How to Use Technology Effectively in Post-Compulsory Education

Alan Clarke

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781136728983
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The use of technology within the lifelong learning sector brings many benefits to learners, teachers and managers. Aimed at trainee and practising teachers, this book contains clear, practical guidance on how to use technology and e-learning effectively to enhance all aspects of teaching and learning in the post-compulsory sector.

Alan Clarke explains the technologies that are available and how to use them from whiteboards and virtual learning environments to digital photographs, podcasts and e-portfolios. Each chapter is fully aligned with the new LLUK standards and includes teaching strategies, practical examples and case studies to show how these work in practice.

Chapters include guidance on:

• using e-portfolios, blogs and wikis to present and share information with colleagues and encourage reflection
• motivating students and promoting collaboration using mobile devices, discussion groups and forums
• how to use ICT to develop literacy and numeracy skills
• ways to keep up to date with new and emerging technologies
• using technology safely and securely.

Including a wide range of activities, questions for reflective practice and links to further sources of information, this essential textbook will help trainee and practising teachers in post-compulsory education to understand the major ILT tools and use them confidently and effectively in their teaching.

CHAPTER
1
	Introduction

Introduction

The book is aimed at those who are experienced, newly qualified or studying to become teachers who want to learn how to employ technology in their teaching. It provides a practical insight into how teachers can employ technology to best effect. There are many practical examples of how e-learning can assist in the wide range of contexts that exist in the lifelong learning sector. Each chapter will in turn discuss technology and e-learning, with an emphasis on providing examples and case studies that teachers could employ in their work. The book has comprehensive links to further sources of information and opportunities to reflect on how to develop your confidence, skills and understanding.

Lifelong Learning United Kingdom (LLUK) is the sector skills council responsible for staff working in the post-compulsory sector. This includes further education, adult and community learning and work-based learning. In these areas staff are often called by a variety of names such as teacher, trainer and instructor. This book is aimed at anyone who works in the sector supporting learners. I have used the term teacher throughout the book to encompass all the different titles. LLUK has developed professional standards for staff working in lifelong learning (LLUK, 2007). In addition LLUK has considered the role that technology plays in learning and produced guides and reviews to assist you. These are available from the council’s website. The book is intended to cover the requirements of the professional standards to assist new teachers studying to become qualified teachers. The start of each chapter indicates the coverage of the material with regard to the standards.

Activity 1.1 Technology standards

Visit the LLUK website (http://www.lluk.org/) and identify what assistance they offer teachers with regard to technology enhanced learning. You should be able to locate standards, guides and links to blogs and twitter. How would you judge yourself against the technology elements in the standards?

What is e-learning?

The application of technology to learning has had a variety of names. Currently the main terms are e-learning, information and learning technology (ILT), m-learning (mobile learning), blended learning, online learning and technology-enhanced learning. In some parts of the post-compulsory sector (e.g. further education colleges) the term ILT is often used but in others, e-learning or other expressions are employed. For the sake of simplicity I have chosen to use the term e-learning as a general one covering the others. The definitions of the different approaches are not always consistent and in some cases you might include aspects of several methods.

Example

Using an Internet-enabled mobile phone (iPhone) to participate in an online forum could be termed either m-learning since a mobile device is involved, online learning as online facilities are being used or blended learning if it was part of a face-to-face course.

Technology is continuously developing and its use in education and training is also growing rapidly. It is important to gain a sound foundation of skills and understanding that you can develop over your career in the same way that your teaching skills will be enhanced through experience and continuous professional development (CPD).

Benefits of e-learning

Many benefits of e-learning have been reported. Clarke (2008) emphasises that e-learning can allow learners considerable freedom to study, i.e. when, where and at their chosen pace. In addition he identifies the following benefits:

■ Organising and storing your work

■ Presenting your learning

■ Analysing information

■ Creating content

■ Accessing information

■ Capturing evidence of competency.

The Joint Information and Systems Committee (JISC) (2009a) provides a list of additional benefits that includes:

■ Round-the-clock access to materials

■ Different and more flexible ways of studying

■ Working with others in dispersed locations

■ Enhancing opportunities to reflect

■ Quick feedback

■ Improving active learning

■ Enhancing learning communities.

The Learning Skills Improvement Service in their Policy Update 6 (2010) reported that one of the six key points that the Association of Learning Providing made to the Government Skills Minister in order to ‘drive up quality whilst reducing unnecessary costs in FE’ was ‘the better use of e-learning and other 21st century IT solutions’.

Activity 1.2 Benefits of e-learning

Benefits are often very personal, so consider your own teaching and learning and decide which of the reported benefits are most appropriate to you. Also search the World Wide Web for other lists of benefits to ensure that you have considered all of them.

Trends in e-learning

In a dynamic and rapidly changing area such as technology, it is important to be aware of trends in e-learning and also what the research evidence is showing to be effective. The latter is vital since there are often pressures to adopt the latest product or approach. The key question is to ask yourself if it will enhance the learning experience. The British Education and Communication Technology Agency (Becta) has produced a variety of reports and articles on new emerging technologies that were previously available on their website at http://emergingtechnologies.becta.org.uk/. The Becta website closed on 31 January 2011 but its contents are available from the National Archives (http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/). In addition, Futurelab (http://www.futurelab.org.uk/) focuses on the innovative use of technology in education and has many developments underway to consider the possibilities that new developments will bring to learning. In higher education, the JISC supports many projects that investigate the possibilities of technology. Some of its projects are undertaken in further education colleges. JISC publications are available on its website at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/.

Activity 1.3 Trends in e-learning

Visit the Futurelab, Becta Emerging Technologies (now archived) and JISC websites and identify some trends in the use of technology in learning. In my case I identified:

1. 4G mobile phones

2. New interface technologies

3. Virtual reality

4. Transforming learning spaces

5. Repositories of digital content

6. Open access to learning materials.

Your own list will be different because the sites will have changed since I visited them.

Learning skills for e-learning

The impact of technology on society has been significant and continues to change the way people live. We have a generation of young people entering post-compulsory education who have grown up in a world in which information and communication technology (ICT) has been a normal part of their lives. They have attended schools in which technology has played a role in their learning and many young people see technology as a natural part of their lives using mobile phones, employing social networks and shopping online. This demonstrates a confidence in using technology that will obviously benefit them in e-learning. However, to benefit from e-learning requires not only technical skills but also learning skills. Clarke (2008) suggests that a successful e-learner is characterised by:

■ Being a successful and confident independent learner especially in informal locations (e.g. home)

■ Having a positive attitude to learning

■ Being self-motivated

■ Having good communication skills

■ Being able to collaborate and co-operate with peers

■ Being a competent user of technology.

Many e-learning approaches place an emphasis on learners working independently with the teacher’s role being more of a facilitator or moderator than a presenter of information. It is therefore important that learning skills are well developed and can be combined with technical confidence to achieve the learners’ objectives. It can be difficult to know which learners have the required combination to succeed in e-learning. Teachers should aim to develop their students’ required learning skills.

Activity 1.4 Independent learner

A key role for teachers employing e-learning is to help learners to develop their learning skills. Consider your own context. How would you encourage the development of an independent learner? How could technology assist the process?

Digital literacy

Futurelab (2010) has published a handbook to help develop the skills required to fully participate in a digital society. The main target for the handbook is children, but the analysis of what is needed to become digitally literate applies to all ages and assisting learners to acquire the mix of skills and understanding is part of all learning programmes. The use of technology in learning is clearly a key aspect of developing digital literacy.

Futurelab (2010) has identified the following components that make up digital literacy:

■ Functional skills (i.e. English, Mathematics and ICT skills and understanding)

■ E-safety

■ Effective communication

■ Finding and selecting information

■ Collaboration

■ Cultural and social understanding

■ Critical thinking and evaluation

■ Creativity.

These areas are integrated across the different chapters.

Post-compulsory sector contexts

The post-compulsory or lifelong learning sector is complex, with many different groups of learners (e.g. offenders, young people and adult learners) studying for a wide range of programmes that include vocational qualifications, leisure and literacy. Courses can be either full- or part-time, with learning taking place in a variety of settings such as purpose-built colleges, community locations, workplaces and prisons. The availability and access to technology varies considerably across the sector. In a prison there are strict rules to limit access to certain types of technology based on security considerations while many colleges offer extensive access to technology but also restrict learners from participating in certain activities (e.g. social networks). The limitations ar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Professional Values and Practice
• 3 Learning and Teaching
• 4 Specialist Learning and Teaching
• 5 Planning for Learning
• 6 Assessment for Learning
• 7 Access and Progression
• Glossary
• Resources
• Tools
• References
• Index