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Digital education requires teacher engagement

Michelle Avenant
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 26 Feb 2015

The main focus in implementing digital education must be on teachers' engagement strategies, and not on the devices being used.

So said Jon Phillips, managing director of Dell Global Education, at the Dell Education Think Tank held in Bryanston yesterday.

The Think Tank, hosted at Brescia House School, consisted of 10 education and ICT experts, a recently-matriculated app developer and a grade 11 learner at the school, who shared ideas about the way forward for digital education.

"We mustn't look at a classroom full of tablets and assume learning is happening," said Arthur Preston, principal of Elkanah House Senior Primary School in Cape Town.

It is important to select the right technology for specific needs or functions in the classroom, rather than blindly digitising "to keep up with the Joneses", explained Sarietjie Musgrave, head of ICT innovation in school education at the University of the Free State.

A particular challenge with developing teacher training for the digital classroom is that each teacher will be met with different devices, software and resources, and training must, therefore, help teachers formulate digital learning strategies in a way that is not device- or platform-specific, she added.

Encouraging risk-taking

"Often in schools, we want to give children the space to play and experiment, but we don't want to give teachers this space," Musgrave continued.

High school teachers are especially pressured to focus on final matric marks, which can stifle experimentation and deviation from the traditional, set path, added Preston.

For digital education to succeed, teachers must be encouraged to try new ideas and make mistakes, said Mark Hayter, headmaster of Grayston Preparatory School. "Teachers often get too comfortable. We know what we know because we know it, and we want to stay there," he explained. But innovation comes from an environment of risk-taking, and mistakes must be made to find the best new ways of learning, he said.

Teacher training

While older teachers often struggle the most with adopting digital teaching methods, they are valuable as they have the most experience and knowledge in the field, said Musgrave. It is very important they are not left behind in the process of digitisation, but encouraged to ask as many questions as they need to, she said.

However, "You'd be surprised how many younger teachers do not have ideas for using technology in the classroom," said Victor Ngobeni, manager of Microsoft Partners in Learning Training. While many young teachers use technology extensively in their personal lives, they do not necessarily know how to go about teaching with it, he said.

The massive amount of new knowledge and skills needed for digital teaching can be extremely daunting, said author and inspirational speaker Nikki Bush. Teachers must be encouraged to "split the learning load" and share their knowledge and successes regularly, she said.

It is also important that teachers are introduced to digital instruction methods at least six months before they are rolled out to learners, said Michelle Lissoos, managing director of Think Ahead. "I've seen schools start [using technologies] with teachers and learners at the same time and it just does not work," she warns.

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