Exploiting Digital Benefits in Education

I am currently co-authoring an article about how new technology might be integrated within existing learning practices in an educational setting.

Having an interest in disruptive innovation and sociological practice-theoretical aspects I like to find illustrative examples of how new technologies might change the way we learn and potentially create new routines of learning and teaching. Even though much has been written about ICT competence (or the lack of it) amongst teachers and students - I believe that evaluating change within practices and routines might be a fruitful approach in order to comprehend what creates value towards various user groups. So, instead of assessing ICT competence (or technology readiness indexes) as a subjective measurement I am more interested in how existing doings/actions/routines change when new technologies are introduced.

The integration of meaning, know-how and technology might be a challenging task when considering new technologies in an educational setting typically characterized by long-held traditions. What we do know is that many students are enthusiastic about new technologies and services (think about smart phones, iPad, Facebook etc.) but many of these digital features are not integrated as part of their routines at school in a manner which might facilitate more efficient and interactive learning. So, the challenge is to be able to exploit benefits that might potentially derive from new technologies (i.e. interactivity), utilize student motivation towards new gadgets and encourage teachers to integrate these new tools as part of their teaching programme. Ofcourse, we must wait for those innovative solutions which could actually introduce interactivity, such as interactive textbooks (more than e-books), self-test exercises with digital feedback, social interactivity amongst students etc.) which the new generation of students are waiting for....

The video below (in Norwegian) illustrates how new technology may bring forward interactivity that only digital can do. It shows how visualization and simulation may enhance the way we learn about complex concepts and theories in new ways.

Senter for IKT i utdanningen - Fremtiden starter nå from Howie Arnstad on Vimeo.

Teaching Teaching and Understanding Understanding

In my humble quest of practicing teaching I found a really inspiring video on YouTube recently. Although the video below exemplify stereotypical students in their learning situation - it reflects upon many of the challenges related to teaching and understanding from both a teacher and a student perspective. The video starts of by showing how an 'old school' way of approaching teaching is typically related to how you look at the students in terms of who they are (level 1). The next level contemplates on what teachers do and how they teach. Whereas the third level (and yes, this is the one we should focus on) addresses what students do in terms of learning outcomes. Summarized:

level1: what students are (blame students)

level2: what teachers do (blame teachers)
level3: what students do (learning outcomes)

So, if we focus more on learning outcomes we are focusing more on student actions and their own learning process. By considering how the students get the job done in learning the subject we understand that knowledge is constructed as a result of the learners activity. Furthermore, this emphasizes that humans often need patterns in the way they learn by associating new/unknown information with old/known information. Hence, we need to engage and activate students - and understand how they are activated. In order to understand how students might be activated; the following classification scheme is also mentioned in the video:

Solo1: pre-structural (no understanding)
Solo2: uni-structural (to identify, to do procedure)
Solo3: multi-structural (classify, combine)
Solo4: relational (relate, compare, analyze)
Solo5: extended abstract (generalize, hypothesize, theorize)

Whilst Solo 4 and 5 is regarded as deep understanding, solo 2 and 3 is barely considered as surface understanding in the learning process. So, in order to step up on a higher learning level it is imperative that we move away from thinking of long academic lectures that presumes student learning through simple transmission structures; and move towards facilitating student activation.

Constructive Alignment
But how do we match student activity to our intentions within teaching...? Professor John Biggs has introduced the concept of constructive alignment where teachers aspire to develop exams that are aligned with learning outcomes by measuring student ability to explain, relate, prove and apply concepts. We see that the focus is here shifted from typical 'old school' skills as memorization towards engagement and activation. The challenge is therefore to facilitate the use of higher cognitivism amongst the students. This reminds me of an article where the focus is on understanding value as a result of the user's activity: "From thinking about the purpose of firm activity as making something (goods or services) to a process of assisting customers in their own value-creation processes." Vargo & Lusch (2008).

I think the theory is inspiring and thought- provoking. It has made me think more about the importance of facilitating case exercises in class lectures as a critical component so that concepts can be applied and learned through student activity.

Ken Robinson argues that schools kill creativity

I was lucky enough to watch Sir Ken Robinson live at a conference (Innotown) a couple of years ago. Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

Robinson is an author, speaker and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education and arts bodies. He was knighted in 2003 for services to education.

Highly recommended.