Hello,
A very interesting debate. It basically comes down to the fact that schools are judged (rightly or wrongly) on the standards they achieve in a certain set of outcomes, i.e., tests. It would be lovely to allow children to simply go off and learn whatever intereseted them but unfortunately they may end up with very disparate and "useless" knowledge, not to mention underdeveloped skills in terms of accessing and filtering information. One part of my day to day role is working with a primary school who have a Smartphone (no voice, just unlimited data contract), using windows mobile, in the hands of every Y5 child (about 70 of them). The children are very adept at using the devices to research info, collate information in various applications, etc. All the sorts of things that learners have and should ahve been expected to do in classrooms for years with perhaps books and pens and paper. The devices make that much more personal, and effective in terms of being able to access stuff anywhere and edit their ideas as they evolve. The VLE that they use is seen by them as essential, their words, not mine. They use it to store their work (so as not to overload the device) access info that they know the teacher expects them to know about and use blogs, forums etc to share information with the other children. 90% of that use, communication, is used to discuss the relative merits of whether ice cream is better than chocolate, zac efron is better than someone Jonas (? lol) and what their favourite football team is. They wirte loads, often repetitive stuff, about exactly the same thing. They usually write in some form of text speak - which is interesting because there is not exactly a "standard textspeak" and many children complain that they can't undretsand some of what others have written. Maybe that is why standard english is perhaps a good thing. Certainly several children have told me that they will be writing in "proper" english more now as they see what a pain other forms are to read. Their point was that they were unsure of the audience and so went for the best fit type of writing.
When the teachers have put on key pieces of information, or assignments the children tell me that they think it is great because they know then what they have to do and can focus their attention on it. Comments include, "we don't have to trawl the web where there's all that rubbish" and "we know we are safe on the VLE because it is a secure site and the teachers know who the members are". Esafety is a huge worry for children and they tell me (I've had this from pretty much all the classes who share a page across our LA) that they like the VLE for it's safe element. The teachers have capitalised on this and used the safe microcosm to then teach them about the wider issues which Graham rightly mentions, such as esafety and effective use of the web.
It is also clear that given an open search, or even directed tasks and activities to do on a secure page, the vast majority of primary children do not have the abilities or inclination to look further than the explicit blog there are looking at or a forum. Children have constantly asked for help guides for example on using sommat like Windows Movie Maker. These have been made available in "plain" view for them, yet they ask the same question!!!
What is clear is that a VLE of whatever form is a wonderful starting point to teach the children about web responsibility, safety, use of etc whilst in a safe environment. By all means as children develop they will be able to use the web technologies in a more sophisticated way but certainly as a starting point the idea of children as "just able to use these things" as I once heard a man in braces tell me is nonsense. I have hours of taped interviews that are massive evidence of it but you can't see because of child protection LOL!!!
What we have found is that close liaison with parents is essential in all of this as what happens and is learnt at school can be reiforced or monitored at home. The local response from parents has been immense as many are unsure of what the technology can do and how vulnerable their children may be. The VLE has been incredibly warmly welcomed from that set of stakeholders.
Right off, to talk to 70 odd kids and their parents about what they use the web for and if they would like a secure site that only they could access and use to share work, access school stuff and collaborate on stuff without the rest of the world potentially seeing. I wonder what they'll say?
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Do you think that a 21st century skill for learners might be an ability to compare, filter and interpret information from sources such as the Internet? After all we teach children at a young age how to cross the road...
