Handbook on Digital Learning for K-12 Schools PDF
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Ann Marcus-Quinn · Tríona Hourigan Editors Handbook on Digital Learning for K-12 Schools Handbook on Digital Learning for K-12 Schools Ann Marcus-Quinn • Tríona Hourigan Editors Handbook on Digital Learning for K-12 Schools Editors Ann Marcus-Quinn Tríona Hourigan University of Limerick Department of Education and Skills Limerick, Ireland Limerick, Ireland Videos can also be accessed at http://link.springer.com/book/ 10.1007/978-3-319-33808-8_15 ISBN 978-3-319-33806-4 ISBN 978-3-319-33808-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33808-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016941337 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland Preface Old Debates, Unanswered Questions, Better Futures This is a very timely book. Outside of schools digital technologies have impacted on virtually every aspect of our lives. It is hard to imagine life just a decade or so ago before Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and so on. Yet evidence from a recent Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development (OECD) (2015) report claims the reality inside schools is very different. Schools lag consid- erably behind the transformative promise of new digital technologies. According to the OECD’s (2015) international comparative analysis of PISA data: Students who use computers moderately at school tend to have somewhat better learning outcomes than students who use computers rarely. But students who use computers very frequently at school do a lot worse in most learning outcomes, even after accounting for social background and student demographics (p. 3). The study also found countries that had invested heavily in digital forms of edu- cation showed no appreciable improvements in student achievement in Reading, Mathematics or Science. While the findings grabbed headlines around the world and fuelled concerns of many parents and caregivers that today’s “screenagers” risk their physical, intellectual and emotional development by spending far too much time playing with digital devices, debates about the effects of technology on school- ing are not new. Indeed, there has been a long history of claims, counter-claims and moral panics about the impact of technology on teaching and learning. Almost 20 years ago the level of public concern over the growth of new technology in education was heightened when the Atlantic Monthly strongly attacked the spuri- ous evidence supporting the “computer delusion” in schools (Oppenheimer, 1997). After an exhaustive investigation, Oppenheimer (1997) concluded: There is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve teaching and learning (p. 45). This conclusion gave further ammunition to neoconservatives, including those within the education profession, who argued that it was scandalous so much money v vi Preface had been allocated for computers and Internet access with so little serious evaluation (Armstrong & Casement, 1998). More alarmingly, Armstrong and Casement (1998) claimed: A generation of children have become the unwitting participants in what can only be described as a huge social experiment (p. 2). The problem is that such blanket statements, including the findings of last year’s OECD report, give insufficient attention to the instructional context. Ironically most of these headline grabbing reports are guilty of assigning too much attention to the technology itself, which is precisely what they accuse the proponents of hyperbole surrounding the digital revolution of doing. Put another way, it is techno-centric to think that technology alone can significantly improve teaching and learning, as a com- plex constellation of factors or confounding variables contribute to better educational outcomes. The key point is that the computer should not be seen as a single entity or monolithic machine that teachers use within schools in a uniform manner. As this book illustrates through a diverse range of chapters from countries around the world, new digital technologies can be deployed in the service of teaching and learning across many different instructional contexts using a wide variety of appli- cations. Thus, sweeping generalizations about the impact of digital technology on teaching and learning are unhelpful as far more nuanced understandings are required, which combine both numbers and narratives. In the best traditions of the scholarship of practice this book gathers together some insightful narratives and case studies on digital teaching and learning in K-12 schools. It provides a delight- ful taste of the diversity of digital learning as it is currently practised around the world. In this respect the book offers a strong counter-narrative to the OECD (2015) report by showing how many schools, teachers and students are embracing the transformative promise of new digital technologies. Despite this important contribution to the field, it is hard to disagree with the OECD’s (2015) conclusion that there are still many questions unanswered. For example, how do we mainstream local case studies in digital teaching and learning on a more systemic, scalable and sustainable basis? What are the real problems that teachers and schools currently face which could be solved through new digital tech- nologies? What will be the long-term impact or distal effects of digital teaching and learning on K-12 schools? This last question is mindful of Amara’s Law: We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run (Gammack, Hobbs, & Pigott, 2011, p. 368). In many respects, old debates about the impact of technology on learning rekindled by the recent OECD (2015) report help to raise much bigger questions. They chal- lenge the rhetoric of “Ed-Tech Speak” (Selwyn, 2015) and can be used to promote deeper thinking about broader social imaginaries, alternative scenarios for schooling and more radical futures in the service of big ideas (Brown, 2015). One thing is cer- tain: the future will be different. Nevertheless, the bigger question remains in terms of what type of K-12 school system and educational outcomes do we want new digital technology to help serve in the future? The answer to this q uestion needs to go beyond Preface vii simple dichotomies of illusory hype or pessimistic Armageddon. In Postman’s (1993) terms, “Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this- and-that” (p. 5). This is why in the language of possibility—albeit from a more critical perspec- tive—we need to continually question and justify the faith politicians, industry leaders and technology advocates place in new models of digital teaching and learning. Ironically, attacks on the use of technology in K-12 schools and concerns about the skills of the Google Generation contribute greatly to better understanding the competing drivers for educational reform and how to achieve more transforma- tive goals. The successful implementation of digital technology in schools requires deep change and transformative leadership, which involves capturing the hearts and minds of teachers, and wider stakeholders. As Hargreaves and Fullan (1998) remind us: Ensuring that technological change will really benefit student learning depends on it being driven by its critics as much as its most ardent advocates (p. 79). The tension between being critical and offering alternative futures that reimagine formal schooling remains a major challenge. This book helps in this respect, as it does not shy away from confronting a number of issues regarding the integration of technology within both physical and virtual learning environments. While adopting future-focused language it explores many of the challenges facing K-12 schools in authentic real-world settings around the world—ranging from policy development to classroom practice. As such the book avoids the trap of being technology driven by anchoring the discussion in the gap between rhetoric and reality, and does not lose sight of the wider goals of education—that is, developing critical thinkers, critical consumers and critical citizens capable of shaping a better future—for all. Finally, it is important to acknowledge the hours of work that authors, reviewers and editors have devoted to, and at times slaved over, individual chapters to improve the quality of this book. Writing is essentially about thinking and the hundreds of hours devoted to this book represent a great deal of thinking. It is reassuring that even in today’s digital age the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) ring true: What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. Mark Brown Chair in Digital Learning and Director of the National Institute for Digital Learning (NIDL) Dublin, Republic of Ireland References Armstrong, A., & Casement, C. (1998). The child and the machine: Why computers may put our children’s education at risk. Ontario: Key Porter Books. Brown, M. (2015). Looking over the horizon: New learning platforms, old technology debates (pp. 40-48). In B. Mooney (Ed.). Education matters: Shaping Ireland's education landscape. Galway, Ireland: Education Matters. viii Preface Gammack, J., Hobbs, V., & Pigott, D. (2011). The book of informatics (1st revised ed.). Melbourne, Australia: Cengage. Hargreaves, A., & Fullan, M. (1998). What’s worth fighting for out there. New York: Teachers College Press. Knowles, E. (Ed.). (2014). Oxford dictionary of quotations (8th edition). Entry: Samuel Johnson 1709–1784, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development (OECD). (2015). Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection. Paris: OECD Publishing. Available from http://www. oecd.org/publications/students-computers-and-learning-9789264239555-en.htm Oppenheimer, T. (1997). The computer delusion. The Atlantic Monthly, 280 (1), 45–62. Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Random House. Selwyn, N. (2015). Minding our language: why educational technology is full of bullshit… and what might be done about it. Learning, Media and Technology, 41 (1), 1–7. Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 Tríona Hourigan and Ann Marcus-Quinn 2 Multimodal Opportunities with Digital Tools: The Example of Narrated Photographs ....................................................................... 13 K.M. Crook and C.K. Crook 3 Introducing Digital Technologies into Secondary Schools to Develop Literacy and Engage Disaffected Learners: A Case Study from the UK .................................................................... 31 Helen Boulton 4 Transforming Mathematics Teaching with Digital Technologies: A Community of Practice Perspective .................................................. 45 Alison Clark-Wilson 5 Design-Based Research as Intelligent Experimentation: Towards Systematising the Conceptualisation, Development and Evaluation of Digital Learning in Schools.................................... 59 Tony Hall, Bonnie Thompson Long, Eilís Flanagan, Paul Flynn, and Jim Lenaghan 6 Images of Educational Practice: How School Websites Represent Digital Learning ................................................................... 75 Charles Crook and Natasa Lackovic 7 Corpus-Based Resources for L1 Teaching: The Case of Slovene ............................................................................... 91 Špela Arhar Holdt, Iztok Kosem, and Polona Gantar ix x Contents 8 Tablet Use in Schools: Impact, Affordances and Considerations ...... 115 Louis Major, Bjoern Haßler, and Sara Hennessy 9 EUFolio: A Classroom ePortfolio Pilot Project ................................... 129 Ben Murray and Sinéad Tuohy 10 Taking the Tablets: Has the Long Predicted Revolution in Teaching and Learning Finally Arrived? ........................................ 147 Christina Preston and Sarah Younie 11 Evaluation of Lesson Plan Authoring Tools Based on an Educational Design Representation Model for Lesson Plans ..................................................................................... 173 Stylianos Sergis, Effrosyni Papageorgiou, Panagiotis Zervas, Demetrios G. Sampson, and Lina Pelliccione 12 Implementing Teaching Model Templates for Supporting Flipped Classroom-Enhanced STEM Education in Moodle .............. 191 Stylianos Sergis, Panagiotis Vlachopoulos, Demetrios G. Sampson, and Lina Pelliccione 13 Assessment of Online Learning ............................................................ 217 Michael J. Timms 14 Digital Literacies in a Chinese Secondary School ............................... 233 Xiaofan He and David Wray 15 The Paradoxical Art of Designing for Emergence .............................. 251 Stephen Mark Collis 16 Blogging as a Form of Web 2.0 Technologies for Reflective Practice .................................................................................................... 271 Gregory Powell 17 Digital Learning in Canadian K-12 Schools: A Review of Critical Issues, Policy, and Practice ................................................. 293 Paul W. Bennett 18 Flip the School, Forget the Classroom; How to Enable Personalised Learning with the Help of Information Technology .................................................................... 317 Maurice de Hond and Tijl Rood 19 Technology to Improve Assessments of Learning in Class, School and Nation .................................................................................. 329 Elizabeth Hartnell-Young
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