Feature Rage against the machine

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

iSAMS, OneDrive, iPads, SharePoint ... these have all caused us a little teacher rage at some point (some more than others). By Claire Turkington, Head of Academic Music and EPQ Supervisor.

Technology in education tends to put people in distinct camps of ‘for’ or ‘against’. There is no doubt that there are plenty of pros, but there are also plenty of cons. If the adoption of technology for learning is to succeed, we need to make it explicit how a technology-rich environment will support teaching and learning.1

The Education Endowment Foundation’s guidance report, ‘Using Digital Technology to Improve Learning’2, is a great read with plenty of evidence-based recommendations: • Consider how technology is going to improve teaching and learning before introducing it. • Technology can be used to improve the quality of explanations and modelling. • Technology offers ways to improve the impact of pupil practice. • Technology can play a role in improving assessment and feedback. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a good introduction to the pedagogy behind integrating technology into teaching. TPACK attempts to identify the nature of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching, while addressing the complex, multifaceted and situated nature of teacher knowledge.3 It can be used to integrate technology into the content and pedagogy of our classrooms, which in turn helps our pupils learn more effectively.4

SAMR is an acronym that stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition, developed in 2010 by education researcher Ruben Puentedura. As we integrate technology tools into our instruction, the SAMR model can be used to determine whether the technology is enhancing or transforming the learning.5 The model has four levels that explain the increasing impact of the integration from substituting another traditional learning method (such as writing with pen and paper) to creating a completely new learning style (such as pupils completing and presenting a team project using global videoconferencing and a virtual classroom). Our iPad trial has provided us with a unique opportunity to start trying out many of these ideas, but let’s face it, trials like this are difficult. You can experiment with different teaching ideas, but often there is no follow up. You cannot commit to changing schemes of work when you know the same year group will not have access to the same technology the following year. We try things out, they either work or they don’t, and then we have to remember to implement this again when all year groups (hopefully) have iPads. As Bill Gates said in 2012: 'Just giving people devices, that has a really terrible track record. You really have to change the curriculum and the teacher and those things...'.6

I have spent a lot of this year trying out technology that might work with iPads: • Augmented Reality – an interactive experience of a real-world environment. Objects in the real world are enhanced by computergenerated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities. There are lots of education apps, such as Civilisations AR, which brings historical artefacts into the classroom for History and Classical Civilisation; AR Makr, which pupils can use to produce interactive stories in English and MFL; and Froggipedia for bringing the frog life cycle to life in Science. • OneNote – a smart digital notepad that allows teachers and pupils to get ideas down and organised. All the notes stay in the cloud, via

OneDrive, so you can access it across multiple devices. OneNote is truly multimedia. It supports typing, written notes and drawing, plus imported images, videos, and audio notes. The audio notes, in particular, can be a nice way to annotate a pupil's work, for example, giving it a personal touch while also helping to clarify any point that needs to be made.

• Visualisers – a visualiser in the classroom can be used to help pupils gain a deeper understanding of a topic while boosting engagement. Using a visualiser, you can share a live image of just about anything with your class. A visualiser in every teaching room should be the norm, not the exception – and we can use our iPads for this. Screen mirroring is particularly easy to do and provides a quick and easy way to model strategies and give group feedback.

Daisy Christodoulou says there are two simple points that are excellent guides to device usage: How do you expect pupils to use them? What is the quality of the resources they’ll be using? Her blog post ‘Remote learning: why hasn’t it worked before and what can we do to change that?’7 explores many different ideas.

The Department for Education published a paper in June 2022 entitled ‘Future opportunities for education technology in England’. The conclusions drawn by the writers underpin what has been said above: it is how practitioners use technology and how they integrate it within their pedagogies and curriculum delivery, that will contribute towards learning outcomes and pupil wellbeing. A key study finding is that teachers, learners, parents and carers must become ‘experts by experience’ to make EdTech relevant and meaningful, having opportunities to develop and test EdTech solutions.8

The biggest piece of advice for teachers integrating technology into their teaching successfully: ‘Know Your Enemy’ and ‘Take the Power Back’ – do you see what I did there?!

1 Josepicardo.com, A digital strategy for teaching and learning. Available at: www.josepicardo.com/ education/digital-strategy-teaching-learning. 2 Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). Using digital technology to improve learning. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org. uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/digital. 3 Castro, 2021. 4 McGraw Hill. What is TPACK Theory and how can it be used in the classroom? Available at: www. mheducation.ca/blog/what-is-tpack-theory-andhow-can-it-be-used-in-the-classroom. 5 Terada, Y, 2020. Edutopia. A powerful model for understanding good tech integration. Available at: www.edutopia.org/article/powerful-modelunderstanding-good-tech-integration. 6 The Verge. Bill Gates: tablets in the classroom have a 'terrible track record'. Available at: www. theverge.com/2012/6/27/3120302/bill-gatestablets-education. 7 Christodoulou, D. Remote learning: why hasn't it worked before and what can we do to change that?. Available at: https://daisychristodoulou. com/2020/03/remote-learning-why-hasnt-itworked-before-and-what-can-we-do-to-changethat. 8 Department for Education, 2022. Future opportunities for education technology in

England. Available at: https://assets.publishing. service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/ uploads/attachment_data/file/1080930/Future_ opportunities_for_education_technology_in_

England_June_2022.pdf.