Les tecnologies estan fent de les escoles llocs més reals

Aquest és un petit article de Mark Pullen, mestre d'educació primària amb 14 anys d'experiència, publicat a Edudemic, una pàgina web on es poden trobar articles i notícies relaciones amb educació i les Tic. Mark Pullen és un gran defensor de la integració de les Tic a l'aula, i escriu amb gran entusiasme sobre aquest tema en nom de Worth Avenue Group, proveïdor líder d'ordinadors portàtils, Tablet PC i iPad per escoles i universitats.

En aquest article l’autor ens explica una de les seves experiència en termes de les Tic a l'aula. Un dels seus objectiu com a professional és que, tant el seu ensenyament com les tasques que han de fer els estudiants a l'escola, siguin dissenyades per a ser tan reals com sigui possible. És a dir, la seva idea és fer una escola real, una escola on els aprenentatges siguin reals i estiguin enfocats cap a la vida real.

Partint d'aquest punt, a l'any 2010 va començar un projecte on cadascun dels seus alumnes disposava d'un ordinador portàtil. La idea del projecte era que cada alumne creava el seu propi blog on publicava tots els seus escrits, i a més quan creava algun article d’opinió aquest era enviat i publicat als diaris. L'objectiu d'aquest projecte és que els estudiant tenien un verdader propòsit per escriure i una audiència real que els llegiria.

Com comenta al seu article (Mark Pullen 2012) "Writing for the teacher or to earn a grade on a report card is fake; writing for actual audiences as described above is real."

Des d'aquest blog creiem que aquest article és molt interessant de llegir perquè, a més de mostrar aquest projecte, et parla d'altres propostes a fer a l'aula amb les Tic com a recurs, que verdaderament mostren una nova forma de pensar i de fer.  Aquesta visió que ens mostra l'autor és una nova forma de veure l'educació, on les Tic són un element i un recurs clau per a la millora de l'aprenentatge dels nostres alumnes. Les Tic són una font de coneixements i d'oportunitats per a què els nostres alumnes tinguin una millor educació.

Aquí mostrem l'article

Monday, April 30, 2012 1:17 pm, Posted by Jeff Dunn - Executive Editor 2 | IN THE CLASSROOM

How 1:1 Technology Is Making School More Real

Back in 2007, I gave my students an end-of-year survey asking them how they felt their year with me had gone.  On it, one of my most quiet, thoughtful students left a comment I’ll never forget: “This year felt more real.”  Since then, I’ve made that a very intentional goal: helping students to have a classroom experience that avoids “schooliness,” where my teaching and the students’ tasks are consistently designed to be as genuine as possible.

In the fall of 2010, I was selected to be a pilot 1:1 classroom in my district and gained a class set of laptops for my students to use as needed.  In the two years since, I’ve realized that 1:1 technology can be an incredibly powerful tool in creating a classroom where learning is real.  Here’s how:

Students Write for Real Audiences

This is easily the most real application of 1:1 technology of all: the students are almost always writing for genuine audiences.  They each have their own individual blog upon which to publish their writing.  In addition, when they write opinion pieces, they submit them to the local newspaper.  When they write book reviews, they post them on Amazon.  Their short stories were made into a self-published anthology on Lulu.com.  No matter what the genre is that we’re studying, 1:1 technology allows there to always be a real purpose and audience for my students’ writing.

Writing for the teacher or to earn a grade on a report card is fake; writing for actual audiences as described above is real.

Students Work on Real Areas of Need

Classes that move forward in lockstep fashion, in which each student is consistently required to do the same thing at the same pace as everyone else, are inherently fake.  1:1 technology makes it possible to quickly assess students’ strengths and weaknesses and then differentiate or even individualize instruction based on each student’s specific needs.  Subjects like math, in particular, can benefit from this form of individualized instruction.

No More Isolation of Skills

Finally, in the best 1:1 classrooms, skills no longer need to be taught in isolation.  The distinctions between subjects get blurred as students are able to pick a topic in which they’re interested, read about that subject in depth, write collaboratively about it on a wiki or in Google Docs, Skype with an expert in that field, and so on.  Rather than using computers as virtual worksheets, when done well, 1:1 technology can be used to give students access to nothing less than the entire base of knowledge acquired throughout human history.

Here’s hoping that the technology explosion currently occurring in our schools leads to schools that feel real and which offer meaningful learning opportunities to all students.