Illiterate but qualified to teach

Illiterate but qualified to teach.

Would you allow your child to be taught by someone with the description illiterate but qualified to teach? I didn’t think so. So why is it that so many teaches feel its okay not to incorporate ICT into current activities in English?

Karl Fisch (2007) created a blog titled is it okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher and makes the bold claim that “if a teacher today is not technologically literate- and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more- it’s equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn’t know how to read and write.” (Fisch, 2007) This sounds extreme, but if we think about it, how can we allow teachers who don’t understand technology to:

a) teach it as it’s compulsory in all KLAs and

b) understand how to adapt work so that our students understand it.

Our postmodern world relies on educators promoting critical thinking, and preparing students for the rigour of the real world where techno-literacy is the only way to secure a prosperous job. With the ‘greying’ of the Australian population and the majority of baby boomer teachers expected to retire in the next five years, is our education system in the process of an overhaul, in which we must review and ask “are students are being disadvantaged by apathetic attitudes towards ICT?”

Reference Fisch, K. (2007, September 11). ‘Is it okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher?’ Posted to http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/is-it-okay-to-be-technolo.

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Immigrants and natives. What the?

Digital Immigrants and digital natives. What the?

Sounds like the future of educational strategies has become as disputable as Australia’s migration policies. The debate is in full swing across most KLAs as some teachers embrace the technology revolution whilst other teachers are trying to drop it like a hot potato.

Being a prac student is a tough business when your cooperating teacher, who is conisdered a ‘digital immigrant’ knows more about Microsoft, smartboards, power points, publisher, nero and flash player than you do. Although I’ve grown up in a digital age and engage in many technological activities, I who should be considered a ‘digital native’ was put to shame. This brings about an important point that such labels are myths.

With the phrases digital natives and digital immigrants meaning exactly what they imply, it is important not to get bogged down in labelling, rather understand why the debate and labelling has come into play. Call me an English teacher, but we think only in metaphors, and I believe that this sort of categorisation is a plea to get us to think about how our current curriculum needs to be re-designed for the new era we live in. Just as the English syllabus was modified to include visual literacy and film as integral text, ICT, more importantly, wikis, blogs, etc need to be incorporated to reflect the new areas of learning. Shocking? Perhaps, but with all due respect, how many students do you know voluntarily pick up a Henry James novel, or even know who Oscar Wilde is? Engagement through ICT will allow these students to re-create canonical texts, which is the epitome of art in a postmodern age.

Marc Prensky (2001) outlines this debate in reference to American curriculum and makes a valid point that “today’s students are no longer the people our education system was designed to teach.”(p.1)

What does everyone think?

Reference

Prensky, M. (2001October). ‘Digital natives, digital immigrants’ in  On the horizon. Vol. 9, No.5. MCB University Press. p1

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