Final Portfolio Task; Summary and discussion of two academic papers

Computers on Wheels and Technological Affordances

One of the main difficulties with studying ICT in schools is that it is almost impossible for research to keep up with the pace of change. A report or research study might lose nearly all it’s relevance before even being published or only be useful for a short while. I read two research articles which focused on ICT learning environments in US educational institutions. The article I will refer to as article one is called ‘Computers on wheels: an alternative to ‘each one has one’ by Michael M. Grant et al., (2005) and the second, which I will refer to as article 2 is by Kay j. Wijekumar et al. (2005) and is titled ‘Technological affordances: the ‘real story’ in research with K-12 and undergraduate learners’. I am comparing the two because while both were published during the same year I found one far more interesting and relevant than the other and would like to explore why this was the case.

It would perhaps be most appropriate to first confront the similarities between these articles. As I have already stipulated, they are both US based research and both examine ICT’s role in education. Further to this, they both dedicate some time to teacher and pupil attitudes towards the ICT equipment they use. Because this data was ascertain through the collection of surveys, we can see an overlap in research methodology as both employed qualitative data. However, the first article, which looked at the use of ‘COWs’ (computers on wheels) in the classroom, also used a quantity of quantitative data and on the whole was much more general in it’s discussion than was ariticle 2.

It may have been the breadth of the first study that made me, as a reader, lose interest in it and find it difficult to absorb. Indeed, I was initially very interested to see what the study found as regards the benefits of COWs as opposed to computer suites or one on one, most especially because the school I was on for SBT 1 provided each child with a laptop. I was somewhat confused then, when the article digressed to the general effectiveness of ICT and whether laptop use encourages higher order thinking. While I would concede that the study needed to address some of these wider issues because it was not a comparative study and as such needed to draw it’s conclusions from examination of a variety of general observations I believe it failed to keep sufficiently focused on the benefits of COWs as opposed to every child has one.

Furthermore, the conclusion dedicated a lot of time to the role of teacher computer competence. While this is a relevant area for concern in the ICT and education debate it is already the subject of a number of articles and I am unsure as to the appropriateness of going into the subject in an article called ‘Computers on wheels: an alternative to each one has one’.

Ultimately I felt I had took very little away from reading the article that would prove relevant to my teaching and use of ICT in the future. I didn’t feel the article answered in any way the question of how useful COWs are comparatively. I think a comparative study compared different ICT set ups in schools and the benefits and draw backs of each arrangement would have been far more interesting and useful to me as a practitioner.

The second article however, I found surprisingly thought provoking. I was initially put off by the title as I didn’t know what ‘affordance’ meant and didn’t see how it could have any relevance to my teaching practise. Moreover, the study was of Year 12 students and undergraduates.

However, I found it really useful and an easy read. It begins by explaining that a technological affordance refers to the interaction supported by the tool for each individual and is affected by their prior experience. For example, the students in the study expected to be entertained by the computer through playing games or saw it as a means of communication. This, it is asserted within the study, means that computers are viewed as an entertainment medium meaning the user will expect to be entertained by it and not expect to have to engage in effortful thinking. I found this issue a highly interesting one as it initiated me to consider on a personal level how I view technology. In the case of how I view it, I primarily see computers as a means for researching and communicating.

Establishing this made me consider that it is perhaps because my personal experience has been to use computers for these rather narrow purposes that I do not enjoy using programs such as spreadsheets; even if it for a ‘fun’ task involved in a maths lesson or art or music based programs. Furthermore, in the vast majority of the lessons which I have taught which incorporate ICT, the technology has been used for research purposes (for example, to research a history topic) or to write things up on word. Using the technology for these purposes mirrors exactly what I use them for in day to day life.

One aspect of the study which caught my attention concerned having multiple windows open. I am guilty of doing about 5 things at once when I am using the computer; for example I will nearly always have Facebook up, my e-mail, a celebrity gossip website I read a lot and BBC news on top of whatever task it is I am doing, such as essay writing. The study looked at the learning of a group of Ps. Some of whom were ‘multitaskers’ and some of whom only had one window open at once. Analysis of the data revealed that those Ps. who had only one window open remembered twice as much information as their counterparts. Since reading this article I have tried to limit my multi-tasking so that my main task gets my full attention!

Revolutionising the way we listen to radio

I like computers because they can help satisfy my need to know stuff... when i wonder about something i can know go on google and usually find out the answer with relative ease. indeed i can't imagine life without the internet anymore. something i also particularly like is that i can now podcast or download radio programs. I love being able to do this because when i have a busy day and don't have much time to listen to the radio i can download programs such as 'from our own correspodent' or 'today in paraliament' (from the bbc radio 4 website) and listen to them while i'm travelling or at the gym. I think it's great that this can be done so easily now as it has really changed the way in which i listen to the radio and the use i can make of it. i don't have to stay in anymore if i want to listen to a particular program as even if it is not one that can be downloaded i can 'listen again' on the BBC's website.

Furthermore, when i'm researching things i can search for radio programs and this can often prove very useful indeed as i can expand the variety of sources i'm drawing on. this was very helpful when i was researching for my dissertation for which i was writing about the partition of india as i found a number of radio references i could use; most notebly an interview with Lord Mountbatten's daughter.

Unique opportuities provided by Internet networking

When i was writing my dissertation i really missed social contact with people because i was jsut in the library or riflling through Mountbatten Archives for weeks on end. On one occassion i was on the computer and clicked on teh advert for match.com. Knowing a few people that had used it i decided to join up.

In retrospect i have to say it was one of the best things i ever did. not because i now have a boyfriend but because of the opportuities the 'dating' site facilitated for me. For example, the first guy i met from the sight got me presented to the Queen on our first date. Now that's certianly not something you do everyday! It was a rather surreal experience admittedly and i was very scared i was going to do/say something wrong but it all was ok and now i can say i met the Queen... not something many people can.

Additionally i have learnt a lot about a lot of different things i never new about before. Meeting up with people for coffee from all walks of life had allowed me to talk to people with such a variety of careers and experiences to share. I now know about oil rig construction in the middle east, how MOD contracts are written up, Apaches, Tanks, the Royal Military Police and have heard personal experiences of touring Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosov as well as cold weather training in Norway etc etc... just lots of random stuff that my peers know nothing about!

Admittedly some people think I'm a bit crazy, however to my mind you only live once, and while i may not have the finances to go travelling i can still widden my life experiences and knowledge and understanding of various things, even if it is through internet dating!

Discussion boards... again!

It occurred to me the other day that actually I have used dicussion boards more than i had initially realised. When i consiered my use of them i was thinking of it more form the perspective of when i have written on them or when i have used them for more personal things. However, I have used them far more as a means of research.

For example, when i was doing my history degree i spent some time researching the Southa Asian diaspora in Britain. Part of my research included studying ways in which the diaspora can be seen as homogenous and in what ways it is not. I did this partly through looking at discussion boards of South Asian communities. This in some ways highlighted similarities becuase many of the young people were expressing a disengagemnt with their culture, in particular the religious institutions to which they were affiliated. This sentiment was expressed by Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Indians, Pakistanis and Bangledeshis alike.

However, the discussion boards also revealed the huge rifts that exist between these communities. I read many a discussion where people were arguing over whether Pakistan should have been conceeded and which ethnicity were the 'real' Indians. Much of the debate harked all the way back to the imperialist era, in particular the 1857 Indian Rebellion or as most South Asians refer to it 'The First War of Independence'.

Reading through discussion boards gave me a much more personal insight into the relationships that exist between South Asian communities than would any book or Journal Article. Furthermore, using quotes from these discussions gave my essay a lot by way of uniqueness.

CBT software?!

I am occasionally taken a back by some of the newest software developments. For example most recently, I was listening to Radio 4, which i always do at home, and they were discussing the Governments most recent initiative to push Cognative Behavioural Therapy (CBT) as a Therapy for treating mental illnesses such as depression and bullemia. This has been in reaction to critisism about the reliance on drugs to deal with these problems.

What really rather suprised me was that a computer program based on CBT has been made and is being trialled. I was initally very sceptical however, a representative from MIND spoke about the scheme and said it was proving very successful. Part of the reason for this was the fact that patients are in direct control of their treatment and this empowers them.

Personally however, I don't think I'd like recieving treatment for a mental disorder via a computer program. Having suffered from anorexia in the past and recieved a good amount of therapy in a specialist ED clinic I can't imagine i would have made the same progress had my therapy been passed on through a rather impersonal computer program.

Nonetheless, evidently the computer approach can be effective for some people suffering from mental illness. My only concern would be that the powers that be ay get it into their heads that they can 'cure' people on mass with a CBT computer program, which is of course, due to the accute variations in mental illness and the fact that CBT is not 100% successful as a means of treatment, never going to be the case (even if it is a very cheap option!).

Facebook as a space for Arty Stuff

Something i like about facebook (and now this blog) is that i can upload photos of pictures i have drawn. I think this is nice as i can share with my friends a particular passion i have! It also gives me a space in which to display my pictures when otherwise they are just resigned to my notebooks or bedroom wall.

Technology affordances

I found the last article in the PGCE ICT readings a particularly interesting one becuase of the persepctive from which it was looking at the use of ICT in schools. It occurred to me that much of what i have seen of laptop use in the classroom, in particular the things that i have seen and do not like are related to the relationship the children have with the technology- ie. they view laptops as a means for fun and games above learning.

For example, children, as is pointed out in the article, view computers and computer software as being 'fun'. While this has it's bonus', especially with regard to maths games and stuff, it has it's problems too. When i have seen children writing on their laptops i havewitnessed a significant deterioration in the content of what they produce. They are so concerned with 'having fun' by putting in pictures, animations and changing colour schemes that the content itself goes downhill. Indeed, the first thing my teacher said to me about the laptops is that the childrens writing on them is always appauling.

I think i better understand now why this is. They view laptop activities as fun activities, thus they engage primariliy with the fun side of laptops tasks and perform poorly on activities that they do not see as befitting with the fun image they have of ICT related work. Getting around this problem is difficult. One might tell the children that they cannot change colour schemes and animate etc. until they have done a satisfactory quantity and quality of writing. However, in so doing you are essentailly saying 'you have to do the boring bit before you can do the fun bit', and suddenly the activity of writing about all the crazy creatures on your imaginary world (which was the context in which i came across this situation), which is usually considered a 'fun' task, becomes more like a chore. Thus i don't think that it would be a particularly good way of dealing with the situation (even though it is the way my class teacher made me do the lesson).

Rather, i think that children sould be allowed to work in whatever way they wish. If they are aware of the expectation that they must have a good all round finished product we should trust them to get there by any means...becuase at the end of the day most of them will.

Essentially what i learnt from my time on SBT 1 is that great care must be taken by teachers not to exacerbate or define the divide over what is fun to do on the laptop and what is boring. This is because anything the children view as boring will nor be engaged with becuase laptops are not viewed as a piece of equipment on which boring things should simply not be done!

ICT in school for a student teacher

Though it must vary from school to school, i was not provided with a laptop to use by the school and nor was my home laptop worked on by the ICT technician so that i could use it at school (even though i requested it)... ie. to access the internet or to be hooked up to the projector. This prevented me from using ICT as much as i had wanted.

My teacher let me use hers sometimes but i could never rely on it. And sometimes i'd set stuff up to use and then she'd decide she wanted to take it out of class to do some work during my lessons so i'd suddenly be thrown in it and have to change my lessons.

I found this most annoying becuase i wish to develop my use of ICT as i can see what a vital role it plays in the contemporary primary classroom and how it will come to play an increasingly vital role in future.

I believe that schools should do their upmost to ensure that students are given access to ICT. It is so crucial in education now that to fail to make the provisions for student teachers to access it during placements is to deprive them of fully developing as a professional in the current electronic age.

Smartboard

One thing I got positive feedback for on this placement was my use of ICT. I found this strange becuase to me it's just very straight forward...I'm very used to using computers and have used them since I was a child.

I'd never used a Smartboard prior to this placement but picked up on how to use it straight away. My only problem being that i sometimes forgot to put the pens back in place!

One of the most useful things I found was that I could type up what 'Learning Activities' the children should be doing during the lesson the night before, highlight it in different colours so appropriate groups could easily read off what they should be doing, and put it up on the screen. This meant i didn't have to stand around writing on the white board the list of tasks.

Furthermore, it was just a total time saver because it cut down so much on the amount of photo copying i had to do. For example, instead of blowing up a piece of text to use i could just show it on the smart board.

Also, when i played classical music i could leave up media player so tha the children could see the song list. This was great becuase the children began to learn the names of some classic composers and developed a real interest for 'nice music', whereas initially they had just asked me to play 50 cent!

I could also use funny videos on you tube as a reward for good work or behaviour at the end of a lesson. For example, at the end of a lesson on shapes, i played the clip of James Blunt singing about triangles to the tune of 'your beautiful' on sesame street! Educational and fun!

ICT and Literacy

One of the first lessons i taught was split into 2 one hour slots; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The objective of the lesson was for children to write about an imaginary world they had previously designed using the Revalation Art program. There description of their imaginary planets was to be presented using Power Point, hence the lesson was a lesson in how to describe a setting and how to use Power Point.

Sometimes I have been sceptical about the use of ICT in my school becuase I don't think it is always used to good effect. Rather, much of the time it's 'laptop day', so the teachers have to think of something to do with them so that the laptops can be seen to be being value for money by parents and governors. However, in this instance I could saw how fantastic ICT can be at encouraging children to engage with a task.

The key to it was that I could start the lesson by showing them by Power Point which was animated and had sounds and looked really good. This motivated them to make something equally as spectatcular.

The end result was lots of really amazing Power Point presentations. They had lots of pictures in and the children learnt how to format slides and animate text.

The only problem was that the use of the laptops made the quality of the children's writing go down. They spent much longer faffing around with pictures than they did on written content.

The Use of Discussion Boards:

I feel that discussion boards are great when used within the right context. For example, I have used discussion boards on a number of occasions related to technical problems and health conditions. In these contexts I found them very useful.

For example, I was having problems with wireless networking in my house and I could view discussion boards (via google search) whereby people had posted similar problems and others had offered their advice on how to fix the problem. In the context of health problems , having just been diagnosed with a chronic disease, I can use discussion boards to talk with others who have the same condition and discuss common experiences. I find this an almost therapautic exercise because I don't come up against the same stupid comments that get made by my friends when i tell them what i have been diagnosed with ie. they don't say 'don't worry, you'll be better soon'!! Something which drives me up the wall!!...

In the rather superficial context of discussing graphs however, I do not find discussion boards terribly useful, indeed it is all rather contrived! Certainly, unless discussing a topic that is close to my heart , so to speak, or something that will directly help me or interests me, I find the whole thing rather dull.

From my experiences I can see that discussion boards are useful; otherwise they would not be in such widespread use! However, it would be important when employing them within school, to use them in an interesting context. For example, the class I am placed with at the moment are studying space and part of the topic involves designing a spaceship and making a control panel. They are so very enthused about the whole thing that I am quite sure that they would happily discuss the progress they are making on their space ships via a discussion board to other children... especially if they got to use their space cadet names! Or even if not discussing with other children they could post questions to the Captain of the main ship (ie. myself or my class teacher mentor).