Reflections

Travelling back home now and this is the first leg of that journey, Cincinnati to Los Angeles, in order to get a connection to Brisbane.

What of the Conference and our visit to St. Ursula’s? The Conference was a very strong affirmation for the way we are proposing to go at BBC. The message was very much that of “this is the way adolescents experience the world and if we want to make the educational experience, let alone the declarative and procedural knowledge, relevant for our students then we need to consider the educational experience that we offer.” Consideration of the educational experience that we offer goes beyond the idea of relevance, it also brings into consideration the question of the potential of a new paradigm, one which makes other things possible which are not in the current situation. In doing this we offer our teachers new opportunities in which to demonstrate their craft. In being able to do this our students are given expanding opportunities to learn and to become creative and innovative.

So what is this paradigm and where does the Tablet PC feature in this. It really centres on the process of learning. The teacher takes the student on a learning journey which in the the first instance is concerned with the affective and cognitive start-up elements. As we lead our students through this journey we rely on intuition and student feedback to get a sense of whether or not they have internalised the journey so far. If we were to leave them alone at any stage some could find their way back, others would be lost. How good would it be if we could, with certainty, know how far in the journey each individual student is. We work on the basis that they are all right behind us, but often times they are strung out along the route we have taken. So at this point any evaluation of learning needs to focus on the communication and auditing of learning. Teachers undertake their craft like any other professional; they have the craft modelled to them; then they practice, internalise and shape it. The extent of the shaping of the craft depends upon the flexibility that is afforded to the teacher. If there was a resource that:

allowed the teacher to save time;

allowed for the development of a methodology that replaces three or four current ones;

allows the teacher to achieve their objective in a smarter way not only by facilitating feedback on where the student is in the learning journey, but also is timely and targeted so that the point at which the student gets ‘lost’ in our journey can be apparent while he is still close to where you are.

.. then some greater flexibility is afforded. Such a resource is the Tablet PC and its key to assisting in all of the above lies in its flexibility.

There is the flexibility of moving around the class while responding to, monitoring, communicating and auditing the learning, simply because the teacher can hold the table in one hand and use the software through the pen in the other. Computer software designed to facilitate the means by which a teacher can communicate and audit learning does not allow this flexibility where the teacher needs to use the key board to operate it. It is necessary to be alongside students in the learning experience because teaching is also about relationships. It is important for teachers to vary their physical proximity to their students, but they also need to be able to operate the software identified as enabling them to communicate to individual students, and audit student learning. 

There is flexibility of the nature of this feedback; it can be recorded via the pen anywhere on the original document, just as we do with the paper submission, but we do not a physical proximity with the student to collect a submission; we do not need to juggle with the multiple pages involved; we do not need the physical proximity involved in order to return feedback; we still have a copy of the original – the student, we have the computer record of submissions and returns.  

There is flexibility and appropriateness in the nature of the response the student can give. He can type if he wishes, but he can also illustrate, annotate, sketch, respond quickly, use colour to code, emphasise, differentiate and highlight. He can customise the graphic organiser to the situation he is operating in. He can be creative in designing this. He can in his personalisation of his learning, individualise it.  He is mapping his learning so that if he needs to he can find his own way back. Notebook technology does not allow this to occur.

There is the flexibility for the student in the way he can interact with the stimulus employed by the teacher, or chosen by himself – any stimulus. We know that interaction with electronic paper can occur, we now know that interaction with visual media is possible – the ability to annotate not only on pictures and images but also on moving images (“videos”).

These flexibilities extend the parameters within which the teacher operates and as such, extends the opportunities to shape their teaching practice. Furthermore, the flexibilities extend to students. Their learning parameters have also been extended, and as such their opportunities to shape their learning is extended.

Matthew has already alluded to the idea that was put to us at the Conference dinner. that idea was that the Tablet PC should not be considered as a tool for learning, rather it is a workshop. There are many things that can come out of the application of the Tablet PC, just like the products from a workshop can vary according to the teaching task objective and the specifications involved. The materials that require crafting, shaping and empowering to be effective in society, the boys, remain the same. The craftsperson working on the materials, the teacher, remains the same; the environment in which this creative activity is ever evolving as are the tools employed. A “Tardis” like environment has been created which is expansive.

In the taxi Matthew and I surmised about another analogy which views the tablet PC as the “new oil” which gives greater capacity to the teaching “machine” and enables it to achieve teaching and learning objectives more efficiency, in less time and with better results.

The visit to St. Ursula’s Academy, was very refreshing. An independent Catholic Girls’  School founded by a society of nuns, which launched into the Tablet PC on the back of a rationale involving, in the main, an outcome that meant the girls would not have to carry heavy bags around the Academy with them. This is true, and is one of the outcomes of the 1:1 environment, but does not differentiate between the Tablet PC and the Notebook in this respect. So St. Ursula’s has discovered the opportunities and benefits of the Tablet PC as they have been using it. We come from a different track but walk together in our objectives.

The staff were good enough to share lunch with us and I was able to ask the questions that need to be asked when evaluating such a direction taken, (some four years ago). The PD was welcomed by staff, but what was also welcomed was the option available to use, or not use the software that was the subject of the PD. as in all situations like this, a process modelled needs to be understood through practice and practice takes time. We would not want to start driving on the road if the instructor went through the theory of driving only, and the driving test did not included a practical! So why should we expect teachers to immediately use software, in all its dimensions, that they are still coming to terms with? Practice, practice, practice is important. Then we can internalise and shape the application. Some of us are quicker learners than others in the context of computer technology. The early internalisers will utilise what they learnt earlier, and they become trailblazers who can advise us of the traps and pitfalls to avoid, show colleagues what can be done, how much the parameters of their practice can be expanded, how they can save time and relace three or four jobs at the expense of employing the Tablet PC. There will be some applications of the software that teachers will take up immediately because of the new paradigm. For example the use of computers means that students have an opportunity to be off task. The monitoring and restriction applications of DyKnow will need to be employed to allow the teacher to be “in control”.

Teachers talked about transferring their…

As with most things in the education world, my space to reflect came to an end, so did my train of thought and it has taken me until October 26th to get back to what I was thinking on October 17th! The momentum of reflection is lost for a while but will be resumed soon!