Collaboration: Impact on the Changing Educational Landscape

Dr. Baldev Singh

• How can technology support collaboration?• What are 21st century skills needed for effective

collaboration?• What are some of the challenges and

opportunities for educators?

Outline

“Well done but lots of room for improvement...”

ICT in Education: The report so far..

Time to reflect, learn and leapfrog!

Changes to student achievement are conditional on teachers changing their pedagogical approaches....

If this does not occur and laptops are used within the traditional classroom environment simply as word-processors and presentational devices..

then it is unlikely that improvements in student achievement or changes to classroom environments will be reported (Boyd, 2002)

Digital Opportunities projects in New Zealand

The use of laptops in classrooms: The lack of impact

Innovation framework

Teacher training should not just encompass ICT skills but rather a full understanding and complete mastery of ICTs as pedagogical tools (Punie et al, 2008).

The developments in ICT provide very different learning opportunities, and a need to design a new ‘integrated pedagogy’ has been identified (Cornu, 1995).

A compelling rationale for using ICT in schools is its potential to act as a catalyst in transforming the teaching and learning process (Hawkridge, 1990).

Research review: ICT in education

Can we afford not to be ready?

Technology might be the answer, but what was the question?

The greatest changes of our times!

Web 2.0 + Demographics

Web 2.0

• More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on social media…daily.

• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs. 120000 created daily and 2 blogs created per second (source Technocratic).

• Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia (note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)

Some facts!

Population Map

Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or

organizations work together to achieve a common goal

Define collaboration

“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go

together”

African Proverb

http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001295/129533e.pdf

Educational transformation process

Students who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own (Light 2001)

What does research tell us about the value of collaborative learning?

Collaborative learning has as its main feature a structure that allows for student talk: students are supposed to talk with each other . . . and it is in this talking that much of the learning occurs (Golub 1988)

It is about a change in the teacher-student relationship

What does research tell us?

"Our exams have to reflect daily life in the classroom and daily life in the classroom has to reflect life in society” Minister of education

New opportunities

Students are ready to go!

Can you think of the one of the greatest collaborative projects of our times?

May 2006: Complete human genome sequenced

Multiple countries involvedSupported through technology

School 2.0

ACTIVITY: Tell a story in 6 words

Skills audit

Think creatively Interact effectively with others

Reason effectively Produce results

Make decisions Adapt to change

Solve problems Manage goals and time

Communicate clearly Use and manage information

Collaborate with others Be flexible

Analyse media Work creatively with others

A new learning theory for the digital age

Connectivism (Siemen 2005)BehaviorismCognitivismConstructivism

Connectivism presents a model of learning that acknowledges the tectonic shifts in society where learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity.

A new learning theory for the digital age

Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.

Learning may reside in non-human appliances.

Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.

Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known

Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.

Principles of connectivism

Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.

Decision-making is itself a learning process.

Principles of connectivism

George Siemens 2005

The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery (Seymour Papert)

Technology, Learning and Collaboration

Hole in the wall project

Self organised collaborative learning through technology

"I love solving Maths problems. I find that very interesting. I have learnt it from my sister Raj. I have taught my friend Shilpa.“

Chanchal (Girl, 12)

The emerging tools that can

support collaboration

“My goal in life is to find ways in

which children can use technology as

a constructive medium to do things

that they could not do before; to do

things at a level of complexity that

was not previously accessible to

children”

Prof. Seymour Papert 1998

The Moment

The Moment!

www.photosynth.com

Presentation by Bruce Dixon

Blooms Taxonomy

Blooms Taxonomy revisited

Short video on collaborative work

Technologies and collaboration

How can I help my students to externalise their ideas, share, develop and refine by collaborating with others?

Question?

Windows Live Movie Maker

How can I support multiple ways of presenting ideas through audio visual tools which is not possible with pen and paper

Question?

Microsoft Surface

How can I provide multiple opportunities for changing and revising in low risk environment

Question?

Kodu

How can I support my students to work in a non-linear pattern, combining ideas development, editing, refinement and presentation as parallel processes rather than linear (just as they do at home: multitasking)

Question

Microsoft OneNote

Can we afford not to be ready?

Sustainable support for educators

The UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers

Source: UNESCO ICT Competency Standards for Teachers /Policy framework 2008

Framework and collaboration

Technology might be the answer, but what was the question?

Engagement

Social view of learning

I think, therefore I

am

We participate,

therefore we are

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up

It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed

Every morning a lion wakes up

It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death

It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle

When the sun comes up, you better start running

“The World is Flat..Thomas Friedman 2006”

Thank you