Information Technology And Authentic Learning

xthe teacher what to do with a computer, and how to do it. What the effects ofsuch computer-based learning might be has, however, often been left toconjecture. Much of the evidence which does exist is the result of academicresearch in pilot studies, often in rather artificial conditions with small groups ofchildren. The results are scattered through the academic literature. An additionalfactor which confounds the novice reader is that much work refers to computeruse as though it is some kind of uniform activity, failing to differentiate betweenactivities as diverse as programming in LOGO and writing a story with a wordprocessor.The only large-scale survey of long-term use of IT in UK schools found littleevidence of impact on learning, possibly owing to a low level of pupil access tocomputers in their case-studies. In the last two years more positive evidence hasbegun to emerge as the levels of resourcing have risen steeply in some schools,providing suitable populations of children for observation. The NationalCurriculum has stipulated the use of IT as a tool throughout the curriculum forall children ‘wherever appropriate’. How can this use then be managed to ensurethe optimum learning outcomes? Realistically, what should a teacher be lookingfor in a child’s work, attitude and skill development as a result of using IT?What sort of learning situations and desired outcomes are best enhanced by theuse of a computer? When is it better not to turn to the screen and keyboard?This book addresses these questions. It informs the reader of known outcomes,where these exist, collated from the literature and original work by the authors,and makes practical suggestions for classroom practice. The areas coveredinclude the main strands of IT in the National Curriculum for Key Stages 1 and 2,and the uses within core and foundation subjects where there is good evidence ofpositive effects on learning outcomes. There is also a chapter on the use ofmultimedia and on-line services which are only just entering the primaryclassroom but which are likely to have a major presence in home and school.Finally there is an epilogue looking at what we might reasonably expect to see interms of the impact of IT on classroom culture in the near future, including aconsideration of integrated learning systems. This book concentrates not on howIT should be used, but why IT should be used, and in doing so it touches on thefundamental concepts of what effective education is, and challenges teachers tore-examine the objectives underlying their teaching.

AcknowledgementsI would like to extend my thanks to the teachers and children who have allowedus into their classrooms over the years, and whose work has informed thecontents of this book. I am also grateful to Margaret Smith, Head of theCambridgeshire Schools Library Service, for allowing me to use materialdeveloped by the service in Chapter 11. Carol McDonnell, an Arts CouncilResearch Fellow at the University of Brighton, kindly provided illustrations forinclusion in Chapter 9. These were gleaned from her work with children in anumber of schools.As in the case of any edited volume, this book owes much to the colleagueswho have contributed chapters, and I would particularly like to thank Mike Bonnettfor the hours he spent reading and commenting on the book as a whole.Angela McFarlane, Homerton CollegeAugust 1996

Chapter 1Where are we and how did we get here?Angela McFarlaneThe computer generationIt is worth remembering that in 1980 the only experience of computers childrenhad was confined to the realms of science fiction. The desk-top personalcomputer was a new invention and yet to become a consumer product. Nocomputers of any kind had any significant presence in British schools. The‘teaching machines’ developed during the 1960s and 1970s in the United States,using a mini-computer with networked terminals, never gained a foothold in themore child-centred UK school culture. However, in less than a generation themicrocomputer has become ubiquitous; it has found a place in every classroomand workplace and a good many homes. It has also become more powerful, easierto use, smaller and cheaper—a trend which is not yet exhausted.The evolution of the microcomputer has been as rapid as its dispersal. In thetime it takes a human child to develop to maturity, the personal ormicrocomputer has gone from a box which was good at sums, could make beepsand whistles and draw pictures which looked as though they had been built fromDuplo bricks, to an all-singing all-dancing maturity which can play Beethoven infull digital stereo, show television-quality moving pictures and which cancalculate at least thirty times faster than before. Almost unbelievably, this can allbe achieved on a machine that can fit comfortably into a briefcase. Possibly moresignificant than the competence with which the computers of the nineties canperform these operations, is the fact that this power can all be harnessed bypointing and clicking at pictures on the screen. This makes the technology farmore accessible to the non-specialist user. The earlier machines required aknowledge of sequences of characters, often bizarre ones, which had to beremembered and typed in to get the computer to perform the simplest task.Finally, perhaps even more amazing than the increased power and ease of use ofthe modern computer is the fact that the price of a state-of-the-art personalcomputer has stayed more or less the same, which represents a significant drop inreal terms when you allow for inflation.

2 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND AUTHENTIC LEARNINGIt is worthwhile remembering that despite this rapid expansion of technology,there are still large sections of the population who have remainedpersonally unfamiliar with computers. As a consequence they have a rather hazyview of the personal computer and the tasks of which it is capable, and may beunaware of the role played by computerised components of everyday technologysuch as microwave ovens or photocopiers. Consider the way computers are stillreferred to in the popular media. They are often attributed human characteristicsor given powers far beyond the currently possible, for example the reasoning andspeaking computers frequently found in television programmes. It is easy toforget that the current generation of computers are purely reactive machines,albeit rather complex ones. They can only execute instructions they have beenprogrammed with, including errors in-built by users and programmers who maynot have foreseen every consequence of the interaction of algorithms they putinto the software. As programs become bigger and more complex thesecumulative errors seem inevitable. Most large commercial word processors, forexample, will crash from time to time. The easier to use point-and-click userinterface has its drawbacks too. It is very easy to click on something unintendedand produce an unexpected outcome, which may prove irreversible. When thishappens, it is common to hear even the experienced user complain that thecomputer ‘did something’. This apparent tendency to autonomy on the part of themachine is understandably unsettling to the user, and does much to maintain thefeeling of mild unease the loss of control engenders in many users.The time-scale of computer evolution means that the experience of adults andchildren varies very widely. Anyone born before 1970 will not have seen amicrocomputer as a primary school child. In fact surveys of students enteringhigher education in the late 1980s suggest that few of them had any significantexposure to computers in school at all (see for example Blackmore 1992). Incontrast todays children have never known a world without computers. To thepresent schoolchild a computer is a natural part of her culture, to be explored,played with or ignored as required. Children, unused to having mastery of muchin their world, are not intimidated by the computer and its idiosyncrasies and arehappy to learn here, as elsewhere, by trial and error. Parents and teachers, used toa degree of competence in dealing with the world around them, may still see thecomputer as a recent invader, unfamiliar and often unpredictable. The world haschanged from a place where children thought they knew more than their parentsinto a world where they often really do. This is especially so where childrenmeet computers in infant or junior school and parents do not use them either athome or in the workplace. The consequences of this generation gap could bemore far-reaching than any created by the so-called sexual revolution of the1960s.Whatever this has done for the parent-child relationship, it has often shaken upthe teacher—pupil dynamic, especially where computers have been placed inclassrooms irrespective of teachers’ own perceived needs. The attitudes andexperience of teachers and student teachers vary enormously. There are many

WHERE ARE WE AND HOW DID WE GET HERE? 3teachers who have embraced the technology eagerly, and some who haveintegrated its use into the curriculum to enhance and extend children’slearning. There are many more, however, who are nowhere near this. Thereasons for this lack of engagement are many, and usually interlinked. Lack ofresources—computers and suitable software—are undeniably important.However, a shortage of appropriate training in the effective use of IT may be thecritical missing link. Although levels of resourcing in schools continue to climbsteadily, if slowly, levels of use of IT in the classroom do not (DfE 1995e). Thefollowing incident, witnessed in a busy classroom, is telling; a child of 9,previously regarded as none too bright, who had a problem with LOGO lookedup at his teacher and said, ‘Miss Oh no, you won’t know the answer to this.’The fact that he was right was very sobering for his teacher. It is not that teachersknew everything before, it was just that they usually knew more about the taskthey had set than the average 9-year-old pupil. The presence of computers, and astatutory requirement to use them, has often changed that. The growth of largeelectronic databases, and the ease of access to them which optical storage media,such as CD ROM, and on-line services such as the Internet provide, are likely toaccelerate this change as children gain competence in the ‘new literacy’ of theinformation age, and teachers risk being left behind. This may even force achange in the criteria which are used to accredit educational success.When, ultimately, pupils have access to major archives at the touch of a button,what will be the value of memorised information? The majority of currentassessment systems, particularly those administered on a national scale, relyheavily on testing the memory of pupils and their ability to produce certain factson demand. Already this is of questionable value, given the rate of growth ofknowledge. The ability to find, interpret and evaluate information is far moreimportant, as are the skills relating to problem-solving and critical thinking. Thisskills-based, child-centred approach to learning has of course been at the heart ofprimary education in the UK for some decades. Recent legislation has tried toforce schools away from this towards a more ‘traditional’ curriculum, which isgoverned by tests of students’ knowledge at regular intervals. The apparentprominence given to skill development has been undermined by the relativelyminor role it plays in the formal assessment process. It seems that the politicaland technological tides are running in conflicting directions, and it is hard to seehow this will be resolved. One thing is certain, however; the technological tide willnot go away. It is driven by international commercial forces far greater thannational politics or education policies. Perhaps the deciding factor will be thatthose people who will find gainful employment in the next century will be theones who are flexible, independent learners capable of finding the informationthey need and applying it to the problem in hand. All these skills have been shownto be enhanced through the judicious use of information technology in theclassroom. The school leavers who can simply write neatly, spell, and recite theirtables will be joining the dole queues.

4 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND AUTHENTIC LEARNINGSchools may look to newly trained teachers to bring them up to date withcomputer use. However, data on the competence and confidence of traineeteachers suggest this cannot be relied upon. Youth or recent training areno guarantee of classroom expertise with computers, any more than maturity andexperience preclude it. With the increase in time student teachers spend inschools, trainees look increasingly to qualified teachers for advice on the use ofcomputers in the classroom. Since recent surveys suggest that up to 75 per cent ofprimary teachers do not make regular use of the computer in their teaching theyare not in a position to help the newcomers to the profession (DfE 1995e).How did computers get into schools?From the earliest days of the microcomputer, there was a ground swell of opinionamong some, often very vocal, educationalists and politicians that computers inschools would be ‘a good thing’. Not surprisingly, they had different views onwhy that might be so. Interestingly, the first UK government initiatives to putcomputers in schools were not from the Department of Education and Science, asit then was, but from the Department of Trade and Industry. Computers wouldfill the world of work, so children had better learn about them; computer studieswas born.The lobby of educationalists which saw computers as deliverers of curriculumcontent, via drill and practice software that would in part at least replace humanteachers, was small in the UK and gained little credibility in schools. Howeveranother lobby of pro-computer educationalists took a very different approach.The most well known is probably Seymour Papert, the inventor of LOGO. Hebelieved that the use of LOGO would revolutionise education. This computerlanguage, which may look pretty arcane in today’s world of computers driven bymouse clicks, was a piece of cake compared to anything that had gone before. Itopened the world of computer programming to children. They could make thecomputer do things they wanted it to do, starting with drawing and movingsimple shapes. This may seem very tame to todays computer game acolytes, butin its time it was pretty heady stuff. It is one measure of the impact of LOGOthat it remains the only computer language ever to have been referred to by namein the UK National Curricula.Opening up this new world of personal expression and empowerment tochildren was going to revolutionise the classroom; it was even predicted by someto lead to the end of schools. Papert and his followers underestimated the abilityof schools to resist change. Computers were absorbed and their use controlled.Whether or not LOGO ever was the tool to change the face of education beyondrecognition is debatable. One thing is certain; it never got the opportunity if onlybecause in mainstream schools no one ever had the money to provide enoughmachines to have children all sitting using LOGO, or any other software, day inand day out. Even though the UK government education departments spent some 189 million on IT between 1981 and 1994, and the money spent on computers

WHERE ARE WE AND HOW DID WE GET HERE? 5has at least been matched by school and parent funds, 1995 still found us with onlyone computer for every eighteen children in the average primary school. Theadvent of the truly personal portable computer is likely to make a significantimpact on this situation in the near future. The value of these machines inschools has been shown unequivocally by the National Council for EducationalTechnology’s national pilot evaluation, funded by the DfE (Stradling et al.1994). The smallest and cheapest are equivalent in price to a new bicycle orelectronic game system. There are already indications that where parents are awareof the contribution these machines can make to their child’s education, and theschool cannot provide one for exclusive individual use, some of them are buyinga portable for their child to use in school. In time, the problem of inadequatecentral provision of computers is likely to be overtaken by the personalownership of portables by the majority of pupils. Schools will only need tosupply machines for those unable to provide their own, rather as in the case ofcalculators today.We have been promised by many pundits since the early 1980s that schoolswould never be the same after the information revolution, but this has nothappened yet. Political change in the shape of the National Curriculum, andchanges in teachers’ terms of employment have done far more to affect the dayto-day world of someone who has been a schoolteacher or pupil during the 1980sand 1990s. However, computers are slowly and surely invading every classroom.The support for computers in schools in the UK, especially as provided throughlocal education authority advisory staff during the 1980s and early 1990s (beforetheir recent decline) promoted a computer-based pupil-empowerment culture.This is still present in UK schools; it is even embedded—albeit somewhatdisguised—within the National Curriculum Information Technology Capabilityrequirements, which are a statutory part of the curriculum for all pupils aged from5 to 16. The requirements dictate that pupils must have exposure to the computeras a tool: learning to use it, for example, to communicate effectively and tocollect, handle and interpret data. Knowledge of these powerful processes can bevery effective in the development of so-called higher-order thinking skills, aslater chapters will discuss. Using these processes can promote flexibility andindependence in the learner.By law, teachers have to teach IT, which is given the status of a separatesubject in the National Curriculum. Although IT can be taught as a separatesubject, and certain elements often are, there is in addition a requirement toincorporate its use into the curriculum ‘where appropriate’. Whether teachersfeel sufficiently well resourced or competent to do this is another matter. In 1995the DfE proudly announced that 90 per cent of teachers had had ‘initialawareness’ training in IT. They were quieter about the fact that 75 per cent hadhad nothing more. It would be an over-simplification to suggest that shortage ofcomputers and software were the only reasons that children are not having moreexperience of information technology in schools. (There are instances where asingle computer can support an activity, as evidenced here in Chapters 2, 3, 6 and

6 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND AUTHENTIC LEARNING7.) But whilst there has been an effort to supply resources and basic awarenesstraining to teachers, there is still little information readily available on whatconstitutes valuable computer use in educational terms, and even less on how wemay recognise the positive outcomes of these experiences. Word processing isthe most common use of computers in schools by a long way, yet this can all toooften mean typing in a story written by hand so that a child has a neat copy withcorrect spelling. It is hard to see what revolutionary learning gains the child maymake as a result of this experience. Computer use alone, without clear objectivesand well-designed tasks, is of little intrinsic value. It is entirely reasonable thatm

Information technology and authentic learning realising the potential of computers in the primary classroom/edited by Angela McFarlane. p. cm. ISBN -415-14701-8 (alk. paper) 1. Computer-assisted instruction—Great Britain. 2. Education, Elementary—Great Britain—Data processing. 3. Information technology—Great Britain. I. McFarlane .