Running Future Workshops to Improve and Enhance Education Practice

This paper presents a theoretical and practical framework for Informatics research in the area of education. The context for this research is Sweden where schools often have an advanced infrastructure of computers and networks but the use, by teachers, of the technology, is very limited. The reason for this is two highly interrelated issues, first, teachers do not know what to do with the technology, second, many of the teachers are sceptic to the technology as well as conservative and reluctant to change their current practice. This paper presents an alternative where both these issues are governed. 1. Motivation A new society is emerging and there are many notions of what this society is: post-industrial society, information society, learning society, digital society, etc. However, despite different notions, proponents agree that computing technology (CT) is an important part in this new society. The importance of CT is of course recognized in the education system. Community leaders, school boards, legislators, parents, etc., proclaim the value of this technology. Therefore, a large number of schools have an advanced infrastructure of computers and networks due to a ‘push’. By this, schools ensure that students are exposed to computing technology as it will be a major part of their future lives. However, in this push, most teachers had no chance to assimilate and explore the technology on their own terms, and as a result of this, combined with a conservative attitude, their use of CT is very limited and this is a problem. This paper discuss three issues related to this problem. First, adapting CT as a natural element in their work involves considerable change to most teachers. Second, the use of CT in schools, by teachers, must be more innovative and creative than currently. Third, institutions training teachers will benefit from an arena where educational aspects of CT is explored and discussed before they enter their profession. Nuldén, U. (1997). Running future workshops to enhance and improve education. Presented at the Eight International Conference on the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, Orlando, USA, AACE. In this paper, an Informatics perspective is put forward. The practical departure to the three specific issues are through future workshops (FW). This is a technique for approaching a problematic situation, generating visions about the future, and discussing how the visions can be implemented. FW is a means to utilize the power and competence that appear when people experience that they have common interests, needs and problems. Groups of teachers, or education students, are here guided by a facilitator who ensures active and equal participation, and makes the participants aware of current CT trends and development. Users possess the practical understanding necessary as the basis for the design, but to support their technical imagination they must gain insight into new technological possibilities as well (Ehn, 1988). 2. Education System in Change From one perspective, we can see that the education system is opening up and the borders of the past are slowly dissolving. And in line with this, the main tendency on all levels of the education system is to question the disciplinary borders, e.g., thematic approaches, where real life situations and problems are taken as a point of departure is strongly emerging as an alternative to a subject focus. However, mature organizational cultures, such as the education system, experience change, or the challenge to change, most significantly as a disruption, an intrusion, or as a failure of organizational defense. We can see that the form of schools and education has remained fairly unchanged over hundreds of years, and so has the technology used in teaching, despite both pedagogical and technological influence. Summarizing the critique of the current education system is that the underlying mission of education can not remain the inculcation of knowledge and skills, values and behavior, not the transmission of information and authority. From another perspective, enthusiasts in the education system bring forward new ideas about pedagogy and technology. However, it is obvious that teachers and other school staff, as individuals, are well adapted to a particular niche and it is understandable that their first response to attempts at innovation would be one of resistance. The norms of ‘the teacher culture’ are profoundly conservative and teachers’ resistance to change plays an important role in shaping their response to both pedagogical and technological innovation. We can also see that the more innovative the suggestions for change, the grater the critique, and hence its threat to existing principles, that is, the underlying ideas and insights. For years educators have tried to come up with ways to reform the system, yet many people have reached a point where the enormity of the task result in abandonment of the ideas. Over time the idealism and enthusiasm of the novice teacher will fade away. Today the culture of the educational system and its technology is challenged. CT is here the main vehicle for implementing change and may help bring about some important reforms (Barker and Dickson, 1996). The ability to change is embedded in the culture of the organization. Historically, technology that reinforces existing lines of power and information have been adopted but this assures at the same time that the traditional approaches to teaching will be cemented. The convergence of computing and communication technologies and the pervasiveness of computer networks—the Internet in particular—have strong potential for transforming education. 2.1 Struggling With Technology Computing technology can be used to enhance existing traditional methods. This is what we do in most cases today. This means that no changes, at least no major changes, are made to the content and form of teaching. CT is used just as another technology for fact or information transfer. If we continue to re-implement conventional models borrowed from classroom based education focusing on passive transmission, we can expect only marginal improvement of the quality in our teaching. Just providing schools with an infrastructure, that is computers and networks, will not have the desired effect. This push action may actually result in a continuation of the technology rejection. Teachers will begin the process of ‘pull’ when they know for what and how to use the technology. Today most educators have no idea where to begin and what to do with this technology. One reason for this is that “most technology instruction in Colleges of Education involves teaching about technology as a separate subject, not teaching with technology by integrating it into other course work to provide a model for instructional use” (From the U.S. Office of Technological Assessment, in (Wetzel and Chisholm, 1996)). ‘Outsiders’ have tried to introduce computing technology into high schools. After proclaiming its potential in the classroom, the teachers use CT only slightly, if at all. Even if CT artifacts are used, classroom practice remains fundamentally unchanged. As a matter of fact the last technologies that made a substantial influence on the general organization and practice of teaching were the textbook and the blackboard. Educators often work in isolation and could especially benefit from sharing with other professionals. If teachers do not have the commitment to apply CT in their work, it is not going to happen. Instead of educators isolating the learning process within the confines of their own classroom and the particular school, they should forge links to the outside community to find ways of refining and sharing their knowledge with others. A large number of teachers are confronted with new pedagogical principles as well as new technology. It is not easy to switch to a different mode of teaching and learning for those with years of experience of a traditional teaching. For them the view of the authority or the professional who is the ultimate source of all knowledge is threatened. Teacher education has been out for long standing critique as most education of teachers, in CT use, focus on using software products, not the technology itself. Far to many training sessions emphasize computer hands-on, instead of discussing computing technology in a wider context. The ignorance of the technology comes apparent in cites like, “computers are a good thing, but there are not programs available. ” The teachers do not know enough to utilize the possibilities with the technology. Most teachers graduate from teacher preparation institutions with limited knowledge of the ways of the ways technology can be used in their professional practice. However, there is work going on to integrate CT and its possibilities. These institutions has only recently discovered the pedagogical usefulness and advantage of the technology. 3. An Informatic Perspective The major theoretical foundation as well as the practical guidelines in this paper originate from informatics. Informatics is the “design oriented study of information technology use with the intention to contribute to the development of both the use and the technology itself” (Dahlbom, 1996, p. 88). New use domains, in all fields, are constantly made possible by advances in computing and the central interest of informatics is to intervene and contribute to the process rather than just observe and describe it. Computing technology changes people’s work and our interest is to augment their skills by the technology rather than replace them with the same (Ehn, 1988). Informatics’ critique of traditional computing research is that it often is an “anthropology of the past” rather than an experimental “archeology of the future” which is our interest (Dahlbom, 1995). 3.1 Work Oriented Design A central principle in informatics is that design of computing artifacts and design of its use sh