INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION FOR INFORMATION PROCESSING

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INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION FOR INFORMATION
PROCESSING

• Imagining the future for ICT and Education
• 26th 30th June 2006 in Alesund, Norway

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Young learners views of Future Education
systems Like now only better

• Kieron Sheehy, k.sheehy_at_open.ac.uk
• Sue Bucknall,
• Child and Youth Studies Group,
• The Open University, United Kingdom.

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Context of the research

• The Schome Research Group
• A means of developing Schome not school not
  home schome - the education system for the
  Information Age www.schome.ac.uk.
• Inclusive and relevant
• Role of ICT S-E-T
• One aspect of the Schome Research Groups initial
  research was to seek ideas and visions about
  current and potential educational systems from
  different groups of learners

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Methodology

• Four groups of learners in Focus groups
• What do you see as learning and when do you learn
  best?
• How could the way you learn be improved?
• What should learning/education be aiming to do?
• What would be your ideal/future learning
  scenario?

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• Six mainstream primary school children, aged 10
  years of age.
• Six mainstream primary school children who were
  also Young Researchers, aged 10 years of age.
  Engaged with research though the Children's
  Research Centre They had experience of carrying
  out research projects and learning about the
  research process.
• Six teenagers, 14-17 yrs of age, from mainstream
  secondary schools and undertaking the Duke of
  Edinburgh Award Scheme (DoE). The scheme is a
  programme of personal and social development,
  part of which involves independent expeditions
• Six teenagers 13-17 yrs of age who were being
  educated at home.

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Primary school pupils

• Thinking of new or alternative approaches
  -challenging
• The importance of fun
• Remembering things is seen as a large part of
  learning i.e. being able to recall, say and
  write it down.
• The split between learning and fun
• E.g. The Beach School Candy workshop

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A behavioural model?

• strongly tied to the schoolroom model
• Didnt move far, geographically or conceptually,
  from their perceptions of how things currently
  exist
• I love school I love chocolate.
• passive learner receiving and digesting
  preordained chunks of information.
• often an explicit label is given in drawings to
  indicate the appropriate emotional response for
  learning. Never the case for fun activities

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Technology is an Add on

• a way of delivering conventional materials and
  rewards within a classroom.
• It may improve the ease of accessing a learning
  activity or gaining a type of reward.
• Contrast with their home experience and use of
  technology. club penguin, Runescape
• Is the setting influencing this ?
• Technology used for learning isnt fun. Helps
  get it over with quicker.

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Primary School Young Researchers (YR)

• Overall the groups construction of learning was
  as an active process. Learning is..
• Building on knowledge
• Trying to figure stuff out
• Not just being told
• Working things out.

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A Constructivist view?

• Because learning is seen as a method, their
  futures are not tied to particular geographical
  spaces, influenced by the questions one is trying
  to answer. Learning happens
• Everywhere (whole group response)
• on the beach
• in computer games
• outside, like finding out about the water cycle

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A significant role for ICT

• It made finding out things easier and quicker. It
  could also change the sorts of things one could
  find out and the ways of finding them.
• You plot co-ordinates in the carcar on
  autopilotRun on tram rails so no crashes.
  Headphones on when you get in. Window changes to
  screens and Information in 3D picturesFor
  literacy you write onto the screen.. Each car
  company has its own make.
• ..Virtual reality libraries where you ..learn
  by observation rather than being told facts
• Small island like Fiji or The Isle of Man.
  Children teach themselves DT design and
  technology ..Tree climbing lessonsPlasma screen
  for languageswimming in the sea...Animal pen7
  days a week
• ..School is not all about results

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Teenagers undertaking the Duke of Edinburgh Award
Scheme.

• Developed a very broad concept of what learning
  was and what it could look like in the future.
• learning and education gives learners the
  power, through skills and knowledge, to have a
  freedom of action in the real world with real
  people.
• The purpose of learning is empowerment.
• learning experiences should address all aspects
  of a persons life e.g. health, personal and
  intellectual skills and, within this, role models
  were seen as essential

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real learning isnt like school

• Play was a central and fundamental part of their
  desired learning experiences.
• Learning could be happen though . play, sharing
  and role play
• Formal activities such as writing could be
  incorporated into creative play
• Being given independence and placed in positions
  to do real things helped them to..
• Learn to think for yourself, not through telling
  us what to do.they show and encouragebut you
  have the freedom you really need to experience
  it
• pupils learn from people who are successful in
  particular areas and who enjoy what they do.

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ICT is a real world thing

• ICT primarily seen as a facilitator of
  interpersonal communication and social
  structures.
• This aspect is a significant one for the DoEs
  future vision.
• ICT created effective groups and helped the
  groups to interact with real world situations and
  problem solving.
• The thinking element came from the group itself
  but ICT helped them think together and to source
  information to inform their problem solving and
  develop their skills.

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Home Educated Group (HE)

• As with the DoE group, placed less emphasis on
  schools as being necessary sites for learning
• ideal future learning environment was -flexible,
  able to provide a wide range of opportunities
  that the students may need. able to accommodate
  different way of learning things because
  children learn in different ways.
• Show your learning in different ways too

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Conservative view

• formal examinations-a necessary part of learning,
  but exams should test skills as well as an
  ability to recall facts.
• current real world skills and vocational
  experiences should be embedded more in learning
  (as with the DoE group).
• each learner should have a mentor

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ICT keeps things comfortable

• The consensus was that one needed to feel
  emotionally and physically comfortable before
  learning could begin to take place.
• ICT would help to create social links and also
  allow learners to learn in a variety of different
  comfortable locations, essentially being away
  from school

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Conclusions

• implicit models of learning reflected, on the
  whole, their best current educational
  experiences.
• These models are then used in the creation of
  new future practices.
• ICT is used to support or allow these practices
  to occur but the underpinning model of learning
  remains the same as their best current
  experience.

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• many of their ideas have been significantly
  shaped by activities they had undertaken
  outside the school (DoE, YR and HE).
• In this sense they could be samples of different
  possible futures
• The pedagogy underpinning how technology might be
  used remains unaltered. It might be seen as
  unrealistic to expect young learners to think of
  new ways of doing this.
• However, young learners are interacting with
  technology in new ways outside of formal
  schooling.

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• a need to equip learners with the conceptual
  tools to reflect on learning and how it occurs.
• to build a broader range of perspectives from
  which to build future educational systems.
• giving learners an awareness of, and asking them
  to reflect on, their models of learning could
  itself be an important part of learning in the
  Information Age.
• What we re doing next?
• Real ICT and learning is happening. Children
  are immersed in this-but outside of school. We
  need to acknowledge and build on this. And
  ..have another word for learning