From the Headmaster

Phil De Young welcomes Year 7 students at their Induction Service at St Paul’s Cathedral

From the Headmaster

Recently, we had the pleasure of hearing Susan McLean speak to our Year 7 students about cyber safety. A former policewoman, Susan is one of Australia’s foremost experts in this area and has presented at hundreds of schools. Her book Sexts, Texts and Selfies is one that we highly recommend to parents and students alike.

In her introduction to the book, Susan sets the scene and establishes a challenge for us all:

‘Our children are digital natives, born into a world where they are constantly surrounded by it. They cannot imagine life before mobile phones, iPads or the internet. Smart devices and social media sites have become part of our children’s lives and they strongly influence how our children create, share and exchange information with others. Despite all the great things about cyberspace, the online world does create problems for children.’

So, what are the ‘great things’ and what are the ‘problems’? And importantly, what can we do to solve the problems?

In a recent Year 2 class at Trinity, boys were engaged in a ‘Mystery Skype’, trying to guess the secret location (an international school in Thailand) of the other Year 2 students they were speaking to via the wonders of technology. Roles had been carefully planned, and everyone asked a question to try to find out what life was like for their new acquaintances. The engagement and excitement generated from this collaborative communication task was electric.

Similarly, in the Senior School, technology has enabled some impressive collaboration. Students have practised languages by correspondence, connected with experts in both tertiary education and in industry, and competed against other students worldwide. This connectivity has helped us to generate truly globalised classrooms.

Yet it could be argued that increased connectivity has led to the biggest negative impact of technology on society. The pressures of social media are very real; teenagers suffer genuine stress when they lose ‘followers’ and the impact on their self-image is all too often negative. Fear of missing out (FOMO) and the nature of social media platforms (consider how ‘streaks’ work in Snapchat) can drive children to diagnosable device addiction. Furthermore, without the nonverbal clues present in face to face communication, teenagers can often misunderstand each other online, which leads to increased conflicts.

The immediate access to information has certainly changed the education landscape enormously in recent years. The best teachers have adapted their approaches to reflect this; although teachers still need to explain ideas to their students, they can no longer expect to be the font of all knowledge. Instead, they have a very important role to play in helping students sift and synthesise the information they find. Sometimes students can be tempted to simply look up an answer rather than spend time thinking things through, and teachers should schedule time without technology to allow students to fathom things out for themselves.

There are many other positive impacts of clearly defined technology use in the classroom. Jan Owen at the Foundation for Young Australians recently reported that job advertisements are increasingly mentioning creativity, presentation and digital literacy skills. Students at Trinity frequently make videos, animations, audio podcasts and other complex productions as part of their work for many different subjects. Gamification of tasks can be a great source of motivation, with students competing to score the highest marks or to ‘level-up’. The digital world can also offer a safe space where students feel free to make mistakes; students who write with digital ink are more likely to experiment with a new approach to a problem, as they have the option to undo what they have done.

A well-managed classroom should maximise the opportunity for discussion, face-to-face interaction and collaborative problem-solving. Technology clearly has the potential to play an impressive part in the collaboration process, but teachers should not be afraid to tell their students when it is time to put their devices away. When teachers consider carefully the role that technology will play in enhancing the educational learning objectives, then classes experience the best outcomes.

Trinity has taken the step of removing mobile phones from the school day. We want to help model what good technology use looks like for our boys and hope that parents will join us on that journey. There is no doubt that technology presents parents and schools with more challenges than ever before. Hopefully, with a strong partnership between home and school, Trinity will continue to nurture fine young men and responsible digital citizens long into the future.

Phil De Young - Headmaster, Ben Ryder - Director of Innovative Learning