TE year2handbook/Year2 Unit1 Shift in perspective from existing curriculum

Shift in perspective from existing curriculum

We saw earlier in Year 1 that this course has adopted a new approach to ICT curriculum, focusing on the possibilities ICT provide for self learning and teaching learning. In year 1, this course had concerned itself with methods of self learning and through professional learning communities. In the second year, the focus will be on an use and evaluation of digital tools and methods for integration in subject learning and a critical appreciation of technology in society and education.

Traditionally, technology tools have been used in teaching learning to mirror existing methods and digitize content. This is certainly useful and a critical evaluation of such digital resources is essential. Often the digital resources tended to reinforce existing pedagogies.

In this course, an important shift is being sought to be made in the use of ICT in teaching learning. The course will demonstrate that ICT can alter what content is to be learned and how technology can create and alter the content knowledge in the teacher. Technology can also allow new pedagogies and teaching learning processes to emerge. The creation and use of digital resources will be governed by similar pedagogic principles as non-digital resources. The course will provide a point of departure from the existing thinking of technology as an add-on for a practising teacher. Instead it seeks to introduce ideas and resources that demonstrate how technological knowledge, pedagogical and content knowledge must intersect to create an effective, reflective teacher. For example, a digital story telling exercise can alter knowledge narratives and thus introduce new curricular resources or a video recording of a classroom process can allow an objective, non-critical, non-threatening method of teacher and class observation. Specific educational applications could allow for more pegs for learning and evaluation than was possible before. ICT could also allow for interdisciplinary learning and demonstrate pedagogic principles across subjects.

The second aspect that this course differs from traditional ICT courses is in the development of critical discourse around technology. ICT are altering society in ways that impact the way we live, we relate to one another, the work we do and of course, the way we learn. ICT are powerful in creating opportunities as well as exclusions. As practitioners of education, it is important that teachers (and teacher educators) must engage themselves with the larger issues of technology in society - in terms of accessible technology architecture and platforms, availability of digital tools that allow for equitable participation by all and ethical and privacy concerns around participating in an increasingly networked world.

Year 2 of the course consists of two units: ICT for subject specific resource creation and ICT in teaching learning, including critical appreciation of ICT in society