I had an interesting learning experience today while I observed/evaluated one of my preservice students teach a senior level highschool math class. Direct instruction was utilized as students observed the teacher, followed along and wrote down any derived formulas. It was classic chalk-and-talk. And, the students were mostly well-behaved, and although a few chattered among themselves, it appeared that the majority paid attention.

Then I noticed a couple of the students in the class fiddle with their iPods as they followed the instruction. Both students were using only a single ear bud, while directing the rest of their attention toward their teacher. These students still took notes, yet once in a while, stopped long enough to navigate to another song.

I asked the supervising teacher if this behaviour was usual, or if iPods were even allowed in the classroom. He opened his gradebook, and noted that these students were two of the highest achievers in the math classroom. Their averages were well into the 90′s.

Then it occurred to me, or at least, this is what I have surmised. It seems that these students use their iPods to:
a) keep from being bored when there is downtime in the classroom;
b) keep from being distracted from the chatter of other students; and,
c) maintain a one-to-one relationship with the teacher.

Yes, I’m talking about direct instruction, and one-to-one teaching/learning relationships. And I’m talking about teaching and learning that doesn’t involve networks of learners, or the Internet, or even simple forms of collaborative learning. Yes, it’s direct instruction, and I’m talking about it here.

But in many schools, and in many classrooms, this is the way that learning still occurs. And in this very real situation, I was both happy and surprised to see that the use of the iPod actually seemed to make this learning relationship just a bit better.

Stephen Downes points to a great article that argues that designers often focus entirely too much on the consistency of design versus thinking about a users current knowledge.

The problem with thinking in terms of consistency is that those thoughts focus purely on the design and the user can get lost. “Is what I’m designing consistent with other things we’ve designed (or others have designed)?” is the wrong question to ask.

Instead, the right question is, “Will the user’s current knowledge help them understand how to use what I’m designing?” Current knowledge is the knowledge the user has when they approach the design. It’s the sum of all their previous experiences with relevant products and designs.

On a bit of a tangent, it’s amazing how the current knowledge of my own students is shaped from semester to semester. Where at one time, I found myself having to detail every step through every application I ever introduced, now, I’m usually able to spout off general directions (e.g.., publish this, upload that, develop this) without finding classroom learning slowed down with the specifics. In this sense, I am enjoying a mix of things, specifically, students becoming more technologically literate, and many educational technologies becoming easier and more intuitive to use. However, at the same time (still on this tangent), I sense that in general, these same students are increasingly less critical of and less media-literate. I think that the appropriate use of blogs and wikis (and web 2.0 in general) can assist in bridging the deficiency in the latter … but I don’t think that we are quite there yet.

A couple of days ago I read a post by Anne Davis titled “Inappropriate Comments = Teachable Moments“, which in itself is worth commenting on. Anne wrote the post in response to an innappropriate comment posted to a student blog. She used the incident as a teachable moment, and in consultation with her students, they collectively constructed protocols dealing with innappropriate comments. This is what they decided:

1) We would not respond to the irresponsible commenters. We would ignore them.
2) The student would report any inappropriate comments to the teacher.
3) The teachers would delete inappropriate comments, if they found them first but would discuss the matter with the owner of the blog and with the group, if appropriate.
4) We agreed that it was unfortunate that the commenter had not used common sense and we would try to set good examples on our blogs.

In being innovative with emerging technologies, teachers may often encounter aspects of Internet communication which are negative or unfavorable. Yet, such incidents are very much a part of an adolescent’s everyday world, and ignoring their existence will only contribute to the division between school learning and “real-world” learning.

And to demonstrate how this Davis’ philosophy is just good sense, note Marcos’ response to the “Inappropriate Comments = Teachable Moments” article. He writes:

“I think weblogs should be allowed in schools because it is part of our education. Weblogging has made me a better writer and thinker. Sometimes we get an inappropriate comment but that doesn’t slow us down. It is not the end of the world because someone has called you a bad name. You can’t stop that from happening. When we get an inappropriate comment we learn a lesson and that lesson is not to be like that person. We also learn responsibility on the Internet. If you were in a race and someone called you a bad name, would you stop? I think not. Martin Luther King Jr. was called bad names all the time and it didn’t stop him from fulfilling his dream. Thinks like this happen all the time, even out of school. So, please don’t shut down weblogs.”

Oh yeah, I failed to mention that Marcos is a fifth grade student. I’m certainly impressed by his level of maturity, and his thinking. Check out his blog at Marcos’ Seaworld of Facts.

A few weeks back, there was a report released by the Education & Training Committee (Victoria, AU) titled “Step Up, Step In, Step Out” which emerged from the “Inquiry into the Suitability of Pre-Service Teacher Training Courses”. A portion of that report targetted ICT in Teacher Education, and this type of information, of course,is central to my role here at the University of Regina.

Here are summarized points from the report, with my brief interjections.

“ICT linkages between teacher education faculties and school systems
are under-developed.”

I absolutely agree. This is something we’ve noted here in our own iTeacherEd research, and something we need to continue to address.

“ICT resources and applications within teacher education has not kept pace with developments in the schools sector.”

In our case, I think it’s the opposite. The computer hardware in many of the classrooms in our local systems are out-of-date. Our interning students complain that many of things they learned in our technology integration courses cannot be used when they hit the (sometimes) poorly equipped classrooms. Of course, the proprietary lock-in on software is another entire issue, and schools are not quick to upgrade software when each new version costs money and takes time and resources to implement.

“linkages between education faculties and developers of ICT products
are not strong enough.”

Yes! Not strong enough, or in many cases, non-existent. It would be interesting to see (open source) ICT developed in-house in collaboration with CS students (perhaps) and Education students. Hmmmmm.

“experiences of pre-service teachers in ICT instruction during pre-service teacher education vary considerably in breadth and quality.”

Agreed, strongly. And it’s something we are certainly trying to address through elective and mandatory content, but more so, through the professional development of education faculty members in ICT. Still, my belief is that once we have professors modelling appropriate uses of ICT in ALL classes, we will have won a major battle.

The Australian report can be downloaded here.