Hokyoung and Parson (2009) describe how mobile technology influences three pillars of learning. 

These pillars are constructive, collaborative and situated learning. Constructive learning is an individual process where teachers can provide resources for children to self-teach. However, I would argue that mobile technology should be providing better learning styles for children. Firstly, this should come in the form of collaborative learning, where children share ideas and empower one another.Then secondly, through situated learning, where children learn about life-like problems that are relative through the use of mobile technology. 

Please view this video, which provides more evidence as to why mobile learning should be taking pedagogy away from individual constructive learning and towards a collaboration of higher order, ubiquitous learning.

(TEDxYouth, 2014)

Hokyoung, R. and Parsons, D. (2009) 'Innovative Mobile Learning Techniques and Technologies', Hershey: IGI Global.

TEDxYouth (2014) 'The Benefits of Technology in Education: Sangmum Lee at TEDxYouth@BIS'. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1YqGeVsXTU (Accessed: 07 December 2016).

Introducing Mobile Technology

Click on the link below to travel to our Emaze where we will describe some of the benefits of mobile technology. 

https://www.emaze.com/@AWZQZCRR/mobile-technology

(The work of Aiden Martin, Sam Byrne, Bethany Baker & Cai Mckenzie).

https://padlet.com/aidenlloydmartin/yzvpte1eyfyz

Visit this padlet to see a summary of personal experiences.

(By Aiden Martin, Sam Byrne, Bethany Baker & Cai Mckenzie.)

I took the picture above in 2015. It was captured in a slum in Nairobi and shows the limited technology that this school has. I believe the picture emphasizes the points made previously that whiteboards are effective tools and can help to excel pedagogy and learning.

Although this is a very basic black board, if you imagine this classroom without it, the room becomes very bare and offers little in the way of resources. I think this shows how technology has an impact on a classroom environment. The children seemed to have a real passion for the basic technology that they had.

Ndirangu et al (2003) concludes that technology can have great benefits for teachers and children even when there is a limited supply. He suggests that all schools in poorer areas should look more locally to find sustainable technology resources.

Ndirangu, M., Kathuri, N.J. and Mungai, C. (2003) Improvisation as a strategy for providing science teaching resources: an experience from Kenya. International Journal of Educational Development [online]. 23 (1), pp. 75–84. [Accessed 27 November 2016].

My ICT Experience in Primary School


When thinking back to my own experiences during primary school, ICT was not a major factor of my learning. Although the interactive whiteboards were introduced into the classrooms, teachers were not fully capable of using the new equipment to its full potential. The use of the interactive whiteboards were mainly used as a substitute for the original whiteboards, but teachers failed to use the full range of technology available, potentially due to a lack of training. However, towards the end of year 6 the whiteboards were used for some very basic interactive games.

The poor use of the interactive whiteboards can be used as an example of the ‘SAMR model’. The SAMR model stands for: Substitution, Augmentation, modification and redefinition. It is a more recent system that is used to encourage and support educators when they are using mobile technology (Romrell, 2014). Substitution is the lowest level of this system and the experience I had of the interactive whiteboards in primary school when they were first introduced in year 4/5, are a good example of how an interactive whiteboard was used in the same way that the original whiteboards were used, with only very minor changes. The SAMR system can be used for educators to think about how they teach and not only about having technology in a lesson, but the way in which it is used (Romrell, 2014).

ICT is now part of everyday life for teachers and practitioners (Younie et al. 2014). Pupils starting primary school are already skilled at using technology and have a good understanding of it; therefore, their teachers need to be trained to ensure that they are achieving the same level of competence at the same levels. (Younie et al. 2014) it can be argued that the best way to improve learning is for teachers to think about how they can utilize pupil’s skills to develop their own learning. 

REFERENCES:

Younie, S, Leask, M, and Burden, K. (2014). Teaching and Learning with ICT in the Primary School. 2^nd ed, Routledge.

Romrell, Danae, Kidder, Lisa C., & Wood, Emma. (2014). The SAMR Model as a Framework for Evaluating mLearning. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks,18(2), Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 2014, Vol.18(2).

My Experience with ICT in Education

My Experience with ICT in Education

Dear Readers,

As I have gone through education, technology has grown along with myself and I have found that it was used more and more each year within educational settings. This is due to an ever-changing society in which we must adapt and learn to become more technologically aware to keep up with those around us who we will eventually be competing against for jobs (Leask & Pachler, 2012).
The most common form of ICT that was used during my time at school was the interactive whiteboard which are more common now due to the fact they were very expensive then. Teachers were less skilled when I was being taught however, as they hadn’t had the training that is available now, and it is said that the way in which a teacher uses the board determines whether it will be successful or not (Bale, 2003).

A positive note I can add is that technology made subjects more interactive and further developed students’ social skills and as Lim Fei and Hung (2016) say, technology allowed for deeper learning of core subjects.It would also be interesting to see if you agree with Lim Fei and Hung (2016) in that technology in education helps ready students for the future.

References

Bale, L. (2003) An Investigation into the Effective Use of the Interactive Whiteboard at Key Stage One. M.A. Education. Cardiff Metropolitan University

Leask, M., and Pachler, N. (2012) Learning to Teach Using ICT in the Secondary School. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Lim Fei, V., and Hung, D. (2016) ‘Teachers as Learning Designers: What Technology Has to Do with Learning’, Educational Technology, 56(4), pp. 26-30.

Does technology always fit the student?

In a previous comment Aiden made, he discussed whether I.C.T was effective within an educational setting and mentioned a quote which stated  “technology has to fit the student and the student has to be motivated to learn to use it.” (Ashbrook, 2011). While doing work experience in a special needs school I noticed a high usage of technology. For example, one child who was unable to speak used an iPad in order to tell the teacher when he wanted his food or a drink. They also projected images onto the floor so that the children who struggled with fine motor skills could play games on a larger scale. This demonstrates how I.C.T fitted the pupil. However, many schools and students can not afford this type of technology.

Children are getting I.C.T products sooner in their lives and in greater quantity. For example, households do not just own one phone now, they will have multiple computers, mobiles, tablets and laptops (Bale, 2003). From volunteering in a children’s club and talking to parents there I understand it can be hard for them to keep up with new upcoming products. It can often be even harder for the children who are not kept up-to-date. When talking to one of the children there I found out her parents were not able to afford a mobile or computer for her. She spoke to me about how she found it difficult to engage with others in her class as well as complete online homework tasks. This meant that if she needed a computer she had to go to the library. Furthermore, as she had not grown up with I.C.T, she lacked motivation to use it within the school environment. In this situation it is important for the teacher to realise the potential and benefits of technology themselves so they can motivate the student to engage with it. (Brown et al, 2014).


Ashbrook, P. (2011) The Early Years: Harness Your Tech Side. Science and Children [online]. 49 (4), pp. 26-27. [Accessed 19 October 2016].
Bale, Linda. (2003) An Investigation into the Effective Use of the Interactive Whiteboard at Key Stage One. M.A. Education. Cardiff Metropolitan University.
Brown, E. Et al. (2014) 'Students׳ willingness to use response and engagement technology in the classroom,' Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education, 15(1), pp. 80-85.

Teacher's Capability- My own experience

There is an argument that teachers in primary schools aren't given enough training to comfortably facilitate children's learning with the use of I.C.T (Chai et al, 2011). After working in a primary school for two years, I'm disinclined to agree with this belief as staff were made to attend multiple I.C.T training days. Many teachers incorporated this training regularly during practice.

Chai, C.H., Koh, J.H.L., Tsai, C.C. and Tan, L.L.W. (2011) Modeling primary school pre-service teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) for meaningful learning with information and communication technology (ict). Computers & Education [online]. 57 (1), pp.1184–1193. [Accessed 12 October 2016].

Welcome to Primary Time

Welcome to our blog, hopefully this can be useful to all of us and we all learn something about ICT in Education throughout this blog.

Thank you for visiting Primary Time and we hope you enjoy reading!