Personal+Philosophy

It is hard to imagine life without the Internet and yet it has only been within the past decade or so that the Internet has been accessible to most New Zealanders. In this relatively short time, the Internet has become an integral part of the way we access information, communicate and collaborate with each other.

In this essay, I will share my personal philosophy about using the web for teaching and learning. In a classroom teaching environment, I believe that embedding technologies such as the Internet into the classroom programme is essential for 21st century teaching and learning. There are many reasons for this, including meeting the needs of diverse learners, the ability to be flexible and adaptive to students’ needs, providing students with essential skills for the 21st century, and providing authentic learning contexts that include opportunities for students to work co-operatively and collaborate.

All students learn at different rates, have different needs and styles, and bring a range of experiences and prior knowledge to the classroom. Using the Internet allows teachers to develop a sequence of learning experiences that can incorporate a wide range of teaching strategies including direct instruction, inquiry-based learning, co-operative learning, and information processing models that make learning more accessible to a range of students. The use of online assessment tools also provides teachers and students with instant feedback that can be used to determine a student’s achievement and progress as well as for planning for individual students or a group of students' next learning steps.

The Churchill Report (2002) envisaged that classrooms of the future would have access to a wide range of digital media, although it is interesting to note that they predicted this would be “prepared by specialists in a centralised resource development facility and delivered.” Web 2.0 tools and the Internet have made online teaching and the use of digital media accessible to all teachers and removed the need for a centralised resource.

WebQuests are one example of how the Internet can be used successfully in the classroom to help address the needs of a diverse range of learners. In my classroom programme, I have been using WebQuests in my literacy programme to provide students with the opportunity to choose the context for their learning. This practice leads to much greater student engagement and satisfaction. The Education Review Office (2005) reported that “teaching programmes that incorporated e-learning increased student motivation and enjoyment of learning. In particular, student use of ICT that enables creative production of multimedia presentations has had a positive impact on attitudes to learning.” This is evident when I observe my own students engaged in their learning.

Within weeks of starting this year, it became apparent that I was going to need to be more creative and use I.C.T. effectively to provide an effective literacy programme. The main reasons for this is because I have a wide range of learners with almost 30 percent of my students at Stanine 3 or lower for reading comprehension whilst others are Stanine 9. The Internet, and more specifically Web 2.0, has allowed me to create a literacy programme that would not have been achievable in a paper form. Lower ability students are able to listen to digital stories and, with the assistance of Word Q, respond in written format to a pre-formatted online response sheet. With my high ability students, the Internet allows me to create a programme that is personalised to their interests with Web 2.0 tools facilitating the collaboration and sharing of ideas.

The Internet allows teachers to be both flexible and adaptive in their teaching. When a student asks me a question to which I do not know the answer, rather than having to tell them I need to get back to them, I teach them the skills they need to locate the answer for themselves. This often generates interest in an area that we may not have been intending to find out more about, but if I can see that it would provide a worthwhile learning experience I will modify my programme and use Websites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and How Stuff Works to access information and capture that teachable moment.

Web-based learning also facilitates personalised learning which in turn leads to independent life-long learners. ‘Learning how to learn’ is a transferable skill that students need to develop throughout their schooling to enable them to become independent life-long learners (Education Review Office, 2005). I believe that it is essential to provide students with the skills they will need for their future world and to reinforce these skills by facilitating strong school-home links. This philosophy is supported by CORE Education's study into Web-based Services that showed students using the web had greater student involvement and provided "greater support for home-based learning". (CORE Education, 2008)

Web 2.0 tools allow students to contribute to a knowledge base and collaborate with each other in shared learning experiences. This gives the students a great sense of ownership in their learning and also means they can receive immediate feedback from their peers, teacher, their family or friends. As well as encouraging the sharing of knowledge and expertise, collaborative tasks also foster essential social skills.

An essential part of using any technology is developing the technical expertise required. For students to fully realise the potential and benefits of the tools available, technologies must be used to promote higher-order thinking tools rather than merely a way to ‘publish’ previously hand-written work. The teaching of the skills must be embedded in the classroom programme for these skills to become relevant to the students and the modeling of these skills is critical.

For learning to be meaningful, contexts should arise from authentic situations. Ideally, every learning experience should arise from a genuine need or problem with teachers recognising opportunities in and around the school. By relating learning to the students’ needs, the students are better able to relate to this context because it relates directly to their own lives and draws on their own experiences. As the students become more independent, I believe they should be given greater freedom and responsibility to construct their own learning experiences based on authentic situations they have identified. The use of the Internet can not only link to the students' prior knowledge of a particular area, but also in a medium to which they are accustomed i.e. in digital format.

Although I strongly advocate the use of the Internet for 21st century teaching and learning, I also believe it is important to acknowledge that the Internet is a tool that should be used to support teachers’ practice. It is also worthwhile to consider that the Internet can, in some instances, disadvantage students. Referring to specifically the teaching of Computer Studies rather than the use of the Internet, Alton-Lee and Praat (2001), found in their research that students are disadvantaged if they are Māori or Pasifika, female, or attend a low decile school.

Alton-Lee, A. & Praat, A. (2001) Questioning Gender. Retrieved May 12, 2007 from []
 * References**

CORE Education (2008).Evaluation of Student Facing Web-Based Services: Final Integrated Report. Retrieved June 6, 2009 from http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ict/23917/27859/28478/5

Education Review Office (2005). E-learning in Primary Schools. Retrieved June 12, 2009 [] The Churchill Report (2002). The Impact of ICT on Schools: Classroom Design and Curriculum Delivery Retrieved April 17, 2009 from //www.tki.org.nz/r/ict/pedagogy/churchillreport.pdf//