Digitalisation (and not to be mixed with digitization, which means converting analogue signals into digital signals) of schools is a multifaceted social process involving multiple stakeholder groups, such as: teachers; pupils; and IT managers.
I would like to ask you all this specific question:
How and to which extent do you think that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) would influence/change teachers' daily school-related work situations/activities?
Dear Prof. Said Morad Babaheidari,
It is rather more essential than the consequences. The delay in synchronization with the fast growing digitizing world may push behind the school.
Digitization is structured on the following
In schools it has a lot of benefits
In India, the TamilNadu Test Books Society has published all the textbook in web
http://www.textbooksonline.tn.nic.in/
I have two kids at school and they are already using some web-tool for all connections between teacher/pupil/parent. In particular, all the important dates, school notes, as well as the upcoming tests, housework and the subjects to be taught in upcoming classes is online.
They have also been using some interactive PC-tools quite early in the school (geogebra comes to mind), and they started making posters and presentations with the help of usual office software already in the first grade.
So a lot of things has already changed and more is to come.
What I foresee, or at least hope for, is a gradual abandonment of the frontal teaching in favour of the computer-assisted teaching. Or as Anna puts it, shifting g the role of the teacher towards a "Learning manager".
My dream is a computer "tutor" which goes through materials with each pupil at his or her own pace. In this system, the teacher would spend most of the time monitoring the progress of different pupils and intervening in 1:1 manner when needed or opportune. Until such tutors exist, I hope that we'll at least get some interactive tools for self-learning and automated testing.
Why?
Because the current system is in my opinion really badly broken and needs to be mended as soon as possible.
For one thing, the teacher has to run through the matter at a given pace, leaving most of the class either bored or behind. This is both inefficient and frustrating for all involved parties. There are some attempts to fill the gap here by adding an extra teacher, but on-the-whole the results are in my opinion sub-par. Best possible system is the one where one good teacher works with a single kid at a time, and the computer-assisted teaching is in my opinion the nearest affordable alternative.
For the other thing, we badly need a way to mend the negative effect of incompetent teachers, as well as to put a limit to amount of the discrimination kids can receive from the teachers on our school system.
The issue of boys being discriminated against by prevalently female and order-loving teachers has been well documented. See e.g. http://motls.blogspot.co.at/2014/02/study-finds-huge-discrimination-against.html.
Judging from my own experience in tutoring the socially disadvantaged children in Vienna, Austria, I believe that teachers prejudice against these kids are a real and enormously important issue in the Austrian educational system. Unfortunately no-one likes to hear this and so the problem is either ignored or explained by sub-pair language competences of the kids with foreign parents.
FYI, I have witnessed things such as:
- kids getting bad notes for using a slightly different (but equally simple) method of multiplication from the one used by their teachers;
- kids getting completely different notes *and* different attitude towards the subject the moment the teacher changed (btw. my own kids get a new set of teachers every year and the effects are often quite interesting to observe) ;
- geography tests where points were subtracted for "not filling in the table neatly", although the results were correct;
- maths (!) tests where correct answers were simply not acknowledged with no plausible explanation;
- kids with perfect oral skills and well prepared exposes getting lower notes in oral exposes simply because teacher knows they can't write well;
The problem: you can't do anything about it, because the moment a teacher finds out that someone is complaining they make the kids suffer even more. And there is basically no way to prevent them from doing this because of the "teacher is always right" principle.
We have also had to do some upgrading with the inclusion of the one-one laptop initiative in our secondary schools. The attached study gives some evaluative feedback on this teaching innovation in a Caribbean Boys School. I hope it can be useful to your research.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Debra
Article Evaluation of a Government ICT Programme for Secondary Schoo...
Thanks, dear Debra! I do appreciate what you said and thanks for your article, which I'll read it next week.
Never is too late; Merry Christmas and Happy New Year too!
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