Do you need Technology to be Contemporary?

I have been thinking about this question lately as I've come across a few people who believe that they are Contemporary Educators simply because their students have access to technology, or complain that they cannot possibly teach in a Contemporary fashion because their students don't have access to technology.

Contemporary Learning is more than just having access to technology. It's about what you do with it - shifting from teacher directed to self-directed, not using it as a replacement for chalk and talk and showing the children that you are a learner too.

Contemporary Learning is about collaboration, articulating purpose and need, problem solving, creativity and understanding. It's about understanding what learning is and how to move from the unknown into knowing and understanding. It's about the joys and frustrations of the whole learning experience.

Contemporary Learning is not about reams of worksheets and pages of notes and equations in books. In the future, if we want to simple arithmetic we will use the calculator in our smart phone. If we want to know a key date in history, once again we will look it up on our smart phone or mobile device. Rote learning is not an indicator of good learning and teaching anymore. Understanding key ideas that underpin historical research and mathematical concepts are what is important.

The result of this is that if you are a parent, you might not see reams of worksheets coming home with ticks and stamps and stickers on them anymore. You might get an email or a learning story describing a learning experience instead. You might not see workbooks full of pages with notes and writing. Instead you might see blogs, digital booklets your child has made, photostories or books full of flowcharts, mindmaps and brainstormed ideas. You won't hear much about sitting in a seat and doing "work", you will hear about group discussions, learning tasks, building, drawing, viewing videos and websites and talking about how to work well with others.

Technology has it's place as a research tool, a collaborative tool, a publishing tool and a communication tool. It's a key part of being contemporary but so is all of the other stuff too, like learning to work with others, asking questions, mapping out thinking and setting goals and future directions. So yes, technology is important at school and at home, but I'm wondering if it's being used in a contemporary collaborative fashion or just as a replacement for a chalkboard and solely teacher directed learning. Having access to technology does not equal Contemporary Learning. Effective use of Technology enables Contempoary Learning to become a reality rather than a pipedream.

The video below explains the advantages of using integrating effective use of Technology into Learning and Teaching. This could serve as a fantastic springboard for discussions in school communities and help to develop shared understandings about what Contemporary Learning is and how to use technology effectively.

 
Contemporary Learning from Danielle Carter on Vimeo.

Worth watching - Sir Ken Robinson's thoughts on Creativity, Imagination and Innovation

I found this on Sir Ken Robinson's Twitter stream (which I follow) and it resonated with me.

It is also rather apt for my school at the moment as well. Lots of food for thought here - it could be a great springboard for discussion!

An Awesome App for Mathematics

I got an iPad mini late last year and have been having a lot of fun looking into different Apps and how I might use them for Teaching and Learning during the holidays.

One that caught my attention is 'Folidfy', mainly because there are quite a number of children I worked with last year who love lego, Minecraft and Eden and were not always easy to engage. I was looking for something that would help them build or papercraft real life models of what they had created in a virtual space.

During the last few weeks of school there was a core group of boys who had been busy creating nets or skins of characters and sets created in Minecraft so they could create a stop motion movie about this world they had created, but it was really tricky for them to get the resolution right so that they could make models in a range of sizes. I think that this app may open up some possibilities for them to experience a little more success and at the same time, develop an understanding of lots of concepts related to both Mathematics and Visual Design.

Have a look at this little video I made using another App called 'Explain Everything'. It is pretty rough as it's the first time I've used it.

As you watch just think and IMAGINE the possibilities that Play, Exploration and Questioning using Technology present to us as learners and educators!

Enjoy...