Digital Detox

School holidays can provide us with a unique opportunity to take some much needed downtime. The fast pace of modern life can take its toll on all of us, both parents and children.

I read in the Sunday Age over the Labour Day weekend about a family who had recently undertaken a ‘screen detox’, attempting to live for a week without mobile phone, computer or games console. While the family certainly admitted that the detox was not without its challenges, they all found they reengaged with each other in positive ways, and realised the experience brought them closer together as a family. 

Big tech companies in Silicon Valley routinely send their employees to wifi-free retreats where they are forced to disconnect from the internet and their work, and spend some time operating at a slower pace. Perhaps when they are in this lower gear they might have the inspiration to come up with something wonderful, like Sir Isaac Newton sitting under the apple tree in Lincolnshire contemplating gravity when he left London to escape the Plague, or Australian doctor Graham Clark as he sat on a beach on holiday examining a shell when he had the inspiration to develop the cochlear implant.

Why not join me in undertaking a digital detox for a week in the holidays?  And if inspiration doesn’t strike you while you take some downtime, perhaps you will just enjoy the extra time spent with loved ones.

The Flipped Classroom

In this video lecture I explore the benefits of the flipped classroom approach.

How design thinking can empower young people

 

My initial thought on watching this video was that there was no wonder that these kids seemed engaged and empowered by this process. They were, after all, disadvantaged children from a family homeless shelter, who probably don’t have many opportunities in life to feel involved or engaged in shaping their future. Yet here they had the opportunity to work with talented young designers, who were going to invest in improving the fabric of the shelter. All children like to feel that they are important, and here the team were going to listen to them and implement one of their suggestions.

However during the video it became clear that there was something else going on. They were learning skills that may not be taught in everyday classrooms; skills about how to make important decisions, after weighing up all the options rationally. They practised how to work collaboratively and listen to each other, and how to persuade others. They worked creatively, actively seeking solutions to a real problem. These are important skills for life, as the video points out.

How can we include more of these themes into our classrooms? Can we use technology to engage pupils in solving problems? In working collaboratively? In making presentations? In taking pride in their work, and incorporating good design skills? I hope so. 

Why use technology in the classroom?

I was looking around a school recently that has invested a great deal of money into new technology. Our excellent pupil guide was quick to point out all the computers around the place; PCs popped up from desks in the design-technology suite, and Apple Macs connected to musical keyboards lined the room in the music teaching room. At the end of the tour, another parent commented to me about the number of computers on show, but it seemed she was less than impressed. She added “but when do they learn how to write with a pen?”

A sixth form pupil examines the wavelengths of light passed by a plastic gel filter using a spectrometer.

Technology pervades all that we do. Computers are everywhere; there are very few jobs remaining where computer literacy has no importance or relevance. The business of education is, or should be about, preparing pupils for the next stage of their life, so that they are well placed to step into the world with confidence. This should be, on its own, a compelling enough reason to embrace technology in schools; teachers should be allowing pupils to work in the same way that they are going to work in the outside world. Powerful though this argument is, there is, for me, a much more powerful reason to embrace technology in education.

“Powerful though this argument is, there is, for me, a much more powerful reason to embrace technology in education.”

When teachers plan a lesson, they should start with the lesson’s objectives; what is it that they want pupils to be able to do by the end of the lesson that they couldn’t already do at the beginning? Computers are tools like any other; if their use enhances the educational objectives for a lesson, then that provides a compelling reason for their use; if it doesn’t enhance it, then don’t use them. I recently heard of a class in an iPad school where pupils were having discussions about a topic over a ‘facetime’ video call. But the pupils were not holding discussions with pupils in a partner school somewhere across the globe; in fact they were calling other pupils in the same classroom sitting on the other side of the room. This doesn’t offer any enhancements to the objectives for the lesson, it only acts as a distraction from the real business of holding a discussion. (In actual fact, you could go further and argue that it is actually damaging to the pupils). Contrast that lesson to another where pupils were recording each other using iPods as they held a conversation in French that might take place in a shop. The teacher observed that because they were recording the exchanges, the pupils took more time ensuring the grammar was accurate and were not satisfied unless their accents were as clear as they could be. As the objectives for the lesson were for pupils to practise their use of a specific set of vocabulary in context, and to develop their accents, the technology ended up enhancing the lesson dramatically.

In most mobile or tablet device trials in schools, it’s video or audio production that seems to get the most use. This style of working seems to enhance work in all subjects; it can encourage pupils to take pride in their work; it can encourage pupils to use key technical vocabulary accurately in context; it can encourage pupils to work collaboratively, and with a real sense of purpose, avoiding distractions, and it can encourage pupils to work creatively. There is plenty of software that offers advantages that can be tailored to an individual subject (as aptly illustrated by the photograph). However, generic tools such as video editing can have a very profoundly positive effect in a whole range of lessons. I urge you to give it a try.