Technology for learning; technology for teaching

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
--W.B. Yeats

If you ask 'why use technology in learning?' You get a lot of obvious and interesting answers e.g.:

• the right tool for the job: twenty first century learners must use twenty first century tools,
  
• the explosion of information in every subject area means teacher telling the kids how it is is less valuable than previously
  
• lifelong learning. More than ever education is about learning to (re-and un-)learn, to adapt, to make decisions.
  
• the knowledge economy: the skills kids (and not just kids) are going to need are handling the masses of information they are subject to.
  
• the range of stimulating media and activities available through technology
  
• personalisation: the ability to fashion your own route through content when and as it suits you
• collaboration may not necessarily be easier online, but it can be more multifaceted, involve more people and go on over a longer hours, days even weeks.
  

Indeed, most teachers assume that learners will be using technology, particularly the internet, as part of their studies be it looking at online journals, wikipedia, or Google. My Y7 daughter regularly gets homework which requires creative use of search engines, word processors, graphics editors and occasionally spreadsheets. She does this while managing a stream of interactions on Bebo and MSN, occasionally with other kids doing the same homework.

Why? Because it's fun.

Most teachers would characterise these as being solitary, remote activities best done at home or in the Learning Centre/ITC suite/information commons or whatever the institution calls the place that learners can access the internet. Interaction between learners in these real and virtual spaces may sweeten the pill, but the tasks aren't seen primarily as collaborative.

Overseeing net-research isn't part of the teacher's role. To return to Yeats, you're unlikely to light the educational fire while the students are variously checking their email, looking at wikipedia and messaging their friends.

So what is it that teachers do and where might technology fit in? Teachers are typically engaged in (off the topic of my head);

• assessment
• control/management of learner behaviour
  
• 'modeling' behaviours, attitudes and values
  
• selecting what will be learned, in which ways, for how long, in which contexts and to what ends
• giving feedback on performance/learning
• enthusing, cajoling, entertaining, challenging
• 'making it real': giving context to learning

Technology will be used by teachers to the extent that they enhance their performance of these tasks by making them easier, quicker and more effective. So far technology has largely been used to give jazzier presentations (multimedia on the IWB etc.) and perhaps quicker feedback. Teachers who place a premium on student-to-student interaction have pointed out that technology is being used to enhance teacher 'delivery', not student participation.

This is partly to do with a scarcity of technology in the classroom: there is usually only one computer (if that) which the teacher controls. But this isn't the case when it comes to homework, in which solitary 'research and report' use of the internet remains the most common technological scenario.

It's not too difficult to come up with a reasonable list of reasons for teachers not to use technology:

• it's hard to keep up with pace of change
• lack of institutional support (technical, pedagogic, even legal)
  
• hard to find acceptable models of assessment that align with e.g. use of web2.0 tools,
• inevitable technical glitches
• long track record of failed 'elearning' projects,
• supervising online interaction extends teachers' hours which isn't reflected in current working arrangements

If teachers are going to have to change the way they teach because of technology and if this change is not well supported by institutions then it is not going to happen. It will be interesting to see how far the vision of open lifelong learning fuelled by technology is able to enter mainstream educational culture.