A Changing Pedagogy: ICT and its Effect on the Teacher-Learner Relationship

Introduction- "The Digital Nation"

The Internet is fast becoming one of the largest and most important learning resources available to both teachers and students. Over the last decade this situation has been matched by an ongoing commitment by the Government to increase the use of ICT and Internet technologies in education and to ensure that everyone in the UK has access to them. Findings contained within the National Statistics Omnibus Survey reveal that over half (55 per cent, an increase from 2000 of almost 20 per cent) of all British households can access the Internet from home and a survey in 2002 detailed that over 90 per cent of children aged 11 to 18 years used the Internet for educational purposes alone [1].

These statistics are built upon a long history of manifesto promises by the Blair administration who, in 2001 for instance, asserted the importance of building a "digital nation" that could boast "the infrastructure of the future (that) includes fast, efficient and affordable communication - telecommunications, the internet and broadcasting. That requires the best competitive environment, effective regulation and continued public and private investment in the technologies of the future" (Labour Party Manifesto, 2001).

For the UK Government then, the faith in information and communication technologies transcends a mere acquiesence to nascent trends and rests instead in an ideological vision for the new millennium. There is the sense that ICT will not only feature in the future but that it will reflect and shape it. As Andrew L. Shapiro (1999) suggests, one of the main outcomes of this will concern the ownership of knowledge and the ways that it can be both disseminated and controlled:

"Dissidents around the world use the Internet to evade censorship and get their message out. Cyber-gossips send dispatches to thousands via email. Musicians bypass record companies and put their songs on the world wide web for fans to download directly…there is a common thread underlying such developments. It is not just a change in how we compute or communicate. Rather, it is a potentially radical shift in who is in control -- of information, experience, and resources" (Shapiro, 1999: xi).

With this in mind, this essay will attempt to look at the ways that ICT and its resultant effect on the systems of knowledge dissemination have and will change the face of education and pedagogical theory. For exegetical clarity I have divided this up into three main areas: the ways in which ICT has affected teaching, the ways that it has affected the process of learning vis-à-vis knowledge finding, and the ways that it has affected the sanctity of the school as a specialized seat of learning.

Each of these areas, I think, typifies the extent that information and communication technologies have both highlighted and influenced contemporary notions of education's place within society. This, in turn, says a great deal about the ways that we organize our knowledge bases and our relationship to power brokers like governments, educational establishments, and the law.

ICT and the ways that we teach

The use of ICT in education can be seen to reflect a shifting pedagogical paradigm that has its roots in the educational theory of John Dewey and Paulo Freire. For both Dewey and Freire, education, and commensurate with this the role of the teacher, is concerned not with the dissemination of knowledge or with preparing students for a world of work, but in imbuing them with the skills that they need to become rounded individuals and better human beings. As Peter Roberts suggests in Education, Literacy and Humanization: Exploring the Work of Paulo Freire (2000):

"Drawing on his experiences with rural peasant communities and the urban poor in Brazil and Chile, Freire theorized an intimate connection between education and the process of becoming more fully human. For Freire, education is humanizing when it is critical, dialogical, and praxical" (Roberts, 2000: 1).

Under these tenets the teacher becomes not so much a holder or facilitator of knowledge as a point of guidance that lends to the student the skills and the confidence to conduct their own learning processes and educational experiences. The shift in educational focus, from a pedagogy that onuses the role of the school and the teacher as shaping a future worker to one that sees it as shaping a future human mind, as Antonia Darder (2002) suggests, has slowly infiltrated the mainstream public consciousness and has caused a paradigmatic shift in the way we actually teach and organize our classrooms.

In his book Teaching and Learning Materials and the Internet (1996), Ian Forsyth points out that this ideological paradigm shift has been matched by a rise in the use of computers and the Internet as teaching devices and, in fact, the one upholds and allows the facilitation of the other:

"This shift means that the process of education which could be described as teachers telling is (or must) change to process of teachers facilitating access to information for the learner. This shift places a greater emphasis on the learner, who is expected to take control of their learning" (Forsyth, 1996: 16).

As Forsyth suggests, the image of the platonic teacher who is sole possessor of knowledge is broken down, not only by liberal humanist theory but also by access to the vast store of conflicting and exhaustive information that is the Internet[2]

Recently there have been many studies and articles devoted to debunking the somewhat utopian vision of the early advocates of ICT in education. In his article for the Education Journal (2001), Neil Maroki points out one of the main problems with the Internet as a learning tool:

"In most cases, the student does not use the Internet to find out about academic subjects, rather he uses the Internet for other purposes, like playing games or listening to music or chatting with others. For this reason, the purpose of the Internet is diverted to serve other purposes unrelated to education…Even when the student is looking for the relevant information, the Internet tempts him to keep looking for more information or to go to other websites. This can, by itself, be a big waste of time since one can spend whole hours without realizing it. Here lies one of the drawbacks of the Internet" (Maroki, 2001: 1).

The argument here is obvious - the Internet is not an hierarchically determined or authenticated store of knowledge like a library or a museum; it is very often based around a peer to peer system[3]

We can see how this reflects both elements of our shifting pedagogical paradigm: the liberal humanist creed of education as a way of becoming human and the use of ICT to encourage autonomous, individual learners.

ICT and the ways that we learn

Of course, information and communication technologies do not only affect the ways that we teach. In this section I will assert that ICTs have affected the very ways that students look for and use information. The Internet has not only affected the way that we store things like books and journals, but it has come to alter the way that students access them, search through them and, eventually, absorb or reject them.

In an illuminating essay on the processes of Internet searching, Gary Marchionini and Ben Shneidermann (1990) examine the relative mental structures of "finding facts" and "browsing knowledge". They assert that the methods of using the Internet as an educational research, i.e. as a repository of knowledge, is inextricably linked to the individual user:

"Users can be classified along three continua: frequency of use, complexity of application, and general range of computer experience. The position of users in a space defined by these dimensions determines how quickly and accurately they will develop a mental model for a system, and how effectively they can apply it" (Marchionini and Shneidermann, 1990: 253).

According to the authors, each user creates mental models of knowledge acquisition that includes searching strategies, discrimination criteria and "control mechanism(s) for relating these internal representations to one another and to external entities"(Marchionini and Shneidermann, 1990: 253). Searching the Internet for information, then, is a markedly different learning experience to either classroom didacticism or searching through a book where, by and large, the models would be inherent in the medium.

The prevalence of online books and journals, also, has affected the way that we access literature or a piece of research. Where once the student would have to not only search a library for a relevant text but then the text itself (albeit with the aid of an index) for a specific reference, now the relevant part of a work can be accessed immediately, removing the need for complicated textual scanning. In this way, as Marchionini and Shneidermann (1990) suggest, the mental models demanded by Internet technologies have altered the very ways that we interact with information itself.

Diana Laurillard has deemed this process the "emancipation of students" (Laurillard, 1990: 64)[4]

"the pure didactic model of teaching and learning allows the student no control over learning strategy, nor content manipulation, nor description of the domain; these are teacher's responsibility…Students are…likely to be better than teachers at directing their learning. Therefore we should be harnessing the power of the computer…" (Laurillard, 1990: 64).

Both Laurillard and Marchionini and Shneidermann suggest that the mental processes inherent in hard-copy or textual research are remarkably different from those that are used and engendered by Internet and computer-based research. The very action of searching an Internet site is different, of course, from leafing through a book; the latter is bound by the confines of physicality, if a footnote or external reference needs to be followed this may take time or be completely impossible. However, through hypertext, the Internet user is allowed to browse indefinitely, changing the way we view knowledge and, more importantly, the borders of that knowledge, irrevocably. As I suggested in the introduction, not only do ICTs enable us to work in different ways, they also change these ways, proactively altering the models whereby the student alters, discriminates and selects information.

ICT and the ways we view the future of the school

One of the commonest reactions of educators to the Internet and ICTs in education is the fear that they will threaten the sanctity of that school; that, somehow, the removal of the hierarchial gate-keeping function of the teacher will render the system of education redundant and the school an institution of the past.

The prevalence of home computers and Internet connections suggest that the home could replace the school as the place of learning. However, as Hakim, Ryan and Stull (2000) state, this fear misses the essential point of both the Internet as a learning resource and the school's place in (or around) it:

"With new information technology, education is fast becoming free of time and space. But every learner still needs to be connected to a scaffold of support for lifelong learning achievement...students need parents, friends, and supervisors who are also teachers and coaches. The primary function of the school-to-work movement is to mobilize understanding and support so that students will acquire the skills, habits, values, and understandings essential to productivity in all the roles of life" (Hakim, Ryan and Stull, 2000: 263).

Under these tenets, the school, like the teacher, becomes a facilitator of knowledge and (at least until the remaining 45 per cent of homes have Internet connections) is also the place where knowledge can be accessed. This signals a change in the ways that we view the school but does not, by any means, suggest its demise.

The secondary school has its roots, as Lane Cooper (1938) suggests, in the Macedonian age "soon after the time of Plato" (Cooper, 1938: Lii), and they have changed very little since. Despite huge social and psychosocial shifts around them, the image of a school as a place of learning, inhabited by the polarity of teacher and pupil, is as enduring as the desire for education itself. With new technologies like the Internet, and cheaper and faster computers however, the role is school looks set to change.

Ian Forsyth (1996) suggests that much of the failure of schools to embrace the full implications of ICTs is based in self preservation and fear:

"This new paradigm places learning with the learner. It removes the need for gatekeepers or to time-serve or conform to structures of knowledge built on premises that could be out of date. It has been argued that teachers' failure to use technology is caused by lack of training and funding shortfalls. However, the real failure of teachers to embrace technology is that technology threatens the primacy of the teacher as a source of knowledge" (Forsyth, 1996: 17).

Whereas this view may not be as true now as when it was written in 1996, it is still vital that we are aware of these issues when designing or creating a pedagogy that either deals with or utilizes ICTs. The school still has a vital place in the facilitation of knowledge but, as Forsyth suggests, shaped by a new educational paradigm, this may have a different form with different goals and different outcomes.

Conclusion - Postmodern pedagogy

We have looked at just some of the ways in which ICT is used in education and, through this, shapes it. A vital point arising from this paper is that information and communications technology in the pedagogical system is merely one facet of a larger paradigmatic shift that, perhaps as we have seen, began in the 1960s and 1970s with the progressive theories Paulo Freire and continued into the new millennium.

The erosion of the boundary between teacher and learner, between the school and the home, is a reflection of the erosion of boundaries commensurate with postmodernity that has been felt in virtually every social science, from sociology to politics, from economics to history.

Another point that rises out of this paper is the extent that ICT not only signals a change but proactively changes the way we organize and think about information. Great works of art, literature, philosophy and even pedagogy are available now free, for the most part, and easily accessible online. This alone alters our perception concerning the exclusivity of knowledge, once the possession of a privileged few, now available to everyone.

The role of the teacher, as we have seen, is increasingly concerned with imbuing the student with the skills to determine what information is suitable and what mental models to use when searching for it. Ultimately, of course, the freedom and emancipation, to use Laurillard's phrase, offered by ICT has certain responsibilities and caveats attached. As the Labour Government's manifesto of 2001 infers, the education system's attitude regarding ICT must be, perhaps, not one of a reluctant acquiesence towards change, but an imperative to change brought about by shifts in the surrounding society. As the Internet becomes more and more important in the home it needs to reflect this in the classroom.

[1]Source: National Statistics.

[2]See also Conroy et al.'s study Network Science, A Decade Later: The Internet and Classroom Learning (2000) that details, amongst other things, the relationship between the Internet and "inquiry-based learning" "Through continuing profession development, including coaching, co-planning and co-teaching with the school's educational technologist and increasingly with one another, the teachers in Debra's school are beginning to realise the promise of educational technology - to provide crucial support for deepening inquiry-based teaching and learning" (Conroy et al., 2000: 140).

[3]Forsyth (1996) points out that, in its original inception, the Internet was designed with exactly this sort of peer to peer exchange in mind, only attached to military and academic institutions.

[4]Although in her essay Computers and the "Emancipation of Students: Giving Control to the Learner" (1990: 64-80), Laurillard deals ostensibly with teaching software, many of her points are just as relevant to the use of the Internet as a learning resource.

References

Conroy, Brian, Coulter, Bob, Feldman, Alan, Hutchinson, Charles, Konold, Cliff and London, Nancy (2000), Network Science, A Decade Later: The Internet and Classroom Learning (London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates)

Cooper, Lane (1938), Plato (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Darder, Antonia (2002), Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love (London: Westview)

Forsyth, Ian (1996), Teaching and Learning Materials and the Internet (London: Kogan Page)

Hakim, Simon, Ryan, Daniel and Stull, Judith (2000), Restructuring Education: Innovations and Evaluations of Alternative Systems (London: Praeger Publishers)

Jolliffe, Alan, Ritter, Jonathan and Stevens, David (2001), The Online Learning Handbook (London: Kogan Page)

Kennewell, Steve, Parkinson, John and Tanner, Howard (2003), Learning to Teach ICT in the Secondary School (London: Routledge)

Labour Party Manifesto 2001, available online at http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/2001/2001-labour-manifesto.shtml [accessed 29th October 2005]

Laurillard, Diana (1990), Computers and the Emancipation of Students: Giving Control to the Learner, published in Boyd Barrett, Oliver and Scanlon, Eileen (eds), Computers and Learning: A Reader (Milton Keynes: The Open University)

Marchionini, Gary and Shneidermann, Ben (1990), "Finding facts vs. Browsing Knowledge in Hypertext Systems", published in Boyd Barrett, Oliver and Scanlon, Eileen (eds), Computers and Learning: A Reader (Milton Keynes: The Open University)

Maroki, Neil (2001), "The Impact of the Internet on the Educational Systems in the New Millennium", published in Education, Vol. 122

Shapiro, Andrew (1999), The Control Revolution: How the Internet is Putting Individuals in Charge and Changing the World We Know (London: Public Affairs)

Roberts, Peter (2000), Education, Literacy and Humanisation: Exploring the World of Paulo Freire (London: Bergin and Garvey)

Websites

www.labour-party.org.uk

www.statistics.gov.uk

Further Reading

Byrne, Jenny and Sharp, Jane (2002), Using ICT in Primary Science Teaching (London: Learning Matters)

Loveless, Avril and Ellis, Viv (2001), ICT, Pedagogy and the Curriculum: Subject to Change (London: Routledge)

Wheeler, Steve (2005), Transforming Primary TCT (London: Learning Matters)