ICTs in Queensland Classrooms in the 21st Century

This post is a brief discussion of the complicated nature of modern schools and classrooms. In class Gray Holmes provided a poster of Education Queensland’s view of a Contemporary Effective Learner (Figure 1). 

Figure 1: Contemporary Effective Learner (Source: https://staff.learningplace.eq.edu.au)

This poster summarises the view that students of the 21^st Century are expecting that working digitally will “pervade and impact on every aspect of their schooling” and that they are demanding “seamless access between school, work, home and play” (Education Queensland, 2013, p. 1). Though I agree that this poster may be describing a situation that may occur in the future I do not think that high school students in the Rockhampton region are in that situation at the moment. This is why I disagree with Prensky (2005) as described in my blog post. While the youth of today may be very experienced with some technologies such as SMS, the use of social media technologies like Facebook and using Google as a search engine, they are not necessarily familiar with the creation and use of  other technologies like wikis (except for using Wikipedia), course management systems (Moodle) and RSS feeds and the like. My evidence for this is based on my experience with teaching undergraduates at university where I have observed that not all students are digitally or information literate. I have also read a blog post by a former colleague (now working at USQ) who has blogged about the limits of technical knowledge of his current students and his opinion that they are “neither digital natives nor digitally literate” (Jones, 2013). Figure 1 is a perceptive cartoon from http://xkcd.com/ which illustrates in a comical way how becoming digitally literate is NOT innate nor is it a process of ‘magic’.

Figure 2: Tech Support Cheat Sheet (Source: http://xkcd.com/627/)

Teachers utilising digital pedagogies (the integration of digital technologies into the classroom) must also be cognisant of two governmental frameworks on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the classroom: ICT capability and the Australian Curriculum (Australian Government); and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) Cross-curriculum priority (Queensland Government). A goal of these frameworks is to use ICTs (e-learning) to prepare the contemporary learner to be a life-long learner.

The Australian Curriculum (ICT) capability states that students need to develop ICT capability that involves students making the most of the “digital technologies available to them, adapting to new ways of doing things as technologies evolve and limiting the risks to themselves and others in a digital environment”. Figure 3 below illustrates this point.

Figure 3: Organising elements of the ICT capability learning continuum (Source: http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/GeneralCapabilities/Information-and-Communication-Technology-capability/Organising-elements/Organising-elements )

One of the Queensland Studies Association cross-curriculum priorities is the embedding of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the curriculum. They have outlined a set of skills and knowledge to be achieved by each year juncture as part of the Essential Learnings curriculum. It is expected that ICTs will be integrated into all curriculums in a variety of ways within and across all key learning areas to support thinking, learning, collaboration and communication.

References

Education Queensland. (2013). Contemporary Effective Learner  Retrieved April 8, 2013 From https://staff.learningplace.eq.edu.au 

ICT capability and the Australian Curriculum (Australian Government);

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) Cross-curriculum priority (Queensland Government).

(Jones, 2013). http://davidtjones.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/more-evidence-of-the-limits-of-student-technical-knowledge/

Prensky, M. (2005, September/October). Engage me or enrage me: What Today’s Learners Demand, EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 40(5). Pp. 60-65. Retrieved March 1, 2013, from http://www.educause.edu/er/erm05/erm0553.asp.