Digital Division Across NZ Schools

If we were to describe the position of technology in education now, what term or phrase would we use? We seem to bandy certain terms around such as 'digital revolution', '21st century education', 'digital classrooms'...and so on but I'm not sure we understand where we are really at in the journey towards digital integration in education, as a country. I suggest that across the country we are on a large continuum of technology evolution.. ranging from schools with 3 or 4 working devices in classrooms to 'paperless' schools with one-to-one devices.
In my opinion there are 4 main areas that need to be addressed before we can truly move forward and claim to be part of a 'digital revolution' as a nation.

1. Lack of devices in schools
2. Lack of computers/internet in homes
3. Lack of teacher knowledge
4. Lack of access to quality digital resources


1. Lack of devices in schools
This situation reminds me of how I feel every time I'm silly enough to read the 'Sunday' pullout section of the NZ Herald. Whenever I do it quickly becomes clear to me that I am certainly not the target market for that paper. I don't usually have vanilla pods lying around my pantry for that sensational recipe and I certainly don't have that large house and garden that's being showcased with vintage furniture. I just cannot relate. In fact, it can leave me feeling as though I'm out of step with everyone else...when in reality I'd wager that the majority of us actually feel the same way.
I can imagine that schools and educators with very few up to date and operational devices or with a lack of digital knowledge feel similarly out of touch when they read an educational article discussing 'the digital revolution' in NZ schools? What revolution? In some cases, schools are struggling to do a quarter turn, let alone a revolution.

2. Lack of computers/internet in homes
I've spoken with secondary and primary teachers in schools where by far the majority of kids don't have access to the internet or computers at home. This is a problem. Technology is supposed to open networks of communication between home and school...but that's not always the case. I've been there myself as a teacher...slogging away trying to get a class blog going so that parents and family can contribute to classroom life (and because it was the 'in' thing to do at the time) and then giving up 6 months later after realising that many families didn't have easy access to computers/the internet.
More schools are starting to use online document sharing so that students, families and teachers all have access to the student's work, homework and they can provide feedback etc. I wonder how this works in homes where there is no access to the internet? I wonder how that then translates back to a divide in the classroom? My own children have been in this predicament....they were required to provide printed copies of their online work and we had no working printer at the time. No, the school wouldn't provide printing. I wondered how hard that was for families who don't even have a working computer, let alone a printer.

According to the Digital Technology In Schools, 2014 Report, "Decile 4-6 and 7-10 schools were significantly more likely to report communicating with the wider community/whanau...."

Schools are pushing for a seamless digital journey (as they have probably been encouraged to do) and yet not all families can buy a ticket for that journey. Those families are on the footpath chasing after the bus and waving desperately. If this problem isn't addressed it won't be a 'digital revolution', it will be a massive 'digital divide'.

3.Lack of teacher knowledge
This is not teacher bashing. Teachers are over-worked and over-whelmed with ongoing changes and constant revolutionary educational changes...one of these changes is the need to ensure that students are digitally fluent. What does that mean? It seems that some schools/teachers are unsure what this really means. I have heard of schools having students complete maths worksheets online, worksheets with no enhancements apart from the fact that the answers are marked for the teachers....who is this benefiting? In those cases, students are spending too much time on formatting issues or clunky designs which require lots of scrolling to view question and answers instead of focusing on the learning at hand. Some students are craving old-fashioned pen and paper worksheets. Apparently, in one school, when students were asked whether they preferred to do their maths work online or on paper, the majority voted for paper. Now, we all know most students love working with technology so the issue must lie with the types of tasks being presented. In many cases we are still just substituting traditional paper for digital paper. I believe that many teachers still don't feel confident (or have the time) to redesign the learning experiences in their classroom in order to use technology in authentic ways that are beneficial to student learning.

"Of note, only 11 percent of responding schools reported their school did not need further support and was ready for N4L, In contrast, approximately three-quarters of schools (72 percent) said their teachers needed further professional development support in using digital technologies for teaching and learning" 
Digital Technology In Schools, 2014 Report

3.Lack of access to quality digital resources
I don't miss the days of trawling the internet looking for that 'just right' digital learning activity for my students and although I believe there is an increasing number of quality and accessible digital learning resources out there, this is still an issue for teachers. There is a plethora of resources available online of varying quality....but who has the time to go through them all? And when you do finally find something decent you discover it's full of US spelling or something else which makes it unsuitable. I think (or at least I hope) we have moved beyond the days of thinking that solely sending students off to play free educational games is effective digital pedagogy. You would never provide worksheets for you students without being completely sure what was on them or throw them away afterwards without providing feedback.....which is essentially what is happening with many of those free online games. There are digital resources out there which provide a personalised learning journey for the student and progress information for the teacher; resources which allow for interaction between student and teacher based on the learning within the digital resource. How many schools are using quality resources such as those I wonder?

What is being done to address these issues and the digital division across schools in New Zealand?
I would love to hear how things are going in your own school.....



Reference:
Digital Technology In Schools, 2014 Report
Research New Zealand
Report prepared by 2020 Commission

Practise Makes Proficient

Have you put yourself in a learning situation lately? Have you challenged your mind and been forced to learn something new?

Recently I've been brushing up on my extremely rusty Spanish language skills in preparation for a holiday in Spain (yay!....although.....not so happy to learn there are tarantulas there...). Putting myself in the position of a learner in this way has been very interesting. I've remembered a few things about how it feels to be a learner and what it takes to really feel like you know something well.
Here are 3 important things I remembered about being a learner:

Firstly, it's tiring and it takes real mental effort not to give up when the going gets hard.
Secondly, if you're faced with too much new information at once it all seems unachievable. Small chunks of learning are best.
Thirdly, it takes a lot of practise before you really know something...just when you think you know it, you find out you need more practise. I'll give you an example:

I know the numbers 1 - 10 in Spanish. I do. I learned them at University and I can recite them to you no problem. So I was most confused the other night when I sat down to learn the numbers 20 - 100 and found that 1 - 10 kept slipping from my mind. It fascinated me. I would get to 23 and then...mental blank...what is 4?! It kept happening. 55...56....blank...what is 7?!
I stopped and recited 1 - 10 a few more times. It helped a little - in that moment. But what I began to think of was those children in my class who would be counting forwards and get stuck in the same way. I would always wonder why when they clearly knew the numbers 1 - 10. Or did they?

When I think of the numbers 1 - 10 in Spanish, I realise I don't really KNOW them. I know what they are, I can tell you what they are, but they're not ingrained in my knowledge and memory bank. I haven't written them enough, used them enough in context, thought with them enough, seen them enough...I haven't practised them enough. I think I need to practise 1 - 10 a bit more before I can begin to get fluent with 20 - 100 and then I would have to do the same with 20 -100.

Do we spend enough time with children getting to know those numbers? Really getting to know them..forwards, backwards, upside down (ok not that far). Numbers 1 - 100 are so vital and yet I think we might not provide enough opportunity for practise as soon as the student demonstrates that they can tell you the number order. It makes you think.....I mean...I can count 1 -10 in Spanish.......

Knowing The Full Story

How well do you know the NZ maths curriculum? No, I don't mean just the curriculum for the level(s) that you've taught or teach....I mean the full curriculum...

Some of the best professional development in maths I ever had was when we were tasked with matching measurement problems with the different levels of the maths curriculum from Level 1 to Level 5. It was a much harder task than we all first thought it would be but once we had done it, it gave us such a clear picture of the journey a learner takes through the topic of measurement.

Lately, I have been involved in writing a curriculum for maths....taking one topic at a time and writing outcomes from Level 1 onwards. Doing this has given me such a deeper understanding of the curriculum and the layers of learning within each topic.

I believe every teacher should have this understanding of the full picture before teaching at any level. Sometimes you can get so wrapped up in the level you are teaching that you forget to look at the full picture. You may even be inadvertently setting students up with misconceptions that inhibit their learning at higher levels of the curriculum.

The level of maths you are teaching at is just a chapter of the full story. Doesn't it make sense for teachers to know what the full story is before writing that particular chapter? If you don't, then how will you know exactly what the main character in the story has been through and what you need to write in order to mould that character for what is yet to come in the story?