we can learn a lot from, but now they are going to need more.
I've learnt a lot more about a lot of other stuff, but that will do for today as I fear the onset of cognitive overload.
Bye for now, Coreena.
