Passionately Curious

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At last the new media message appears to be getting through :

Report : Friday January 4th 2008 Education Guardian  by Anthea Lipsett,

“Pupils beginning media studies A-level courses in September could earn some of their marks by creating websites, podcasts or blogs, it has emerged.According to the new syllabus issued by the OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA) exam board, traditional essays will no longer form part of coursework. Instead, pupils will be expected to submit some of their work in the form of podcasts - a series of audio or video files downloaded over the internet - or blogs - informal internet journals.”

Does this mean that at last the new media message is getting through to the curriculum developers, I for one certainly hope so, it will allow all of those pupils who have developed new media skills through Primary and Lower Secondary to apply them in a ‘real’ situation.

” OCR subject officer Paul Dodd said the revamped qualification would reflect significant media developments in recent years.

“We are providing a range of interesting project briefs to engage students and inspire them to produce creative projects through contemporary channels.

“This revised A-level has also been designed to appeal to the growing number of specialist media studies teachers employed by schools as a result of the subject’s popularity.”

The qualification’s chief examiner, Pete Fraser, media studies teacher at Long Road sixth-form college in Cambridge, said the changes represented an exciting step forward for the classroom.

“Feedback from students involved in pilot projects has been extremely positive, as they have greater pride in their work because of showcasing their research, planning and feedback online.”

I know also that there has been a focus group of teachers looking at the inclusion of new media into Modern Foreign Languages in England, this at least shows that the profession, and in particular new media practitioners are being brought into the process….. hopefully this kind of thinking will out weigh the negative thinking of my previous post.

There has been a lot of heat, but very little light shed on the use of new technology gadgets in schools lately…. from some teacher unions, commentators and those within the profession…

The BBC Education News site Friday 28th December 2007

Keep Christmas gadgets ‘at home’

Gadgets like mobile phones can disrupt lessons

Parents are being urged to keep Christmas gadgets out of the classroom. England’s Children’s Minister Kevin Brennan says electronic toys, music players and phones often appear in schools as the new term begins.

Children often bring the fascinating gadgets they were bought as Christmas presents into class, but these can cause disruption and hamper learning.

Teachers can and will confiscate such items if they see them being used in lessons, Mr Brennan warned.

General secretary of teaching union the NASUWT Chris Keates said: “Every year some youngsters arrive back at school with MP3 players, mobile phones and electronic games.

“This can be a real headache for teachers when they are trying to get everyone settled down to start learning. Teachers would be grateful if pupils just brought a pen.”

The NASUWT has some previous form ( as they say) on the issue of the use of mobile phones and social networking sites in schools and the issue of cyber bullying, the existence of which, cannot be denied, nor should it be under or overestimated.

I do just wish that the issue of cyber bullying was used as a learning opportunity rather than being treated as something which should be banned altogether. As all teachers know, if you ban something, you immediately make it worth doing all the more! Why not use the opportunity to teach ’safe surfing and netiquette’ or would that just be too much of a positive move.

On a personal note here I fought a small battle in my previous post against those who wished to prohibit comments on a class blog, seeing comments as , a bad thing which could be exploited - while my argument was that moderated comments were the life blood of a blog and a good learning opportunity for the pupils. We won on semantics in the end by saying that ‘ no un moderated comments should be allowed on a blog’, I am still unclear as to whether the powers that be felt that that meant no comments….. it certainly didn’t on either our class or classblogmeister blogs, where pupils loved getting comments from around the world

Lee Davis in the OPLS Blog gave some of the points which came out as concerns for teachers :

• There is a concern that, if the student is listening to his iPod then he’s not necessarily listening to the teacher or his classmates
• There is a real or perceived threat to academic honesty
• The teacher is apprehensive at best, frightened at worst, by the fact that his students know more about mobile technologies than he does.

Yes, some teachers may have these fears - I for one can be as paranoid as the next teacher, however I went out of my way to encourage pupils to bring in iPods and MP3 players to download and listen to our own podcasts and those of other schools. On the point of it being a threat to academic honesty - surely it is more likely to be so if it is ignored, than if dealt with again as a learning opportunity. I had also given up worrying about whether the pupils knew more than me…. as Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach so rightly says you truly own something when you can give it away to those in your care. ( you don’t necessarily have to own it to give it away).

I agree with Lee’s final point that the real point underlying the whole issue may well be ” the fact that these technologies are changing the very nature of teaching and learning, and that we’re just not ready.”

Doug Dickinson in his post ‘How to get it so, so wrong’ and Ewan McIntosh in his post ‘It’s the gadgets stoopid* , have also joined the debate on Mr Brennan’s and the NASUWT’s statements on the matter concluding with many of us in the world of Online Education - that our role is to do just that - to educate our pupils into the correct uses and truly amazing educational uses of these gadgets in schools, not to close the gates Luddite fashion on our kids and to truly risk alienating them further from the education process ( ** particularly the boys, who have an affinity for shiny new gadgets ….. don’t we boys?)

There have been some truly groundbreaking uses of mobile phones in and out of the classroom - the possibility of Moblogging from a field trip or visit abroad directly back to a blog( John Johnston of Sandaig Otters fame has set up a moblog page to which pupils can post their pictures), of being able to geo-tag photographs, and even one novel use I heard of for the use of mobiles, in a quiz where everyone used their different ringtones to decide who wanted to answer the question ( I believe I heard it from Chris Fuller!!! but I may be mistake… it’s the lack of little grey cells!). As for the use of text to generate questions - I remember watching Ewan give a seminar in Scotland where he put up his mobile number and screened questions from the floor ( yes, yes, I know that is a risky thing to do - but it just goes to show a way in which the technology can be used educationally).

In the end as another teacher said - we have to take their favourite tools and turn them subtly to our own uses, they ( the pupils of course!) will just see it as using the gadget, the learning opportunity will then be truly meaningful …. so let’s hope that not too much heed is paid to the doom mongers and that creativity and collaboration is allowed to prevail.

Hey teacher …… give those kids a chance !