ICT and the VELS

"Through the selection and application of appropriate equipment, techniques and procedures, students learn to process data and information to create solutions to problems and information products that demonstrate their knowledge and understandings of the concepts, issues, relationships and processes related to all areas of learning" (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (2009). Information and Communications Technology, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development: Canberra)

This statement is central to the (sometimes quite complex) relationship between education and ICT, and the manner in which teachers are planning for and students are engaging with ICT in the classroom. It anticipates that students will – must? – learn to employ digital technologies as tools with which to build and demonstrate their learning. It’s looks really quite simple. The statement does not come without one primary source of controversy, however: are teachers (and students to a degree) focused on promoting deep learning through the use of these tools or are they more interested in promoting efficiency of action and ease of delivery?

David Nettelbeck states that “[teachers] tend to think that because computers can do amazing things, they must be good. Some teachers are easily seduced by the 'wow' factor, the more attractive presentations and the speed with which students can now do simple tasks, but we rarely stop to ask whether this new technology will actually encourage complex, critical, creative thinking. Are students also being seduced by the glamour or are their higher order thinking skills actually being challenged? (Nettelbeck, D. (2002). English in Australia, Vol. 134, pp78-85).

Nettelbeck’s concerns are real and valid. We must not ask that students simply use the tools available to present and process data in better, faster, prettier ways. Digital technologies provide great affordances, but the affordance that should be number one on our list is the opportunity for improved student learning.

Take the example of the book trailer task that I have set for the students in my Year 8 English classes (see previous post). This task directly responds to the requirements in the VELS statement quoted above: students are to learn, through the application of “appropriate equipment, techniques and procedures” (in this case: storyboarding; Windows MediaPlayer and Powerpoint; videorecorders etc), how to “create information products that demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the concepts, issues, relationships and processes” related to this area of study in their English course.

I would argue that with this task, and through their use of digital technologies as tools, the students are being encouraged to develop ‘complex, critical, creative thinking’, and have been engaged in a number of higher order thinking skills. Yes, this task requires that students learn and demonstrate comprehension of the novel (i.e. through recall and description of the characters, plot events, settings, and relationships). But they are also being asked to evaluate the book (in order to pitch it effectively in their trailer), identify the themes (in order to give their trailer an overarching idea), analyse the characters’ relationships, evaluate and make choices about the most important elements or themes of the book (in order to know what to include and omit in their book trailers) and, of course, they are being asked to create an original product in order to synthesise their understandings.

Taxonomy that! 

Problem is, student work revolving around ICT isn’t always organised in this way. Certainly, the student work I have set hasn’t always been organised in this way. Often, I have seen (or planned) lessons where ICT has been utilised by teachers to have students respond to lower order thinking skills in a whizz bang way. Or where students have never explored the higher order questions asked of them because of their wonderment with answering the simple questions in the most complex, overdone way possible (because they can, and because many students – just like many adults – can’t help themselves when let loose with a search engine and an unlimited download capacity).

Finally, then (for today's post anyway) it must be remembered, I think, that while, yes, we have some great tools at hand for using in the classroom, these tools must not be viewed merely as jumped-up textbooks, or expensive Filofaxes. Rather teachers must be able to see how they  can be used to enable deeper learning and greater engagement. As Deborah Cohen puts it: “to truly harness what technology has to offer to education…teachers need to understand and utilise the new evolving languages (written, spoken and visual), technology's capacity for engagement and creativity, [and] its multi-dimensional modes of delivery” (Cohen, (2007). ‘Cyberspace communication: the virtual worlds of teenagers’. In Idiom, Vol. 43(2), pp39-43).