Is Technology Integration a fad in schools ?

Dear Friends,

It has been quite a long time since i put a post on my blog. The last three months gave me lot of insight into integrating technology into education, primarily into teaching-learning. My experiences during the past few months have reiterated the fact further that there's still a lot that needs to be done to bring teachers to the computer labs. The first step towards bringing computers in classroom is to bring teachers to computer lab. Computers is still a phobia, even for those who have underwent some training on computers/ technology integration. As long as we do not put teachers in the loop of the technology integration process, we cannot hope to achieve anything. I am highlighting just few of my thoughts ( triggered by my experiences) that have been haunting me for want of a proper solution. Since I firmly believes in being more solution-oriented, so I will put in my suggestions to each of the listed thoughts.

• The highly reputed schools have the most technology phobic teachers as they have been accustomed or trained to be dependent on the readymade products and restricted only to use it. This happens mainly due to availability of large amount of funds.
• You can manage to bring teachers to computer lab/ computers through force but you cannot make them use technology. The rule of thumb for learning anything new is to try it out, to do it.
• The extrinsic motivation is of no avail as long as there's no intrinsic motivation in the teacher.
• The teachers need to realise that technology could only act as a catalyst towards achieving/ bringing technology integration in education, the real integration of technology would happen only when teachers actually start using it for fulfilling their needs.
• The school management plays a deciding role in facilitating or bottlenecking the technology integration process. Merely providing computers or readymade content, LMS cannot bring in the technology integration. The more the number of ready made tools introduced by the management, the more the teachers get dependent on them and the more techno-phobic they get. Unless, you ask the teachers to actually create or experiment, they just cannot adopt technology.
• The teachers need to have an internet identity and the least they could do for that is to create an email id of their own. Let checking email daily become a routine for them.
• The teachers really need to understand the purpose of every technology tool offered/ provided to them. Even a simple email id could go a long way in helping them get started with technology facilitated teaching-learning.
• The teachers need not get bogged down with the hype surrounding internet, etc. Everyday there would be some terms coined and floated in the market. The teachers just need to remember this that all that these new educational tools would require/ expect from the teacher would be a willingness to try, innovate and experiment. None of the new technologies that crop up every now and then for educators require any extra degree of knowledge apart from being basic computer literate and having an internet identity.
  

I have just highlighted some of my experiences and would be touching upon few of them in more detail in my next blogs.

Lets not breed the teachers on cooked content but help them understand technology and facilitate their journey to e-teaching

What Motivates Teachers !!

The big question "what would motivate the teachers positively?" had been bugging me for so long till the thought of launching e-awards for Shiksha India was put to table. The idea of giving awards was nothing new or different from what many others did/ were doing but what was unique about the idea was to make it a platform to give reward and award to the deserving ones. The initial thought led us to decide that the best motivation we could provide to the teachers and schools was in terms of financial reward and trophy of recognition. Once the format was decided, next thing that was decided was to have it presented by the highest authority in the country i.e. The President of India. We were really fortunate that the President agreed to be the Chief Guest for the programme and present the award to the winners. January 12th, 2007 saw the first e-awards presentation ceremony held in New Delhi and none other than the honourable President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam blessed us by coming. His mere presence in the hall was enough to spell bind the entire audience and once he gave his address, the entire audience got captivated by his sheer genius, intelligence and charm. So engrossed were the audience in his words that he made the teachers take a 11-point oath. I am very much sure that for everybody present there in the hall, it was a lifetime experience watching the President from such close quarters and a dream come true for those who had the fortune of receiving the awards from the President. I too had my share of good fortune when I got the opportunity to assist the President in launching an e-learning collaborative portal for teachers. It was a real honour, standing beside a great soul and exchanging notes (though for a while only). I think it was not as much to do with the cash prize ot the trophy received by the winners that brought the shine in their eyes but the sheer realisation that they were recieving it by the hands of a great personality and a great soul. This realisation, by itself must have instilled in them a feeling of doing better and better. Also, all those who missed out on the award did feel bad but the greatest award and reward for them is the opportunity to be with the President in the same hall for an hour or so. I take pride in the fact that we took the first step right in out endeavour to provide the right motivation and impetus to the teachers, principals and our other partners in this ever continuing journey of delivering our best to the cause of education. I am putting the 11-point oath for teachers in the hope that all benefit by it and we bring in some change in ourselves.

Eleven Point Oath for Teachers

1. First and foremost, I will love teaching. Teaching will be my soul.

2. I will achieve proficiency in e-learning systems and encourage students to make use of the available e-learning system in the country.

3. I realize that I am responsible for shaping not just students but ignited youth who are the most powerful resource under the earth, on the earth and above the earth. I will be fully committed to the great mission of teaching.

4. I will consider myself to be a great teacher only when I am capable of elevating the average student to the high performance.

5. I will organize and conduct my life, in such a way that my life itself is a message for my students.

6. I will encourage my students and children to ask questions and develop the spirit of enquiry, so that they blossom into creative enlightened citizens.

7. I will treat all the students equally and will not support any differentiation on account of religion, community or language.

8. I will continuously build the capacities in teaching so that I can impart quality education to my students.

9. I realize by being a teacher, I am making an important contribution to the efforts of national development.

10. I will constantly endeavour to fill my mind, with great thoughts and spread the nobility in thinking and action among my students.

11. I will always celebrate the success of my students.

Some Inexplicable Reasons for Desisting from Technology Integration, Part - 2

I write the concluding part on the reasos for desisting from Technology Integration4. Handholding the teachers is required : We should take a cue from the way a child learns. A child requires minimum handholding and learns maily through self-exploration . The child just need to be told the basics of something and rest they catch up themselves. Similarly, for teachers new to computers, handholding is definitely required but to the extent that they get started with it but you cannot be holding them through the entire technology integration process. At some time, the teacher will have to take a dive on his/ her own and the sooner, the better. Technology is not about learning a software, a product or a sequence of steps but is more about creating a mind set and that is what the purpose of the handholding should be. One can teach the basics of technology to the teachers and help them get comfortable with using it and that is where it should be left as far as handholding teachers is concerned. The self-exploration by the teachers thereafter would lead them on the road to technology integration and would open before them a world full of opportunities to be seized and utilised for the benfit of self and others as well.5. Teachers need to learn a lot of programming and other technology stuff : It is a wrong notion that teachers need to learn of technology stuff to start integrating technology in their teaching-learning. In fact the very essence of technology integration is to help and make it easier for teachers to use technology for their teaching-learning. Technology Integration has more to do with making a shift from I.T. ( Information Teachnology ) to E.T. ( Educational Technology) . Teachers need to get comfortable at using and utilising tools pertaining to their domain rather than tools pertaining to I.T. By exposing the teachers to technology integration, the idea is to create a mindset in teachers that teachnology is available for everybody to be utilised and to enable them to pick and choose tools as per their requirement and from their domain.6. Technology Integration means to be able to use the readymade CDs : Technology Integration is being able to implement Educational Technology. Educational Technology has different categories of tools that enable the teachers to get started with the task of using technology and usign ready made CDs is just one of those. Using readymade CDs could be a starting point for the teachers on their road to multimedia based learning and could then lead them to higher levels of using technology for education. Any technology should just be a tool at the hands of teacher and it should help the teacher attain better efficiency and productivity in their academic and non-academic tasks.I have tried to put forth some very crucial reasons sighted by managment and teachers for not being able to take up the task of technology integration. I would continue to write about more such reasons simply to share with all and to ensure that every reader becomes conscious about it and tries to find solutions to it.

Some Inexplicable Reasons for Desisting from Technology Integration, Part - 1

Its really sad to hear some real lame excuses (if i may call it so) from some stakeholders in education for not trying enough to integrate technology in education. What they quote at times are more like excuses rather than reasons for not taking up the Technology Integration seriously. I am just jotting few of these and trying to find logic/ reasoning behind the reasons. So, here are some of them :1. Teachers don't have time : Everybody in this world is as busy as anybody else. To say that teachers don't have time for technology integration is totally unjustifies and uncalled for. My reasoning is that why should we burden teachers with so much of non-academic work which in no way would help the actual task expected of the teachers i.e. teaching-learning process. Secondly, for learning anything new a person has to stretch - take that extra step or go that extra mile. Technology, for sure, is an aid for teachers and is bound to improve their efficiency and make teaching-learning more effective but the onus totally lies on the teachers to treat technology as a friend and not as a foe. Its rightly said that "technology is a very good slave but a very bad master" and that is where we, as teachers falters by letting technology dictate us the terms. As teachers, we are all experts in our domains and know our subjects well. So, why not mould the available technologies to our advantage and benefit. Here, i would like to say that the school management has a very crucial role to play in how technology integration is portrayed to the teachers. There are times, when the integration process is taken up half-heartedly becuase there is some pressure for that. Unless and until the management is convinced about the role of technology in education, nothing would happen, in actual. The actual integration happens only when it is made a part of the teaching-learning process and not as a separate process in itself.2. Teachers are Novice: Its not only the teachers but all of us who fall in the category of novice when we set about to learn something new or different. Any new learning happens through "knowledge and skills" way. By K&S way I mean that firstly the knowledge needs to be imparted to the teacher or gained by the teachers and then comes the task of getting comfortable with the technology component by getting skilled at it through constant practice. The initial glitches would only lead to getting rid of the hitches, so don't be afraid of committing mistakes. The point i am putting across is that how long would you get away with the excuse that teachers are novice. Unless you make it mandatory for them to take up technology for some of their academic or non-academic tasks and also give them ample of time to work on the machines and make mistakes, they will ever remain novices and the integration of technology will never happen.3. When teachers find it difficult to learn computers, how can they encourage children for the same : It is very aptly said that "Child is the father of man" and the learning that a child can deliver to adults no adult can manage to impart it to children. Rather than worrying about, how can i teach children to use technology or computers, we should be concerned about how best i can put my ideas and thoughts across to children using a particular component. Anyway, subject teachers are not expected to impart technology education to children. Children have their own unique way of learning things, technology much much faster than adults. Rather the teachers should not hesitate to take a tip or two from the students to improve themselves.

What ails Technology Integration in Schools ?

"When does the actual Technology Integration happens in schools ?" is a perennial question and there is no satisfying answer(at least to my knowledge). But we should not get bogged down by this. The main issue is not when do we say that schools have successfully integrated technology but whether they have started on the path or not. The disparity among schools in terms of resources, access, initiative, need, motivation, etc. leads to the conclusion that no standard benchmarks could be setup for technology integration. There are schools who may have ample of resources and hand but a lack of vision and effort has pushed them at the back in the race of technology integration. The schools may add technology resources like computers, etc. and call themselves techno-savvy but the fact remains that building computer labs doesn't ensure their usage and effective utilisation. The need of the hour is to move from a state of being "techno-savvy" to being "techno-smarty" where the focus and effort should be on appropriately utilising the existing resources. There are many things that ails the technology integration process - the mindset of the schools, the curriculum pressure, the initial effort required, the general misconception that tehcnology integration is a costly affair, lack of proper vision and of course the unwillingness to change. Somehow the schools seem to have a general notion that the traditional manual methods are the best as they have been doing it for so many years now. This feeling or understanding does not at all stand them in good stead as they clearly miss out on the fact that technology can definitely bring in more efficiency and effectiveness and can lead to more productivity among the school staff. A research has clearly pointed out that 40 % of the tteachers' time is spent on doing things not directly related to their main task i.e. teachhing-learning process. It is here that technology can play a very crucial role and can help teachers automate their academic and non-academic task and make them more productive and more focused. So, technology integration seems more like a matter of individual choice based on priority and vision.

Understanding ICT Integration

All of those involved with education in one way or the other have been talking about using ICT for education without giving a thought to the purpose behind doing it. The reason for doins so is clear to all, because others are doing it so we must also catch up with them.Without pondering over what we want to achieve through ICT , we have jumped to join the bandwagon. This senseless hurry to use ICT in education is not doing any good to the education system. Just about everybody has resorted to instaling computers, buying some CDs and then call it ICT integration. We really need to analyse whether bundling some hardware and some software leads to the integration. We are not sure why we want to use ICT- whether for imparting ICT literacy knowleged or for imparting ICT facilitated literacy/education. The issues are enormous and i am just highlighting a few of those

• Who is out target audience- students, teachers or both ?
• What should we teach- I.T. or I.T. facilitated/enabled ?
• What should be the ICT curriculum be like ?

I have just touched the tip of the iceberg and know for sure that if we open the Pandora Box, it would be total chaos and confusion. I think its time that we sit and ponder to use ICT more judiciously in oue education.

Narinder