Barriers to effective use of technology in teaching and learning

There are many barriers to the use of technology in education. Not every school or institution has the opportunity to use the latest technological tools like smart white boards with cost being a major factor. Another barrier may be that some schools and higher education institutions find it difficult to find the time to integrate it into their existing curricula and that many of the teachers feel unprepared to learn. Lack of access itself poses a great barrier towards the use of technology in education

According to  Sabaliauskas , T and Pukelis, T the integration of information technologies into the system of education has been discussed by a number of authors such as Hargreaves (1994), Lawton (1994), Lai (2001),  and others, and it was emphasised that the change in teaching and learning while integrating information and communication technologies is a long process which requires a lot of resources.Many barriers and difficulties are encountered such as, lack of support, lack of teacher competencies, insufficient financing (of teacher professional developments in ICT and lack of cooperation among academic personnel. 

Another major barrier can be the resistance to change with teachers refusing to change the old way of doing things. According to Murphy, J.W. (1986)  many writers have suggested that this technology may destroy the humanistic character of the typical classroom ,technology, it is thought, is to do with machines, and education with human beings. Murphy informs us that The dehumanizing effects of technology are described by  (Bjorn-Anderson and Rasmussen, 1980). as thought to violate the sanctity of the student -teacher relationship, altering the teacher's role in order to accommodate what are believed to be shifting aims of education.

Sabaliauskas, T. and Pukelis, K.(2004)
Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania

'Barriers to integration of information and communication technologies into the teaching and learning process'

http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00003861.htm

Humanizing the Use of Technology in Education: A Re-Examination Author(s): John W. Murphy Source: International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l'Education, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1986), pp. 137-148 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3444262 Accessed: 15-01-2016 11:41 UTC

How technology has changed the way we learn.

 

                       

There are many ways in which technology has changed the way in which we teach and learn. The classroom in 2016 has embraced digital technologies to aid teaching and learning and is completely different to the classroom when I was a child.  According to Olshanetsky, D.(2013)"Many people remember the wheeling in of a small television, and a VHS/DVD being played, but in 2016 it’s simpler for the teacher to have a MacBook attached to an ActivBoard to play a Channel 4 OD/BBC iPlayer,Hulu or YouTube video."

I remember burying my head in a book as a child totally engrossed and even loving the  musky smell of a hardback book! Nowadays youngsters can simply log on to a laptop, kindle or tablet or access an e book, how times have changed.

Now, online resources allow us to access information wherever  we are ,in the classroom, on the go,or at home as a means to support our learning.

Olshanetsky (2013) goes on to inform us that "Groups like BrainPOP specialize in creating multimedia content for all ages and types of students, from flash games, to interactive quizzes." These apps can be very useful in assessing a students learning. 

Students can now cross international language barriers and access articles from foreign newspapers with full page translators, all this proving that education is embracing new technologies, giving the student a much wider based platform of information to access.

There are no doubts that information technology can have its downside, but there is little evidence to suggest that computers are damaging our brains.Infact could computers make us more intelligent? 
According to Robson, D.(2014) "The potential for technology to enhance the mind was explored by, Google’s vice-president of research, Alfred Spector, at the 'World changing ideas summit' in New York on 21 October. He outlined the ways that even simple apps could improve the way we think and learn." Spector looks at research that suggests that average students can dramatically improve their learning if they have a personal tutor who can adapt their teaching methods to the student’s style of thinking and learning. So if technology was employed to become custom tutors, then it may be possible to dramatically improve educational attainment. Spector goes on to say that technology could fundamentally change our society – perhaps even abolishing the need for schools. To me this is a scary thought as schools are as important for social interactions as they are for learning.

 Olshanetsky, D (2013) 

https://econsultancy.com/blog/63456-the-digital-classroom-how-tech-has-changed-the-way-we-learn/

Robson, D. (2014) World changing ideas.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141022-are-we-getting-smarter

The value of mobile technology in teaching and learning

It can be said that the adoption rate of mobile devices has increased dramatically in recent years and that this has been driven by technological improvements and lower costs. These devices provide an array of applications that impact almost every facet of our lives. They have become a basic necessity for many people and for students they represents a way to address a number of educational problems. Devices such as smart phones and tablets enable innovation and help students and teachers gain access to digital content, personal and academic. E mails, Facebook and also such things as journals, google scholar etc. can be instantly accessed for dissertation and essay research through such devices and this mobile research and information retrieval can happen anywhere , in the classroom or outside it. Mobile learning offers modern ways to support learning process through mobile devices, such as handheld tablets I pads and smart phones. It is not surprising, therefore, that lecturers, distance education providers and teaching institutions at all levels are increasingly using these devices as a medium to connect, communicate and relay information.
Sadly, not every student has access to a computer, however, most young people have phones with internet access.
According to  Naismith,Lonsdale Vavoula and Sharples, (2006), research on informal and lifelong learning recognises that learning happens all of the time and is influenced both by our environment and situations we are faced with. Such a broad view of learning takes learning outside the classroom and therefore embeds learning in everyday life. Here  the value of mobile technologies in supporting this learning is paramount and these technologies can have a great impact on learning. In higher education, mobile devices may provide course material to students this could include such things as due dates for assignments and information about timetable or any changes that may affect them. With the increase of mobile technologies being used for educational purposes learning will move more and more outside of the classroom and into the learner’s environments, thus becoming more personal, collaborative and lifelong.  The flip side in my opinion is that too many young people spend too much time on such devices and not enough time really communicating or exercising. The obesity levels especially in Wales has risen dramatically in recent years and many young people although connected, actually find that on many levels they have become more isolated.

www.futurelab.org.uk/research.
Literature Review in Mobile Technologies and Learning. Naismith, L, Lonsdale, P Vavoula,G and Sharples ,M. University of Birmingham 2006

Power Point In Higher Education

Slide presentations software such as PowerPoint have become an ingrained part of many instructional settings, particularly in large classes and in H.E courses more geared toward information exchange than skill development.It is probably the most popular presentation software and is regarded as the most useful way to present visual aids to an audience. It can be a highly effective tool to aid learning, but if not used carefully, may instead disengage students and actually hinder learning.There are many advantages to using Power Point such as ,engaging multiple learning styles,  providing annotations and highlights,  increasing visual impact, and enriching curriculum with interdisciplinarity. However the down side to the use of this tool is that it is teacher centred with little interaction from students, presentations can be long and boring with too much text and transitions should be used sparingly to avoid distractions that ultimately may result in student disengagement. 

Power Point is a presentation that I have used in the past and is in fact a mandatory aspect of the BA course in Sculpture in the form of a Petcha Kutcha presentation. It is therefore definitely something I would use in my teaching practice and encourage my students to become familiar with and use creatively. 


Here is a PowerPoint presentation I created a while ago.

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Reflective Teaching In Adult Education

One of the great exponents of critical reflection is Jack Mezirow. His fundamental approach is that we should critically reflect on our assumptions (CRA) as to have a principled approach to our thinking. He suggests that if we do adopt this approach, the results will be transformative. Mezirow called critical reflection of assumptions and self- reflection on assumptions the ‘emancipatory dimensions of adult learning’.

By reflecting critically, instead of continuing with our feelings of self-doubt, that we are imposters in our classrooms, or that we are failing as teachers, we can become positive in our search for new understandings of our practice. Ultimately we can be in control of our professional practice and acknowledge that we cannot transform everything, but can identify the spheres in which we can , that this process is truly emancipatory. Hillier (2012)

Experience in itself does not guarantee learning. In order to learn from experience we must reflect on our experiences, try and relate them to theory and then improve on them. This is a continual process that is repeated, a cyclic experiential learning process. The ‘experiential learning cycle’ was first suggested by Dewey but developed by David Kolb. Petty (2014)

ICT Applications for educational purposes

Hot Potatoes was one of the first applications we were shown. It enables you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, and gap-fill exercises to use for any purpose or project you like.It can be used as an educational tool and I can see that it would possibly be useful to certain learner groups, however I could not see myself using it with my students. I believe my time would be better spent on demonstrating or assisting in the practical application of sculptural processes, as a student myself I always found there was never enough time to  spend exploring sculptural techniques in the workshops and on reflection I would encourage students to learn as many processes as possible  

                                                           https://hotpot.uvic.ca/ 

As part of the PETLA assignment we were asked, in pairs, to pick a teaching strategy from a lucky dip and then we were asked to go and research that strategy to present our findings to the class. I paired up with Hazel and the teaching strategy that we picked was BRAINSTORMING.

BRAINSTORMING  is a problem solving technique used to generate a number of ideas on a specific subject , within a short time frame. This teaching strategy is a group activity that allows students to contribute key words and ideas without critique. It has many advantages to aid learning and can be used for essay writing and to get ideas onto the page. 

WORDLE is a tool that generates “word clouds” from text that you type into the box provided. These word clouds give greater prominence to words that appear most frequently in the source text. For example if you repeatedly use the word "White apple" then this will be more prominent in the text imagery as can be seen above in the wordle created from the brainstorming exercise we completed in class. You can also change the fonts, layouts, and colour schemes to suit your desired design and the images you create with Wordle can be used in educational applications as well as creative personal ventures. Wordle can be used to create an interesting and informative header for a handout with key words relating to the subject matter or for revision purposes.I could also see my students may want to use this application in the creation of their own personal dictionaries which is part of a second year module to assist in language use to help with written work and ultimately for writing their dissertation.