1) 2006-7 was a WASC accreditation year for ISB and we were charged with taking a look at the K-12 Information Technology curriculum and creating a plan of action to improve it.
2) The discussions and writings coming out of the edu-blogosphere last year were rich in ideas all about "shift" , "re-thinking" and "who is teaching these new skills?". It was hard not to feel like there was some momentum building around a fresh educational paradigm and a shift away from the "integration of technology" in the classroom, moving towards "embedding" it in the way schools "do business".
With initiative and a purpose driving us forward we sat down to write a rationale to guide our approach. We came up with this:
"We believe that technology is a tool that can help and enhance learning. Everyday we see technology used as a tool outside of formal schooling for communication, collaboration, understanding, and accessing knowledge. It is our goal in developing an integrated curriculum to ensure that the way students learn with technology agrees with the way they live with technology.
Technology is in a constant state of evolution and change. Access speeds, hardware, software, and computer capabilities all evolve and improve on a monthly basis. This change occurs at a rate at which it is impossible for schools to keep up and adapt. Is it not time that we create a curriculum model that understands and this fact and works with it rather than tries to control it?
Too often typical information technology curricula have focused heavily on skills and their scope and sequence across the curriculum. The hard reality of this approach was that they became outdated as soon as they were printed due to changes in software, hardware and the skills that students came equipped with.Instead of asking the question "What technology skills must a students have to face the 21st century?" should we not be asking "What thinking and literacy skills must a students have to face the 21st century?" These skills are not tied to any particular software or technology-type, but rather aim to provide students with the thinking skill and thus the opportunity to succeed no matter what their futures hold."
We felt strongly that for too long that way technology was integrated with learning focused more on the tool and less on the curriculum/content that it could be used to support. To compound this fact ,since technology changes so rapidly it became almost impossible to map what "skills" students needed to learn from year to year as new technology arrived on the scene and old skills trickled down age groups. It wasn't long ago that spreadsheets were the domain of high school students in accounting classes. Now we introduce them to fifth graders doing graphing and data analysis.
Typically teachers saw teaching these technology hardware and software skills as "someone else's job." IT skills to be learned in isolation. Yet schools rightly began to insist that technology be integrated into classroom practice.
Under this technology skill curricular model, faced with teachers ill-equipped and not believing that it was their job, IT integration was doomed to failure.
We had to think
Looking at Wiggins and McTighe's Understanding by Design approach to curriculum and unit design we liked how big "essential questions" and "enduring understandings" had helped us plan and design units when we were teaching math and social studies. What if this same "best practice" approach could be applied to the way technology was used and talked about in the classroom? If this was good curricular design practice, why should technology and thinking curriculum be any different? What if that same approach was used in the way we looked at connecting technology and learning across the curriculum? What if there were only a few manageable questions that even the most tech-resistant teacher could see value in?
Over the school year we fleshed out these questions and ideas and came up five essential questions that we felt addressed the core elements of a comprehensive technology and learning curriculum - one focused on the thinking that was needed for the 21st century learner, rather than the technology.
- How do you know information is true?
- How do you communicate effectively?
- What does it mean to be a global citizen?
- How do I learn best?
- How can we be safe?
You can read into the elements of each of these questions at our curriculum wiki - http://newliteracy.wikispaces.com/
What do you think of the approach? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Justin Medved & Dennis Harter, Guest bloggers
Cross Posted at: Medagogy and Thinking Allowed
I think you have found a great angle to this difficult area, and the questions surely can stand for several years to come. For practical purposes I think they need to give birth to a more detailed, changing curriculum, perhaps revised every semester, as a guideline to teachers and students not in the front line.
Then of course, in some years, we will have to come up with some new questions, like: How do I treat computers with superior intelligence?
Posted by: Einar Berg | February 12, 2008 at 01:25 AM
I agree! I too believe in the primacy of the skill over the tool in the subject areas. In that regard, technology should be used to support skill development and reinforce content acquisition.
I hope that there will always be support for technology as it's own domain, as well. Learning to USE technology is not the same as learning to MANIPULATE or INVENT with it. Programming skills (from simple html to OOP) , understanding electronics, robotics, etc... are all teachable in various forms from elementary school onward. Not everyone is going to end up creating the technology that people use, but you can't end up being something if you never get exposed to it. Every child should get exposure. Developing analytical and abstract thinking skills through programming and applied science builds mental muscle and ratchets the game up a notch from technology user to technology creator.
Posted by: Audrey | February 12, 2008 at 08:25 AM
It’s pretty inevitable at this point that we must acknowledge the importance of technology to getting around in life, regardless of what profession or lifestyle someone chooses to embrace in adulthood. It’s always been hard to develop a really comprehensive “information technology” curriculum for any level of education because of the constantly changing and advancing nature of the subject. It seems to me that teaching about over-arching concepts and thought processes that lend themselves to being highly adaptable to and mindful of change (just from a “way of thinking” perspective and not necessarily directly related to technology subjects themselves) is going to go a long way to preparing children for technology in the future. Problem-solving skills and the ability to ask questions have always been important skills to teach in school, but they are becoming more important as we must prepare young people to find careers in adulthood.
Posted by: Computer Consulting Kit Home Study Course | February 12, 2008 at 09:34 AM
I like how you've defined your questions in such simple accessible language.
A great way to guide you in thinking about this differently.
Posted by: Carolyn Foote | February 19, 2008 at 10:15 PM
Thanks for articulating these ideas so well. This post will be of much help as we work to improve what we do at our school regarding technology and its place in the 21st century.
Posted by: Bill Farren | April 01, 2008 at 08:35 AM