Technology Reshaping Teaching

Not so long ago, the back to school season was marked by a dash to Woolworths for exercise books and colouring pencils. Today it’s not just the shop that’s gone; books and pencils are joined by Chromebook laptops and tablet computers as educational essentials.
The children now entering school are fully fledged digital natives. Recent research by Ofcom found that six-year-olds have the same understanding of communications technology as 45-year-olds, and a ‘millennium generation’ of 14- and 15-year-olds are the most tech-savvy in the UK.
Over four in 10 households now have a tablet, meaning that children are becoming computer-literate before they’ve even started primary school - and we’ve all heard about the techno-babies who can handle an iPad before they have learnt how to tie their own shoelaces.
It is unsurprising, therefore, that technology is playing an increasingly central role in the classroom - not just in ICT lessons, where children will start learning to write code from the age of five this year, but in English, Maths and Science lessons as well.
I recently took part in an interactive experiment run by Argos and Intel, which involved sitting through two English lessons - one the old fashioned way without any kind of technology, and the second with all the latest gadgets at my disposal.

The first involved reading a scene from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, listening to the teacher talk through the themes and then writing my own analysis with pen and paper. The second involved watching a series of video clips depicting differing interpretations of the balcony scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, using the internet to research the themes, and then typing my own interpretation on a laptop.
While the first lesson required intense and sustained concentration, the second was undeniably more compelling. I’m not sure I learnt any more about Romeo and Juliet than I did about Macbeth, but at no point during the second lesson did I find my mind wandering, which is half the battle teachers fight every day.