The adoption of digital pedagogies in Singapore

I have blogged about Singapore’s FutureSchools projects in the past, and this latest clip from Edutopia would seem to indicate that serious progress is being made. The true success of this initiative, of course, will be the extent to which these practices will be rolled out to all schools in Singapore, and in this respect, professional development will be critical.

An interesting point to emerge from this video is that the approach taken to professional development in the FutureSchools project is to embrace the same participatory learning culture they are nurturing in their classrooms. Using technology, there is group peer observation of class sessions with the dual objective of learning from one another and providing constructive feedback.

More formal education and training in the use of ICTs in the classroom (in K-12 or higher education) is not that widely available. The Asian International College in Singapore is aiming to fix this with the launch if its Postgraduate Certificate in Education (Digital Pedagogies) this year.

Digital Native: Fact or Fallacy?

Image source: 4.bp.blogspot.com

Poor old Marc Prensky has come in for a bit of a bashing lately, and unjustifiably so in my opinion.

First of all, he first used the digital native-digital immigrant typology 10 years ago. If one were to consider the extent to which digital literacy has advanced in this time, it is perhaps a little unfair to criticise his original thinking. Indeed, Prensky himself stated in a 2009 article:

In 2001, I published “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” a two-part article that explained these terms as a way of understanding the deep differences between the young people of today and many of their elders (Prensky 2001a, 2001b). Although many have found the terms useful, as we move further into the 21st century when all will have grown up in the era of digital technology, the distinction between digital natives and digital immigrants will become less relevant. Clearly, as we work to create and improve the future, we need to imagine a new set of distinctions. …

Second, as White and Le Cornu (2011) have noted, Prensky is not the first to try and analyse perceived behaviours of learners using typologies like this and — while they have their drawbacks — they at least initiate a dialogue for us to refine our thinking.

Third, maybe I read too much into his original work, but at no stage did I ever assume that there was native and immigrant and never the twain shall meet. It was a useful generalisation at the time and nothing more. It may have less applicability a decade later, but it can be treated as a stepping stone to alternative typologies, or something theoretically more sophisticated.

In summary, I’m not sure the notion of a digital native was ever treated as ‘fact’, and thus, it might also be inappropriate to refer to its ‘fallacy’. Let’s give Prensky some credit for sticking his neck out in a highly dynamic domain and acknowledge his contribution to the debate if nothing else.

Education’s Internet moment is now

Having mucked around with computers in education for almost two decades, from something we used to call computer based teaching (CBT) to what commonly became known as ‘e-learning’, I am confident that, today, the use of ICTs in education is sufficiently ubiquitous, that it’s okay now to simply refer to it as ‘learning’. My rationale for this statement is very simple: this is what people do in spite of the formal education system. The data for the US in the infographic below is fairly compelling. One point it makes that is worth emphasising relates to the current crisis in education where students are so disaffected they are dropping out in record numbers. This is why — as the infographic states — it is Education’s Internet moment! If paradigm shift does not occur now, it never will.

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Social media is not about technology

The latest version of the Social Media Revolution by Socialnomics was uploaded to YouTube last week. Some of the statistics have been updated and there are a number of new slides. For me, the most compelling is the very first which simply reads: social media is not about technology. This is so true. I have been campaigning long and hard for several years now to drop the ‘e’ from e-learning. It’s just learning! It’s how we do things now … or at least it’s how our students do things. Social media to a digital native is as normal as pen and paper to a digital immigrant, and yet there is still resistance to the mainstreaming of social media for formal education purposes. The argument that students don’t have sufficient access to technology is starting wear a little thin. In the Sustainable Development and Competitive Advantage MBA class I delivered at Christ University in Bangalore, India, earlier this month, the students twittered about #SDCA so much, it was trending in Bangalore at one stage during the week. On the last day, without any notice, the students made videos documenting their learning outcomes, because 56 of the 57 people in the class either had video capability on their hand held device or on their laptop.

Pedagogy 2.0: ICTs and Disruptive Innovation

This is an excerpt from a presentation I gave last month at the EDGE Forum 2011: Shaping the Future of Indian Higher Education, ICT: The Catalyst for Next Generation Learning Environments in Education, at the India Habitat Center in New Delhi. It certainly seemed to provoke a lot of discussion afterwards which was very pleasing. Most importantly, the widely held view — with very few dissenting voices — was that India is ready for this kind of paradigm shift in thinking. Furthermore, given ICTs are so readily embraced and a key platform for the country’s economic development, there should be fewer obstacles to the adoption of Pedagogy 2.0 in India compared to other countries where the old paradigm may be more entrenched.