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Tech doesn't mean innovation

Michelle Avenant
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 19 Aug 2015

Technology is not synonymous with educational innovation.

That was the word from Bruce Collins, an English teacher at St Alban's College in Pretoria, speaking at the Inspired Teachers Conference in Johannesburg yesterday.

The educational innovation needed to engage today's pupils does not revolve around technology so much as it does around teachers finding ways to connect with learners in more engaging and authentic ways, said Collins.

While technology can enable this engagement, it must be supported by strong pedagogy to do so, and a comprehensive understanding of the role the technology must play and the value it must bring to the classroom is vital, Collins continued.

If pedagogy is not prioritised, educational technology is more likely to simply be an educational hurdle, he said.

"Beware of product-pushers" who sell their device or solution as the "answer" to digital education, Collins warned. Educators must also be wary of technological "fads" which have yet to prove their worth, as jumping into adoption of a particular technology without balanced research or consideration could unfairly impact learners' education, he added.

"Innovation is a mindset, not a device," Collins stressed, putting forward that in many instances teachers with little or no technology at their fingertips who have to find ways of making do with very limited resources are more innovative than those in fully-equipped digital classrooms.

"If you want to be an innovative, cutting-edge school, the schools that do it best are the schools that continue to challenge" and critically evaluate the success and impact of digital education solutions, he said.

Teachers have weathered numerous technological developments over the centuries, and their role in doing so has and will be to evaluate the potential and actual impact of these developments on education, and to adapt in light of them, said Colin Northmore, principal at Sacred Heart College in Johannesburg.

While the role played by the teacher in classrooms is swiftly changing, to be an inspired and innovative teacher demands the same passion and devotion as it has in the past, said Ariellah Rosenberg, CEO of education and training NGO ORT South Africa.

One of the most significant challenges to education is the increasing outdatedness, irrelevance and ineffectiveness of much of the content and pedagogical methods unavoidably prescribed by standardised schooling systems, said Northmore.

Yet introducing different mindsets in the classroom is a bureaucratic challenge, said Morag Rees, principal and senior Art teacher at Crawford College Sandton.

Teachers fall under an immense amount of pressure to pioneer the innovative education solutions they will need to avoid falling behind in the future, yet without disrupting the success the school has established in its status quos, noted Collins.

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