Integrating technology: "just try it"!

An article which I have read a couple of weeks ago (and also showed to my students) keeps popping up in my mind.. it's the article of Mary Burns about "The 5J approach". As many articles that have been published recently the topic is difficulties that teachers face when integrating technology into classroom learning. The author of this article indicates that one cause of this difficulty seems to be the types of technology-related professional development teachers receive (still too focused on learning how to use the software instead of integrating it into someone's own teaching and learning process). And this is not a new message. We know that teachers are using technology, but this use is often related to administration, preparation of documents or displaying a presentation. Using technology as a learning tool for students is a different and more difficult thing. And we still have not figured out why this is the way it is.

In the mean time many researchers (including me and my colleagues) are trying to find out a) why teachers still have difficulties with integrating technology and b) if (if!) we find the answer to this: how can we really help them to integrate the technology in such a way that both teachers and students can benefit from it.

At the moment we are trying to find out if the TPACK framework can be of assistance in this and it looks promising. But it might be interesting to see if we can use the 5J's too. The 5J's stands for technology professional development which is:

• job-related, focused on the core competencies of the classroom, not technology
• just enough, emphasizing increased comfort, not proficiency, with computers and management of limited technology resources
• just in time, meaning teacher are provided with skills as and when needed
• just in case teachers need to plan for contingencies
• accompanied by a "just try it" attitude, wherein instructors apply both pressure and support to compel teachers to use what they've learned.

The first time I saw this list I was triggered by the fifth J: Just try it. And if you look at what the author is writing, she is saying that this J might be the most important of all J's. She states that "central to change is action, and this is where professional development often breaks down. [...] Without application in the classroom, professional development is a waste of time, money, and effort." It is argued in the article that "Only when these five 'J's come together in a systematic way might the story of technology-based trainings have a different ending."

Figure 1: Proposed visual of the 5J model

I tried to put this in a figure (I like visual representations..) that is similar to the TPACK circles. Following the arguements in the article of Mary Burns we should pay attention to all 5 J's in order to have a succesfull technology-based training.

But I propose an alternative.. My suggestion is to support teachers by paying attention to job-related, just enough, just in time and just in case in combination with a little bit more attention to linking this with pedagogy and content (and thereby emphasising the job-related component?) and placing the "just try it" in the middle of the figure like this:

Figure 2: Alternative visual of the 5J model

It is my hope that by paying sufficient (and what is sufficient?..) attention to the other 4 Js, the teacher should be encouraged enough to try things out in his or her classroom.

And yes.. I am also "just trying".. I realise that the overlapping circles are not really the right way to visualise it, because what would be the overlap between job-related and just enough and between all the other components?

But if you have any ideas about the 5 J's, please let me know!

Talking about innovation... the Beatles! (2)

Some of my friens and colleagues asked me about this Dutch Beatles-Stones thing of Jan Rot..


or this one..

Talking about innovation... the Beatles!

A few weeks ago I went to the theatre with a friend of mine. It was a (Dutch) show of Jan Rot, together with Marjolein Meijers and Jan van der Meij, and they played songs from the Beatles and the Stones. In between the audience had to vote whether they liked the Beatles or the Stones and which group was the most innovative. My friend voted Stones, I voted Beatles... And now I am in Liverpool for the ISSOTL conference and across the convention centre there is "The Beatles Story". In between session I took a quick look. Didn't have the time to go into the museum, but picked up some of the atmosphere... So this is especially for Karen :-)

ISSOTL2010: Technology-Supported Reflection in Kuwait

This morning I presented Abdullah Almodaires' work that he carried out during his PhD study. Abdullah's study was about Technology-Supported Reflection in Kuwait. He implemented a new way of supporting field training activities for prospective primary school teachers. A big challenge.. not only did he propose to use a new pedagogical approach, he also introduced new technology to support this. In order to reduce the gap between what students theoretically learn at the university and what they have to do in the schools when they are teaching he did an experiment in which he introduced the reflective practice approach and supported this with an online video-based learning environment. If you are interested in this you can read his dissertation and/or look at the presentation of this morning:

2010 10-21 ISSOTL Technology-supported reflection in Kuwait

View more presentations from Petra Fisser.

ISSOTL2010: keynote on transcultural education

At the moment I am at the ISSOTL (International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning) conference, where I will present the results of Abdullah Almodaires' PhD study on Technology-Supported Reflection in Kuwait. I will tell more about this in a next post.

The interesting part of this conference is that it is not "just about teaching and learning" (which is in itself interesting enough), but special attention is payed to cultural diversity. Several presentations are about learning in different cultures and learning across cultures. At this moment Jude Carroll of Oxford Brookes University is doing her keynote presentation about "Learning across cultures: opening our minds as well as our doors". She works on the Teaching International Students project (2009-2011). She states that

- there are differences in academic cultures and in learning approaches

- we need to learn from flows of people and ideas across cultural academic traditions

and she wants to do that with a "transcultural" approach in contrast to a cross-cultural approach.

Before she moves on with her presentation she stops... and asks us if we already know what she wants to tell us, what the structure of her presentation will be..

We think we do, but Jude explains that it really depends on the "lens" that you have, it depends on your academic culture. It would be interesting to "reverse the lens" and see that, even though you would use the same words, there will be different meanings and practices. But it is very difficult to reverse the lens. Everyone is used to his or her own culture. But one of the reasons to try to do this is because different views are quickly translated as "binary" or "opposite". And when you are working with people from other cultures it might be a good idea to avoid this. And.. as Jude says... we should avoid the idea that "west is best"..

I think this is very interesting in relation to our own master program. We have Dutch students, but also students from Africa and Asia. And yes, there are differences between these students. They are used to other forms of education, other forms of communication, etc. And we are labelling the students from other countries as "international students", which really makes them different. But everyone is international! But we are making a difference and we are labelling students.

Can we do something about it? One of the solutions that Jude mentions is that we as a teacher have to make the learning practice more explicit: explain the rules of the game and assisting the international students to become skillfull "players" of the academic game of the other country. We have to work with students "as a source of mutual adaptation". And that is were the term "transcultural" comes from. How do we do this?
- recognizing and valuing other academic and cultural practices
- see students as bearers of culture, not bearers of problems
- keep the dialogue open
I would be very interested in hearing from our "international students" if we are already doing this, or that we have to pay more attention to it!

TPACK according to... my students!

During the last couple of days my students from the Master program Curriculum Instruction and Media Applications (CIMA) have been writing about TPACK. And... they surprised me (positively)! I already noticed in their previous posts on their blogs that they are taking blogging very seriously and that they don't "just say something", but they are really reflecting ont he topics that we discuss during the lectures. They are not only repeating theory, they are also adding own information, experiences, links to other websites and some of them make their own pictures to support their ideas with visuals. This is also true about their ideas on TPACK. Most of them like the TPACK model and the ideas behind it, but they also recognize that TPACK is not something that a teacher automatically incorporates in his or her regular teaching activities. I can really recommend reading the blogs! You can find them on the right side of this blog.. Enjoy!

Animatie als ondertiteling

Via de weblogs van Wilfred Rubens en Ewan McIntosh vond ik weer een nieuwe animatie van RSA Animate. Ik ben al langer "fan" van deze animaties en ook deze is weer mooi. De animaties zijn eigenlijk een "ondertiteling" van een verhaal van iemand. Deze keer is het een ondertiteling van een presentatie van Sir Ken Robinson. Niet alleen de inhoud van deze animatie is interessant (o.a. waarom ziet onderwijs er uit zoals het er uit zit, gaan we wel op de juiste manier om met adhd, welke invloed heeft onderwijs op de creativiteit van kinderen), maar ook de vorm op zich is prachtig! Een geweldig voorbeeld van het gebruik van nieuwe media om een boodschap over te brengen!

De zeven gewoonten voor kinderen

Een aantal jaar geleden volgde ik de cursus "de zeven eigenschappen van effectief leiderschap", gebaseerd op het boek dat Stephen Covey schreef over de manier waarop je een effectieve leider kan worden. Oorspronkelijk was dit boek bedoeld voor managers, maar het bleek dat de richtlijnen breder gebruikt kunnen worden voor iedereen die zijn of haar leven bewust wil vormgeven. Je start er mee dat je je bewust moet zijn dat je zelf bepaald wat er in je leven gebeurt. Daarna bepaal je wat je belangrijk vindt, hoe je dat wil bereiken, welke prioriteiten je stelt, hoe je met anderen kan samenwerken en hoe je blijft doorzetten en je plannen en relaties onderhoudt. Voor mij persoonlijk was deze cursus een eye-opener en een manier om vast te stellen wat ik wel (en niet) wilde bereiken.

Nu zag ik net het bericht dat de zeven eigenschappen ook een rol kunnen spelen in de ontwikkeling van kinderen. Op de website van obs Atlantis in Amersfoort is te lezen "Op Atlantis maken wij gebruik van de 7 gewoonten voor kinderen. Wij noemen ze de 7 parels. In elke groep wordt volgens deze gewoonten gewerkt en leren kinderen hoe zij effectief kunnen zijn, proactief kunnen communiceren en positief werken aan hun relaties met anderen."

Ja, waarom ook niet? De zeven eigenschappen voor actief leiderschap zijn door Stephen Covey vertaald naar zeven gewoonten voor kinderen (The leader in me) en in de VS is daar ervaring mee opgedaan. Obs Atlantis is nu de eerste school in Nederland die hier mee aan de slag gaat. Er is een (Amerikaanse) website beschikbaar met meer informatie over het boek, informatie voor ouders en leerkrachten, je kan webcasts volgen en je kan lid worden van een community via facebook.

Toch maar weer eens terugkijken naar wat ik destijds aan prioriteiten heb gesteld en of die ook behaald heb. Want dat is natuurlijk wel het nadeel aan cursussen.. je bent enthousiast, neemt je voor om ook echt op die manier te werk te gaan en er op die manier voor te zorgen dat "alles goed komt". Maar waar is dat prioriteitenlijstje gebleven? En hoe zou ik dat ook al weer gaan bereiken? Hopelijk hoeven de leerlingen van Atlantis zich dit niet af te vragen en is dit netjes in het onderwijs verweven zodat ze er automatisch mee bezig zijn en mee bezig blijven!

Pedagogy and technology

Last week my course was all about pedagogical approaches and this week it's all about technology. You can follow the ideas of my students on their own blogs (see the menu on the rigt side of this blog).

During the past week the students had to post something on different pedagogical approaches and about the way these approaches can be supported by a web-based learning environment. From traditional learning to problem-based and collaborative learning and inquiry and experiential learning, many approaches are mentioned and described. But... most of them from the viewing point of a student. But what about the teacher? Should he/she be able to choose a certain approach based on the topic, audience, assignment, etc., and do this for every teaching or learning activity? Maybe yes, but we know (and I as a teacher know) from practice that you usually choose something that you are familiar with.

Probably the same can be said about the technologies that teachers use. Most of us will use some kind of web-based learning environment such as Blackboard, Teletop or Moodle, just because it's there and the university requires us to use it. Generally speaking (with of course some wonderful exceptions!) within these learning environments nothing really exciting happens. We use announcements and course information and we provide students with a schedule and deadlines for assignments.

To show the students that it is possible to "think out of the box" I let them play with my GPS, Nintendo DS, a camera, and one group played an online game. They had to play a little bit with the technology and after that think about how this "toy" can be used in education and what this means for students and teachers. Most students agreed that students would be very happy to use the technology, but when thinking about the implications for the teachers most comments were related to logistics (the technology has to be there, you have to have time in your curriculum, you have to keep an eye on the students) and to the (low) knowledge, skills and attitude of the teacher. None of the comments were related to pedagogy and only a few were related to the content of a specific course.

This is not surprinsing by the way! First of all I did not ask them to think about the relation between technology, pedagogy and content. And second: for many of them the technology was regarded as a "new" technology for teaching. Getting used to a new technology takes time, getting used to using a new technology in education takes even more time. And... yes... that's where TPACK comes in. As of next week we will discuss the TPACK model in my course and we will discuss how teachers can develop Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and what we (as Educational Science and Technology people) can do to support the teachers in acquiring this knowlegde!