I had a search about on the internet to see who else was interested in new technology in education (in Scotland) and found there was a lot of interest and a lot of information. I’m still weeding through it as we speak. But the reason I’m writing this just now is because I want to track the path to enlightenment - post up what I’ve found and where I’ve found it, so that I can go back and maybe use this to guide others who plan on undertaking similar ICT endeavors.
I shall be following this with something more substantial later, but just to introduce myself - my name’s Peter, and I’m a computing teacher. I am fully qualified as of this year, and am working in Fife. I’ve been using online revision materials and online assessment for the past year, but I really don’t feel that the material most schools are using is anywhere near good enough to be fully effective. For example:
1. Revision websites. I have yet to come across a revision website with an easy to understand structure. Why? Because teachers aren’t web designers, and most websites feel linear at best (random at worst). WebCAL, highly popular and recommended in a Scottish Exec report, isn’t particularly easy to navigate, and is unsearchable and unindexed. Can you imagine a textbook without an index or contents?
2. While teachers are effectively using Hot Potatoes and other programs to create online assessment, these rarely offer the teacher feedback. Only observation can be used to monitor this. Can you imagine this being the case with any other class assessment?
3. Pupils have very little input to what could be an interactive process. Pupils often use computers to make revision materials, but these are rarely available for sharing to other pupils.
Points one and two are the most important to me. Bear in mind that I’m just an ordinary classroom teacher. I’m talking about what I’ve seen in the schools I’ve visited or worked in. There may well be much more advanced solutions out there.
What I want to do is this (and it’s a mixture of personal and political):
1. Establish a functional demonstration of how important structure is to online educational materials, through Moodle. Can you imagine how effective revision would be with cross-referenced terms/concepts AND easily to navigate through topics?
2. Create a set of online assessments with full statistical recording of success for teachers. These will fit into the structured materials in the Moodle site. They will offer monitoring of every individual, and show patterns with answers.
3. Produce creative commons materials in a standard format (an educational XML format of some kind). That corresponds to SQA arrangements. This would make it much easier for teachers to share and improve the standard of online materials. This could easily be incorporated into a national wiki for a particular subject. How quickly could a high-quality set of explanations and examples be built up?
4. Involve students in the process through opening feedback channels within the resources.
5. Work on ways to take the resources and individualise them for each student- resorting and filtering information until it meets the student’s needs.
6. Make it possible to format materials for offline use.
I realise how grand this sounds, and I’m nervous about that, as I’m so new to my profession, as well as this particular are of technology. But I also know that these questions need to be answered. While I don’t doubt that they will be answered in time, how likely is it that solutions will be free, and easily applicable to Scottish education?
I’m looking for as many comments as you can muster - just now all I’m after is more signposts, to find out what I’m right about, and what I’m wrong about.
P.S. - I realise that many of my concerns could be addressed with GLOW - but what do I do till then?
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