CAL 2009: Teachers and technology: Professional development for transforming practice in schools

Captured live at #cal09, posted late.

Caroline Daly, University of London, UK

Described a project that took place in secondary schools as it was felt that's where there was the greatest need for ICT development. Becta talks about a "persistent deficit" - a lack of impact on teachers' everyday practice. - See the Harnessing Technology Review 2008. The majority of teachers are having CPD but it is not having an impact on classroom practice.

Teachers have to be at the centre of developments - teachers are the main agent of change and account has to be taken of their deep seated beliefs. There has to be a change in teachers. There is a feeling that there is a continual need to chase a skills deficit and just as you get the hang of one thing, the next big thing comes along! Alex Couros and the Networked Teacher is an alternative model or the Diffused Teacher model (Davis 2008) where the extreme interconnectedness is acknowledged and it is recognised that just working on ICT in isolation is not always helpful. The researchers developed a programme that did not just teach ICT skills but teacher enquiry is built in from the start as part of their CPD - to challenge how and why it might be used. The programme was practice focused. Teachers had to blog their experience as the project progressed.

Collaboration was a core strategy with many opportunities to talk and discuss. Technologies were not just for production of resources but they were for creative task making and for shared practice and collaboration. For example, teachers were expected to upload their digital pictures to Flickr. Enquiry based practices however can create challenges. For example, it can lead to a desire for fundamental shifts in the ways that learning is organised - something that was not always welcomed by schools. How teachers appropriate new technologies in their personal, social and professional lives is an important pre-requisite for use in their classrooms. Important aspect of the programme is that it was inter-disciplinary.

CAL 2009: Interactivity in the classroom and its impact on learning

Captured live at #cal09, posted late.

G Beauchamp, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, S Kennewell, Swansea Metropolitan University

Described two year project to see if there was any difference in teaching with and without ICT. Found that teacher talk was a key determinant rather than ICT use. Therefore they looked at classifying how teachers interacted with class: from lecture to individual.

There emerged a framework that allowed them to analyse group and individual activities. Match activities and ICT use to the classification of teacher interaction - from level 0 (lecture) to level 4 (synergistic).

Skills are important - do teachers have the ICT skills to know they can move things forward. If teachers see the value though they can apply their pedagogic knowledge, see how ICT can contribute and jump right in there.

Age did not predict impact of ICT - if an experienced teachers saw the connection, their skill in pedagogy meant they were willing to have a go. Perhaps younger teachers were more confident with the technology but less confident with the pedagogical connections.

CAL 2009: Keynote 2

Learning in digital worlds: What are we playing at? Live blog from cal#09



What do you think?

CAL 2009: Towards a naturalistic conceptualisation of technology integration in classroom practice: The example of school mathematics

Captured live at #cal09, posted late.

K.B.H. Ruthven, University of Cambridge

Innovations change schools but more importantly, schools change innovation. You have to look at the place of technology in the classroom. Project looked at the practical theory and craft knowledge that frame teachers action when using technology. Wanted to develop a model that would describe how teachers use technology.

Teachers saw "Assisted Tinkering" as useful but did not always connect this into their model of technology use. The project found a great deal of "craft knowledge" that had grown up around the use of technology yet there was very little research exploring this craft knowledge. For example using computer based tools and resources often involved changing teaching room and will more often require a shift in classroom routines - what effect does this have on experienced teachers who have built up successful routines and are then asked to change this because of the introduction of technology. Can be helpful to consider:

Activity Formats - templates for action and interaction.

Curriculum Script - the set of options a teacher has to help them teach a topic. They may feel under pressure to abandon a curricular script when adopting new technology but this does not necessarily make sense - their curricular scripts are vital.

Time Economy - how do teachers manage the rate of teaching. Also worth noting that new technologies very rarely completely replace older technology. Almost always they run alongside each other.

In response to question, there was an observation that teachers did not always connect what was done with (for example) hand geometry instruments (e.g. protractors) and dynamic geography tools. Curricular documents seemed to perpetuate this by listing ways protractors should be used to measure angles but not acknowledging role of dynamic geometry tools in doing this.

CAL 2009: Creative digital spaces for transformative learning: Bridging the gap between formal and informal learning

Captured live at #cal09, posted late. :-)

Maggie Hutchings, Bournemouth University, UK

Institutional VLEs are compared with against personalised/social learning environments. (Prensky Bennett et al 2008: 780) This work challenges Prensky's assumption - variations and differences in population will have greater impact than similarities.

Precipitate activities are activities designed to bring transformative experiences. For example, designing realistic and challenging activities. The students recognised that this led them to learn by doing. By creating a state of doubt that leads to questioning and development.. "Reflection involves not simply a sequence of ideas, but a consequence." (Dewey 1933: 4-5). This leads to deep approaches. Time is significant - students need time for the reflection to occur. Practical order choices - e.g. may go online but not contribute or social order choices, e.g. access to PC at home or peer group pressure. Archer's model has three aspect: Natural Order, Social Order both of which are linked by Practical Order.

Bridging the gap between formal and informal learning

CAL 2009: Information and communications technology in the music classroom: How theories of multi-modality can illuminate classroom practice

Captured live at #cal09, posted late.

N. M. Breeze University of Worcester and University of Bristol

Composing music with ICT tends to be a group activity in schools with children spending five to six weeks on a composition. Students use computer software to compose. Music is a compulsory element in England and every child is expected to compose. The composition activities typically split into two functions with one student playing the midi keyboard and another pupil playing with the software. {Interestingly, the presenter corrected himself and said, "not play with... I mean operate the software" - but I like "playing"!}

Multi-modality - Two aspects of the theory were applied in this research

• Modes of communication, e.g. linguistic, visual, gestural, spatial and musical.
• Design and transformation - available resources for design, importance of prior design and interested action (i.e. what motivates them)

The classroom is a site of multimodal signs. Methods used to capture this was primarily video but also included music notation files, screen grabs, field notes, pupil interviews. Researcher developed his own analysis tool {as you do!} which he felt allowed him to explore his very rich data set more effectively than existing tools such as nvivo.

Findings: The whole learning environment was important in mediating the composing process. (Previous studies have focused on only one element but this researcher found it impossible to separate the aspects out. Headphones can preclude both inter and intra group collaboration. Pupils brought their own musical ideas into the classroom and this motivated them to transform. A lot of detail is missed if you only appraise the product - it is therefore important to appraise all the stages of the composition process.

CAL 2009: The role of research in building capacity for harnessing technology.

First attempt to use CaptureItLive. :-) Session at #cal09