In the spirit of encouraging debate and discussion this blog post is going to be a good old game of ‘Would you Rather?’...
To play the game you must assume that you can only have one or the other choice in each scenario AND it counts both inside and outside the College walls (so think about wider impact of your decisions)! OK... here we go...
Would you rather... every student in your class had an iPad OR they were able to sit in groups and work collaboratively on a project?
On the plus side every student having an iPad in the current scenario would solve most of our information learning technology (ILT) woes. With most students sat in exam desk style classrooms they could engage in group work projects through collaboration tools such as OneDrive and the teacher could see live progress in the classroom. However, what about the communication skills that go alongside putting a group work project together? What about developing emotional intelligence? Being able to read another person when setting out roles and critiquing their work before hand in? Could you still do this via an iPad?
Would you rather... every student had a smart phone OR were able to articulately engage in class discussions?
Imagine a world where social media didn’t exist. We might decide that would be a blessing for the young people of today removing a lot of negative influence on their lives. But that would also mean removing their access to communicate with relatives and friends around the world or accessing a free internet where views and opinions can be analysed and discussed in the relative safety of an education setting. Whilst ILT resources such as Padlet / Genial.ly and Sli.do can encourage discussion in class can they really develop the critical thinking skills gained from an active class debate? You know the ones that go slightly off tangent to the lesson plan and where students leave the room learning a little about who they are and what beliefs they hold having looked someone of the opposite opinion in the eye and argued their point... but in the process considered another view.
Would you rather... every student could access Wi-Fi from anywhere OR were able to engage in collaborative practical learning activities?
On a positive note the argument for Wi-Fi would be the continuity and consistency of education regardless of what the next six months holds for us. The students would be able to access their learning from anywhere and we could all in theory work from home, perfect ...right? Except what about Edgar Dale’s ‘Cone of experience’, later re-visited by many practitioners as the ‘cone of learning’. If we spend the whole time focusing on remote delivery are, we disadvantaging the students long term learning? Surely, we must be able to learn by doing in order to embed the skills needed for industry. In the current climate how do we address this issue?
Now... I am not saying I am not an advocate for ILT to support delivery in the classroom, however, it seems that technology and ILT may be being used as a ‘quick fix’ for our current concerns about classroom delivery. We must make sure we are not giving our time with the students over to technology at the expense of the valuable soft skills that will make them successful in all aspects of their lives, even beyond education.
- Melanie Rogers
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