Me mates at education.au have released a report on Educators and ICT usage and one of the most interesting things it points to are the barriers that educators report to thier teaching and learning with online technology (p. 33). Here are the main hindrances they’ve identified, plus my reasons for why all of these, excepting the final barrier, should not be barriers at all:
- 41%: Poor infrastructure, bandwidth, equipment reliablity, accessiblity of logins, permissions. Discounting the bandwith issue, the ‘poor infrastructure’ barrier can be largely blamed on unwieldy and user-unfriendly Learning Management Systems (BlackBoard, MyClasses, WebCT …) that school and some university administrations insist teachers use. Logins, permissions, reliablity, blah blah blah, aren’t an issue with most online applications that can be turned to an educational use.
- 40%: Blocking/filtering of internet content. See above, with an especial emphasis on ‘administration’ — namely, the reluctance and/or unimaginativeness on the part of ‘admin’ to come up with policies and guidelines that manage risk.
- 21%: Limited access to computers or internet connection. Will Ruddy’s digital education revolution sort this one out? There’s no excuse for its not doing so.
- 20%: Limited confidence or expertise in the use of compter technologies. See above and above and above. Teachers need PD in this stuff and it needs to be paid for, but, really, the main reason they’re spooked is that they’ve only ever had experience with dead-awful LMSs and they subsequently don’t know how easy the Web could be if only they were allowed to use it.
- 12%: Lack of relevant resources on on the internet. You could say that there’s not much you can do about this one … except why not create such resources yourself?
What a dire set of results! But as a South Aussie, and as someone who passionately believes in the value education, not firewalls, I’m pleased to say that South Australian educators were most likely to name blocking of internet content as a barrier to teaching and learning online, at a respectable 67%.
Come on, education leaders! Start being a bit creative and pro-active on these issues! Decide where your priorities need to be with online teaching and learning and develop policies to manage risk. Employ people who know this stuff from an educational point of view and who can teach the teachers and who can defreakify things for them. Get yourself educated on online technologies and their use in education. Students, parents and teachers are relying on you to be across the issues and to start finding solutions that will work in the ‘real world’ of the Web.
Tags: Education politics, Educational leadership, Learning online, LMSs, Opinion
