Published at 11:08, Thursday, 29 September 2011

IT’S that time again – a new academic year. I look at the audience at my first assembly, expectant and nervous, smart in their new shoes and clothes, knowing that they had to be dragged out of bed after a long summer away from classrooms – but enough about the members of staff. The students don’t look bad either, and although they pretend otherwise, most of them are pleased to be back, seeing their friends again, and yes, to be “differently exercising” their grey matter.

I, too, am looking forward to applying my brain differently as this year I am teaching my own subject, geography. For my first lesson, I hunted down my pack of coloured chalk and sharpened my colouring pencils before setting off to the classroom. The head of geography gave me a pitying look, confiscated both, and pointed me to an interactive whiteboard before leaving me to it. Luckily, after idiot-proof instructions from one of our younger students, I was up and running.

Now I exaggerate (honestly!) for the sake of illustration as I’m not quite a Luddite, but technology seems to have dominated my first few days back. After giving out homework, I was amazed to receive, virtually immediately, most of the work from my 12-year-olds as email attachments. Later in the day I popped into a sixth form science lesson and raised my eyebrows at the sight of groups of students with their mobile phones out. Then I realised they were using them as an integral part of the lesson – one group using the phone to produce a video clip which would be shown to all the class via the wireless network, another using an app to research a scientific principle, while yet another was making an audio recording. All very appropriate and immediate.

This is common fare in all our schools and colleges and is, I believe, how technology can be applied by students working co-operatively and independently. Within our content-driven curriculum, we need to prepare our students for a world of work very different to the one many of us entered, as most of our students will have a number of differing careers.

Employers and organisations indicate that the most important skills they require, in addition to good literacy and numeracy, are first-rate ICT skills, the ability to work independently, to be adaptable and flexible, and to be able to work in teams – all of which needs to be learned.

Whatever the political climate or most recent educational agenda, time and resources need to be available for our teachers and lecturers to not only deliver the curriculum, but to ensure that these vital ‘soft’ skills are incorporated. Quarts into pint pots?

Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk