Phillip A. Towndrow

Towards the ‘informed use’ of information and communication technology in education: a response to Adams’ ‘PowerPoint, habits of mind, and classroom culture’

PowerPoint, the widely‐used slide‐show software package, is finding increasing currency in lecture halls and classrooms as the preferred method of communicating and presenting information. But, as Adams [Adams, C. (2006) PowerPoint, habits of mind, and classroom culture. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38(4), 389–411] attempts to show, users may not appreciate that PowerPoint invites and seduces educators to reshape knowledge in particular ways to the detriment of analytical thinking and interpretive understanding. Using Adams’ material as a stimulus, we argue that digital presentation tools (along with other items of information and communication technology) can be utilized to facilitate conversational dialogue between students, their instructor, and their peers without much additional knowledge or effort. The key that unlocks the affordances of PowerPoint is ‘informed use’. This concept is explained and illustrated with an example that shows technology being used in a particular context to achieve a particular set of instructional outcomes.

Wireless laptops in English classrooms: a SWOT analysis from Singapore

This paper presents illustrative findings from a one‐year pilot study undertaken in the English department of a high school in Singapore that was in the first year of implementing a one‐to‐one wireless laptop programme. The findings show that learning was often constrained by lecture‐style presentations and overt test preparation. Despite widespread access, the students rarely explored new media as alternative sources of legitimate knowledge and missed opportunities to investigate mobile technologies as sites for meaning‐making and knowledge construction. The paper concludes with a call for teachers to design language learning and assessment tasks that embrace a wider set of twenty‐first century skills, knowledge and dispositions. Radiolaptops in englischen Klassenzimmern: eine SWOT‐Analyse aus Singapur Dieses Papier präsentiert beispielhafte Ergebnisse einer einjährigen Pilotstudie, die in der englischen Abteilung einer Höheren Schule in Singapur im ersten Jahr der Einführung eines drahtlosen Laptop‐Programms durchgeführt worden ist. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass das Lernen häufig durch vorlesungsartige Präsentationen und offenkundige Test‐Vorbereitung behindert wurde. Trotz des breit‐möglichen Zugangs erforschten die Studenten selten neue Medien als alternative Quellen legitimer Kenntnisse und verpassten so Gelegenheiten, bewegliche Technologien als Mittel für bedeutsames und kenntnissbildendes Lernen zu untersuchen. Das Papier schließt mit einem Aufruf an Lehrer, für das Fremdsprachenlernen aktuelle und den heutigen technischen Möglichkeiten angemessene Beispiele zu entwickeln. Les ordinateurs portables sans fils dans les classes d’anglais: une analyse SWOT (forces et faiblesses) à Singapour Cet article présente les résultats significatifs d’une étude expérimentale d’un an lancée dans le département d’anglais d’un lycée de Singapour qui se trouvait dans la première année de mise en place d’une programme d’ordinateurs portables sans fil individuels. Ces résultats montrent que l’apprentissage était souvent gêné par des présentations en forme de cours magistral et un bachotage avoué en vue de l’examen. En dépit de la grande facilité d’accès, les élèves ont rarement exploré les nouveaux medias comme autant de sources nouvelles d’un savoir authentique et ils n’ont pas saisi l’occasion d’étudier si les nouvelles technologies pouvaient être des lieux de production de sens et de construction du savoir. L’article se termine sur un appel aux professeurs pour qu’ils conçoivent des tâches d’apprentissage et d’évaluation de la langue qui couvriraient un éventail plus large de compétences, de connaissances et d’attitudes propres au 21e siècle. Los ordenadores portatiles inalámbricos en aulas de inglés: un analísis SWOT (puntos fuertes y debilidades) en Singapur Este artículo presenta unos resultados ilustrativos de un estudio piloto de un año llevado a cabo en el departamento de inglés de un colegio de Singapur que se encontraba en el primero año de la aplicación de un programa de ordenadores individuales inalámbricos. Esos resultados muestran que el aprendizaje fué frecuentemente dificultado por presentaciones de tipo «lección magistral» y preparaciones dirigidas solamente a los examenes. Aunque el acceso era muy fácil, los alumnos han poco explorado las posibilidades de los nuevos medios como fuentes alternativas de conocimientos legítimos y no consiguieron aprovechar oportunidades de examinar el potencial de las tecnologías móviles como lugares de producción de sentido y de construcción de conocimiento. La conclusión del artículo contiene un llamamiento a los profesores para el diseño de tareas de aprendizaje de idiomas y de evaluación que abarquen una gama más amplia de competencias, conocimientos y aptitudes del siglo 21.

Squaring Literacy Assessment With Multimodal Design: An Analytic Case for Semiotic Awareness

Over the past few decades, there has been a marked shift away from conceptualizing literacy as a functional skill set toward its recognition, particularly for children and youth, as a social achievement that is buttressed, in part, by access to digital tools and new media. Yet, beyond the mere consumption of multimedia and the mundane assemblage of words, images, and other resources, we ask, “What does a successful multimedia literacy performance look like and how might ‘designful’ multimedia thinking and composition be taught, learned, and assessed?” In addressing these issues, we present a fine-grained description and analysis of the work of a 13-year-old Singaporean named “Jeremy,” who produced a personal digital story of considerable theoretical and practical interest to us as researchers and new literacy scholars. Building on prior research in the field of multiliteracies, we argue that educators (and students) must cultivate their own senses of “semiotic awareness” before meaningful assessment of children’s multimodal design work can be conceived or implemented. We also sketch a preliminary approach to assessing multimodal literacies and explicate a range of interconnected representational possibilities that we expect will prompt a timely and urgent reconsideration of multimodal meaning design in school settings.

Critical Reflective Practice as a Pivot in Transforming Science Education: A report of teacher‐researcher collaborative interactions in response to assessment reforms

This paper investigates the impact of a current educational policy initiative in Singapore called ‘Science Practical Assessment’ (SPA). SPA is designed to overcome the limitations of single, high‐stakes examinations by placing emphasis on research processes, entrepreneurship and the development of science practical skills. Structurally, SPA repositions teachers as central in the selection of items to teach and assess during the academic years leading up to O‐level. However, it is contended that the effectiveness of SPA is rendered problematic without specific attention being paid to teachers’ readiness and capacity to understand and implement assessment innovations. In response, the author describes and analyses how he formed a research partnership with a local physics teacher to investigate how SPA could be used as a tool to improve science pedagogy. Results suggest that while the pragmatic considerations of assessment reforms are not sufficient in themselves to bring about policymakers’ desired outcomes, ways can be found to help teachers prepare for, bring about and crucially own change by adopting a critically reflective stance on problems and issues that arise when students work on completing laboratory tasks. The methods used in this study also identify some of the factors that impact on teachers’ ability to influence positive developments at the department and school levels of an educational system. Overall, the intention is that the teacher development strategies and classroom practices illustrated in the paper will eventually inform a programme of interventionist action in science pedagogy and practical work assessment with applications both in and beyond the immediate study context.

Teachers as digital task designers: an agenda for research and professional development

Taylor and Francis Ltd CUS106842.sgm 10.1080/002 0270500068591 Journal of Curri ulum Studies 0 11-0272 (p i t)/1366-5839 (online) Original Article 2 05 & Francis Group Ltd 37 0002 5 Ph l pT wnd ow N ti l Institute of EducationE glish Language and Literature Academic Group1 Nanyang Walk, Block 3, Level 3, Rm 174Singapore637616 +65 6790 3 46 6 91 9 p town@ ie.edu.sg Information technology (IT) is a pervasive and permanent feature of life, especially in post-modern, globalizing contexts. As a result, the debate over whether IT is valid from an educational perspective is futile, and should be terminated; there are more urgent matters to consider. For example, two changes can no longer be resisted by participants in classroom interactions. The first relates to the mass of information in a multiplicity of modes that technology makes available to teachers and learners both in and outside the classroom. Where information in digital format and new technology exist, individuals are increasingly able to manipulate and control aspects of life in new ways (Shapiro 1999). Furthermore, access to new technology results in a ‘restructuring of power’ (Kress 2003: 17). These phenomena are potent factors that define and recast educational landscapes. The second issue also affects classrooms dramatically: the convictions held by economists, politicians, and educational policy-makers on IT’s power to promote, through education, the improvement of the social and economic fabric of nations. The drive to use IT is raising vexing questions about implementing educational policies at the classroom level. Although IT-based policy statements are ambitious in terms of their intended impact on individuals and society as a whole, they often lack essential details about how, or indeed why, they should be implemented. The direct result is misunderstanding and under-use. Taken together, the existence of new technology and the desire to exploit it place teachers and learners in a labyrinth of opportunities, challenges, imperatives, and expectations. What is required to negotiate ways out of this maze are meaningful and productive practices that help teachers to monitor, reflect, and prepare for their classroom-specific experiences. Towards this end, I propose a generic programme structure for teacher professional development with IT that would be informed by what Kirk and MacDonald

Visible Learning and the Enacted Curriculum in Singapore

In this chapter we assess the intellectual quality of the enacted curriculum in Secondary 3 Mathematics and English in a large representative sample of schools in Singapore using criteria and standards identified in part by John Hattie in Visible Learning. In doing so, however, we have expanded Hattie’s particular model of visible learning to include a range of instructional practices that we believe are critical to enhancing instructional transparency and student learning. In particular, we focus on a range of standards that have the potential to ensure greater epistemic clarity with respect to the nature and cognitive demands of the knowledge work involved in the design and implementation of instructional (and assessment) tasks.

Teacher Self-Evaluation and Power.

Positive claims are made for the adoption of practices that permit greater levels of involvement in teacher appraisals. The assumption is that when teachers are more involved in observing and evaluating their teaching, corresponding increases in empowerment and autonomy occur as a direct result. This paper challenges this claim by arguing that teacher empowerment is much more complex when the nature of power is considered from three contrasting perspectives (sovereign, epistemological and disciplinary). Each notion of power is used to explain how power is exercised in self‐evaluation practices in ways that either enhance or curb teacher empowerment and development.

Pedagogic transformation, student-directed design and computational thinking

ABSTRACT In a world where technology has become pervasive in our lives, the notion of IT integration in education practice is losing its significance. It is now more appropriate to discuss transforming pedagogy where technology is not considered a tool anymore but part of what we are. To advance this hypothesis, an enterprising, student-directed approach is proposed which embraces problem-solving as activity and computational thinking as knowledge development. In order to test its efficacy, a case study of students developing a 3D virtual space for international collaboration is used to exemplify the transformational pedagogy. From observations of the enactment of heutagogical characteristics and computational thinking, it is argued that we can now teach and learn “in” technology. This modality will come to dominate how technology operates “as” our lives, and become central to what it means to know and learn.

What English Language Teachers from the Peoples' Republic of China Find Surprising about Information Technology: Thoughts on How to Address the Need for Change

Abstract Recent educational reforms in China are placing increasing emphasis on the integration of new technologies in the English language curriculum. At the same time, a debate has begun concerning the effectiveness of Information Technology (IT) usage in transforming language pedagogy in the Chinese context. In response to points made in the discussions published to date, this paper describes an attempt to instill new ways of viewing the potential of IT with a group of practicing teachers studying for a Post‐graduate Diploma in English Language Teaching in Singapore. End‐of‐course survey data were used to identify what the trainees found surprising about the course. This method uncovered some of their hopes and fears about using IT in their future classes and provided clues as to how to bring about positive learning outcomes with IT. Discussion of the results shows that Chinese teachers share similar challenges as their counterparts in the West when it comes to using IT for the first time. The paper ends with a string of suggestions about how to begin the process of innovation with IT, both in and beyond China.

Reconsidering Literacy in the 21st Century: Exploring the Role of Digital Stories in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages:

The call for an expanded, critical and socially-constructed view of literacy in response to contemporary semiotic and technological developments is not new. However, an under investigated area relates to the impact and influence of new media in the teaching and learning of English to speakers of other languages (ESOL). Following an overview of some key terms and concepts in the fields of Multimodal Composition and Communication, we describe and critique a number of the multimodal elements in ESOL textbooks. Subsequently, we present a case for cultivating a ‘personal’ sense of semiotic awareness and illustrate this with a brief analysis of an ESOL teacher’s exploration of meaning making through digital storytelling. Finally, we end by listing several benefits of introducing multimodality into ESOL supporting the irreducible viewpoint that envisages teachers as designers of apt learning environments in contrast to the static and immutable realms of content- and skills-based language instruction.