Well, I've just finished an epic literature review for my English teaching method subject. In a very topical move (*pats self on back*), I looked at the factors that are involved in English teachers' engagement with digital technologies and literacies in the secondary English classroom (this also extends on the conversation I started in an earlier post on the relationship between ICT and English). This is especially interesting to think about in the era of the new National Curriculum, which so deeply embeds teaching and learning with and about digital technologies (and, in this regard, is so unlike VELS, which 'tacks on' ICT as a something separate or 'additional', rather than integral). Here's two of the interesting things I now know:
- a teachers' sense of their subject's underlying ideologies or rationales are going to play a significant role in how they view the use of digital technologies in the classroom. It's particularly interesting to see how this plays out in the context of subject-English as things like face-to-face discussion and debate, books and handwriting are highly valued by most (all?) English teachers and digital technologies and literacies can be seen by teachers as a threat to these things;
- although most authors advocate the use of constructivist pedagogies when teaching with and about digital technologies, and really emphasise the importance of collaborative learning and critical thinking, the research shows that many English teachers do not adapt their pedagogy in any meaningful or purposeful way when using technologies in the classroom.
It would be interesting to know more about the kinds of factors that are in play in other teaching domains, particularly, I think, the humanities and sciences (where, like English, it seems so crucial for teachers to be at the forefront of the kinds of teaching and learning that digital technologies demand and enable).
Any thoughts from anyone out there in the ether...?
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