Catshanghai

I have written a couple of posts about the problems or challenges faced by schools in 2007 in terms of meeting the learning needs of digital natives who have been reared on technology. Today l am going to look forward by suggesting some practical ways to bridge the gap between digital immigrants (teachers) and digital natives (students). I do not intend to put ICT on a pedastal. This blog post it just a starting point for further discussion.

Make Learning More Open, Fun and Relevant

• Allow students to use web based social networking tools such as chat, Internet messaging, Myspace and Youtube inside school.
• Give students access to learning resources and communities that enable learning to take place outside school and outside school hours.
• Give students their own portable web portfolio spaces that they can use to showcase, evaluate and share formal and informal learning achievements. It is important that students have ownership over these spaces in terms of presentation and structure. A portal website could be setup that links all these portfolios together and allows students, teachers and parents easy searching and navigation of these student spaces.
• Teachers should accept work in a variety of formats, including text, sound and video.
• Allow students to collaborate without calling it cheating as long as they give credit where it is due in line with the academic honesty policy.
• The school should write a new student digital acceptable use policy that places personal responsibility above restrictions. We need to give students the freedom to make mistakes, but monitor them closely.

Give Students a Voice

• Setup online discussion communities for teachers, students and parents to raise and discuss issues openly.
• Setup class wikis where students can add resources and notes to tutor each other and help teachers.
• Allow students to publish their work on the Internet through their electronic portfolios.

Make Learning More Thoughtful

• Emphasise enquiry based process over content using the IB learner profile as a model (research, critical thinking, synthesis, evaluation). Being able to find things out is more useful than knowing it in the first place.
• Emphasise practical problem solving skills over knowing something just for its own sake.
• Learning should encourage an awareness and respect for international and cross cultural ideas and issues. Learning communities exist on the Internet. Students should be given the opportunity to communicate and share learning with teachers and students everywhere.

Empowering Digital Immigrants to Adapt to Change

• Setup web based or real life learning communities with teachers and students to share ideas and good practice, including faqs, wikis, podcasts, screencasts, weblinks.
• IBO needs to distribute materials and findings from workshops and conferences in accessible, practical and convenient formats.
• The teacher librarian should be an authority on where and how to get information as part of the research process.
• Students should be given formal and informal opportunities to help teachers make effective use of technology in the classroom.
• ICT literate or capable teachers could be deployed to work within classes to make effective use of technology for teaching and learning.