Technology Waits for No Man

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Last month, we went to Northern Ireland and spent lovely Christmas with my wife and her family. Her one sister has an 18 month old daughter (let's call her M). Despite only being 18 months old, M can string together some pretty long sentences for someone her age. She'll often demonstrate this by picking up any stray mobile phone and pretending to have a conversation with someone on the other end.

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"Hey Nanny. How's it going?" she'll say. Cute stuff, indeed. Whenever she would get bored with fake phone calls, she'd want to browse through pictures on the phone (usually ones of herself, the vain wee thing). Her mom's phone is a touch screen and she flips through the pictures seemingly intuitively (and gets frustrated when she swipes her fingers on Nanny's old Nokia brick phone and the picture doesn't change to the next one in the album). I was reminded of this as I read through Dorian Love's article about explicit teaching of ICT in schools.

Love acknowledges that yes, an 11 month old baby can swipe their fingers to manipulate an iPad and that it may take an adult a while longer to work the device properly but ultimately, given some time, it's the adult that is going to be capable of doing the more complex tasks. The same goes for teenagers. There is this perception that because teenagers have grown up with computers and have never known any different, they are automatically proficient in their use. In my experience though, I think the only difference between teenagers' and adults' ICT skills comes down to fear and willingness. Teenagers aren't afraid to make mistakes on their computer (as I'm sure those in school Tech Support departments can attest to). Most teenagers are infinitely familiar with the wonder that is Crtl(or Cmd)+Z. There's always a way to undo something you've done. And if not, screw it, they can just try it over again. Adults, in general, tend to be more apprehensive when faced with learning ICT skills. Much like learning a new language, three key factors may give youth an advantage when trying to learn ICT skills:

1. Adults generally have less free time and thus less time to devote to learning something new


2. Adults have less motivation to learn it (as they didn't grow up with these technologies, many adults may not developed an appreciation for them and look to know only as much as society deems necessary)


3. Peer pressure. If an adult isn't technically adept, their peers understand and may be accepting but if a kid doesn't know how to use technology, the ridicule from peers could be venomous

The unfortunate problem that arises here is that these adults that are apprehensive about using technology are the very same ones that are responsible for teaching it to the students. A couple of months ago, Emma Mulqueeny wrote a post titled, "My ICT teacher can’t mark my homework" in which she recounts a tale of a student who nearly failed their ICT project because they wrote an iOS app using Objective-C programming and the teacher could not mark it because the teacher could not understand it. This is a bit of an extreme example (as most people that can program effectively are probably more likely to do that rather than teach) but the sad fact is that there are many, many teachers that still struggle with things like writing a blog post. These same teachers are quite possibly being asked by their schools to have their students write blogs for their classes and yet they can't adequately use a blog themselves.

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This reminds me of another recent trend that's been circling the education sphere on Twitter and that's #pencilchat. The concept behind this meme is simple; take a complaint or concern about technology use and replace the technological term with 'pencil.' For example, take my sentence above. "These same teachers are quite possibly being asked by their schools to have their students write with pencils for their classes and yet they can't adequately use a pencil themselves." Seems ridiculous, doesn't it? Well, in many respects, we're getting to a point where a teacher not being able to use a reasonable level of technology is somewhat ridiculous.

In a recent class with my Year 10s, I had what seemed like a fairly straightforward lesson planned but over the course of the lesson, I had an online survey that didn't load, a hyperlink on the class portal that was dead and a Google doc that wouldn't open properly. Sounds like a disaster class but I had with a back-up survey (always be prepared, kids!) and both the link and the Google doc problems were easily fixed in no time while I had the students discuss what we had been learning. I kept my cool and the lesson was barely affected.

All it takes is time. Dedicated time for teachers to use technology, make mistakes with technology, learn from their mistakes and lose their fears towards ICT. Once they've lost the fear, then teachers can start to take bigger risks and try new things live with their students right in class.  Teachers can lead by example and demonstrate that it's alright to make mistakes. Not everything is going to work right the first time but keeping your cool, finding another way of making it work and sharing those learning moments with your students.