Okay, I’ll really try to keep it shorter this time!
Regular exercise or study is much more effective than intense but irregular bursts of effort (what we call ‘cramming’). Stephen Covey refers to this as “the Law of the Farm”: you can’t cram on the farm - only steady day-to-day work will provide a full harvest. Similarly, ongoing (well considered) ICT use in the day-to-day classroom environment offers more powerful and longer-lasting benefits than one-off, intensive projects.
I like to visualize this as the difference between a point and a line:
Single projects are like discrete points - and there’s only so much you can squeeze into a point… try it, and you end up with a big unsightly blob! Instead, try with a (dotted) line - it is a series of small, but regularly spaced dots… In the end, you can fit a lot more into it, and yet each little dot is fairly small.
Okay, I see my analogy is limping awkwardly, so I think I’ll just spell it out:
- Many teachers struggle with full curricula, and as a result, some shy away from using computers in class, since it’s too difficult to find time to fit in new, often time-consuming ICT projects. Their curricula are already bursting at the seams with content to cover (and all of it is essential stuff…?).
- If they do manage to fit it into the unit plan somewhere during the year, but then try and cram in too much, it often gets messy, and the (ICT) learning impact is also limited.
- Nevertheless, this seems a common approach to ICT use in the classroom - throw in a computer project somewhere since “kids like using computers” (or because the computer teachers are nagging you to ‘integrate’ more).
- Sometimes, this may even be just an updated version of a project that was previously done on paper, as a poster to go on the wall, or an oral presentation. According to Mark Prensky, this amounts to nothing more than doing old things in new ways (when our ultimate goal for using technology should be to do new things in new ways).
Really doing “new things in new ways” is a big project, though. It means taking several steps back in order to reconsider pretty much everything about schools and learning, and this is not something you engage in as an afterthought. Nevertheless, if society outside the classroom walls has been transformed by technological changes in the last few decades (or years, even), it is probably time to at least consider what it might take to move schools into the 21st century.
I said I’d keep it short, but before I stop, let me just step on my soapbox for a moment:
Teachers aiming to prepare students for their futures must provide classroom environments where students can use 21st century tools for all aspects of their work, whenever appropriate (and not just for the Q2 PowerPoint presentation project). If we want students who are skilled at using ICT tools and who can determine when to use ICT tools and which tools to use, then we must give them access to the tools they deem necessary for their work, whether it’s a microscope or a microphone, a book they need to read or a blog they need to write. If we say we want students to learn to make reasoned choices and to gain awareness of how they learn best, we cannot impose artificial restrictions on which tools they can use and when they can use them.
Budget and equipment issues aside, this requires careful thought and long discussions, but even if we don’t start transforming classrooms into ultra-modern conference rooms with comfy chairs, espresso machines and ‘portable offices’ just yet, I hope my suggestion that regular ICT use should be an integral part of the day-to-day work process is not too ‘out there’.
