Jul 18 2008
Teaching in the 21st century
My column today:
WHEN 18 KEY technology and training support positions for schools are slashed in late June, and then two weeks later, the Government trumpets its planned investment in information and communication technology (ICT) for schools, I can’t help but feel sceptical.
Does anyone in the top levels of authority really get the big picture?
The jobs were axed in a value-for-money audit, despite many industry and education insiders feeling they were crucial positions in our limping efforts to move ICT programmes in schools beyond their shameful state of being amongst the most poorly developed in the EU.
Read the rest here.
2 responses so far
If kids are tending their own Bebo pages then they have already far outclassed teachers who need ICT training.
We are going to have to wait until the “digital natives†have grown up and become teachers themselves for innovative use of ICT in schools. After all, if a teacher is motivated and computer savvy today they don’t need funding from the Department of Education to create a PBWiki site or a shared Google Doc.
There are also plenty of learning resources in existence on the web already so it’s not necessary for teachers to recreate them. Indeed, the Department already has websites for this kind of thing, eg Scoilnet.
In the meantime, kids need to write essays by hand to prepare for hours of writing in exams. And, more important than ICT training, the Department should be making sure the schools are still teaching the fundamentals. Kids seem to be entering university semi-illiterate and incapable of analysing or presenting a logical argument. I’m a lot more concerned about that.
Schools fail to teach children how to learn or anything useful about the world or themselves.
Adding computers to the mix is avoiding the issue yet again. I am completely against computers in the classrooom.
The basics, literacy, numeracy and how their brain works are totally ignored. School is old fashioned and out of touch. Adding computers is like watching your granny at a rave. Just wrong.