Derek Owen’s Weblog
NEC news and other tech geekeryArchive for education
Mobiles as an educational tool
I wrote recently about an NEC-led future of education roundtable which took place at the O2 in July. At the event we discussed how teachers can better engage with students and how technology could and should be integrated into the teaching process to recognise the shift in this new generation of digital natives.
Strangely enough, this topic was at the heart of a recent BBC article, covered as part of the BBC’s School Report project.
Pupils at Marden High School in Tynemouth were surveyed about their mobile phone use, with the final results demonstrating just how pervasive technology is amongst today’s youth. Out of a survey group of 520 pupils only three didn’t carry mobile phones and most were using between £10 and £40 of credit each month.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction of teachers to this mobile phone epidemic was to err on the side of caution. Most teachers were concerned about the dangers of bullying, happyslapping and the inappropriate videoing of teachers and this seemed to be supported by anecdotal evidence provided from the pupils. As a result, at Marden High mobile phones are banned on school premises but even the Head Teacher David Stainhope was convinced that mobiles were still being used and that there was little that could be done to hold back the tide.
Funnily enough however, the school has realised that rather than adopting a see no evil, hear no evil approach and ignoring technology it needs to better integrate it into school life to manage the risks.
Children are being given advice on how to act if they are the victims of a mobile bullying campaign and most impressively teachers are even beginning to look at ways that mobiles can be used as educational tools.
What a remarkable and innovative approach. All hail Marsden High.
NEC Living, Learning Forum
Last week, on Thursday, I was able to participate in an NEC-hosted roundtable on the future of education, which took place at the O2 Arena.
The discussion at the event focused around the usage of technology in the UK education sector, from compulsory education through to higher stages of learning.
The roundtable brought together a wide spectrum of education specialists, and a student or two as well, to discuss the ways that technology can and should impact and influence teaching and learning.
Two speakers presented and sparked off the discussions: Nick Skelton, Residential & Mobile IT Manager from the University of Bristol and Ronan O’Beirne, Assistant Director of Learning Development at Bradford College.
Nick discussed how students preferred to be taught and communicated to, with most pupils stating a preference for being taught in their own style of language. Interestingly for an audience of digital natives, school children appear to value face to face interaction above that of interaction with technology.
The presentation covered the subject of higher education and the desire of higher education students to have lectures in a TV on demand structure, allowing them to fit lectures around their schedule and enabling them to pick and choose which lectures they want to attend or view. Nick then discussed the kinds of collaborative research and learning that have been enabled using online platforms and the benefits that these have brought in all areas of academia.
Following on from Nick’s presentation, Ronan opened up by considering learning from the perspective of social networking. He stated that it was important that any educational platform should enable learners who want to create content and upload work, to be able to. Students themselves are a learning resource and being able to network with other learners is a key part of the new education experience. Ronan admitted, however, that it was important with the broad quality spectrum of data sources available online that students were taught to improve their ability to trawl and filter data.
After Nick and Ronan’s presentations the conversations covered other ground, including:
· How do we make sure that we don’t push education on pupils in their online comfort zones?
· How do we personalise teaching to suit the strengths of students?
· How do you manage the balance between encouraging online learning and restricting access to unsuitable content?
· Is online learning detrimental to the development of socialising skills?
The event was a great forum for sharing ideas and, more prominently, questions. It’s something I’m definitely keen to repeat and I think all of the attendees learnt a lot from the discussions.
