Technology, Pedagogy and Education, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2004

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EDITORIAL

Reshuffling the Pack of Cards?

AVRIL LOVELESS University of Brighton, United Kingdom

As we develop in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in education, are we witnessing transformations in learning and teaching or are we only dealing with a ‘reshuffling of the pack of cards’ (Goodson et al, 1998, p. 119)? The articles in this first issue of the 2004 volume address a range of studies, in schools and universities, which raise some thorny questions about how ICT might challenge the nature of the curriculum, learners’ achievement, professional knowledge and understandings of subject domains. They also remind us that we must not lose sight of the perceptions of learners and teachers using technologies pragmatically in their classroom settings, and the many factors which interact in bringing about, or resisting, changes in experience and practice.

In considering the impact of technology and pedagogy upon each other, Lee Shulman’s paper provides a useful model of professional knowledge. His paper published in 1987 in the Harvard Educational Review was an influential work in the development of the debate about pedagogy, which was presented in the context of ongoing discussions of professional reform in the description and specification of standards for teachers, and built upon field research with novice and expert teachers. His work stresses the importance of teaching as a learned profession with an identifiable knowledge base and a practice based upon comprehension and reasoning, transformation and reflection (Shulman, 1987). It outlines seven components of the professional knowledge base of teaching, discusses the sources of such teacher knowledge and emphasises the complexities of the pedagogical process.

He describes teachers’ practice as drawing upon a professional knowledge base built up from seven elements:

o knowledge of subject matter, or content knowledge;

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o pedagogical content knowledge, or the ways of representing subject knowledge appropriately for learners;

o knowledge of curriculum, or the grasp of the materials, resources and ‘tools of the trade’ available to the teacher;

o general pedagogical knowledge, or the broad understanding of management and organisation;

o knowledge of learners and their characteristics; o knowledge of educational contexts, ranging from groupings, classrooms,

schools, education authorities, national policies to wider communities and cultures;

o knowledge of educational aims, purposes and values.

These aspects of professional knowledge are drawn from a range of sources which, Shulman argues, form the basis of teaching as a ‘learned’ profession. Content knowledge is developed from the accumulated literature and studies within the scholarly community, which identifies and debates the structure of the subject matter, the principles of conceptual organisation and the principles of enquiry within a subject domain. Knowledge of learners and knowledge of educational aims and contexts are developed from both the canon and cultures of formal educational scholarship and the wisdom of practice. Pedagogical and curriculum knowledge are also developed through preparation, practice and reflection.

A key aspect of Shulman’s framework is the discussion of pedagogical content knowledge, which underpins a teacher’s ability with pedagogical reasoning and action. The transformation of knowledge takes place when teachers actively grasp, probe and comprehend ideas in order to shape and tailor them in representations which are appropriate for learners. It is this ‘representational repertoire’ that characterises teachers who have integrated the different components of their professional knowledge, from the deep knowledge of concepts within a subject domain to the understanding of classroom strategies that reflect both the needs of the learners and the context of educational initiatives. His work draws attention to the significance of subject knowledge and the complexity of pedagogical reasoning and offers a useful framework to help us describe and develop the interactions of the different aspects of our teaching practices, in the articles in this issue and in forthcoming volumes of the journal.

The first article, ‘Negotiating Contrad(ICT)ions: teachers and students making multimedia in the secondary school’, by Viv Ellis, working with Steve Long, frames the discussion of the contradictions between the potential transformations which might be brought about in the use of ICT, and current perceptions of subject and the curriculum framework in English schools. He argues that despite the policy and research arenas which attempt to address the implications of multimedia ICTs for our understandings of literacy and modes of communication, teachers are often

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confronted with distinct and contradictory routes to integrating ICTs in their teaching. Teachers in the arts – English, art, drama, music and media studies – worked in the research project with multimedia software in two schools. The study highlights three ‘contrad(ICT)ions’ raised in the practices mediated by the multimedia applications: the literacy practices of school and popular culture are differently motivated and realised; the discrete ‘monomodal’ nature of the organisation of subjects in secondary schools does not lend itself to opportunities for integrated multimodal work; and understandings of the curriculum are more likely to be ‘fixed’ within boundaries rather than evolving in response to lived experience. The study notes the beginnings of transformations at the margins of school activity which are in contradiction to the dominant discourses of subjects in schools at present, and raises questions about how ‘schoolwork’ can be enriched by pupils’ creative and imaginative work with digital technologies outside schools.

Michael Hammond’s article, ‘The Peculiarities of Teaching Information and Communication Technology as a Subject: a study of trainee and new ICT teachers in secondary schools’, draws attention to understandings of the ‘subject knowledge’ of ICT as a specialist subject – a topic of debate over a number of years in many countries. Our understanding and construction of ICT will have an impact on the ways in which we develop our pedagogy with the technologies. It will also affect the ways in which pupils’ access to practical and conceptual experiences is organised and managed in schools and colleges. The focus of the article is on the author’s work with students and teachers who teach ICT as a discrete subject in English secondary schools. They present a pragmatic, balanced approach to teaching ICT which avoids some of the common critiques of the use of ICT in school. The study draws attention to the nature of teachers’ curriculum and subject knowledge at the edge of the changing field of ICT as a subject.

The following article by Ling Shi, Ken Reeder, Tammy Slater and Carolyn Kristjansson, ‘Tensions in Learning Content and Technology: the experience of education students in a web-based research project’, focuses on learning subject content ‘through’ ICT. Their work also addresses issues of subject knowledge, focusing on constructivism-based experiences in the integration of technology with learning content in the field of applied linguistics and a knowledge base about language in a Canadian university. Although participants in the project expressed appreciation of the experience of developing web-based resources to support their own learning, there were tensions between learning to use the technology and learning the content. The study raises questions about how the construction of hypertext allows learners to construct and communicate their knowledge in new or insightful ways, and how the affordances of the WWW might help to transform knowledge.

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Kara Dawson’s study of the integration of technology in a US elementary school, ‘Conditions, Processes and Consequences of Technology Use: a case study’, presents a discussion of the factors influencing situations where transformations don’t happen as expected. She uses the influential paper by Becker & Ravitz (1999) to highlight the tension in the relationship between constructivist approaches, transformation and technology. How might teachers’ use of technology change instructional philosophy and practice? Her work offers three challenging assertions about the technology in the curriculum, contextual factors and whether learning is transformed. Although the teachers in the case study were inclined to teach in a constructivist manner, their images of technology were not compatible with constructivist pedagogy. Dawson therefore calls for convergence between images of technology and pedagogical beliefs as a feature of transformation.

Clare Brett’s study in another Canadian university reminds us that participation in distance education contexts is not always a positive, community-supported learning opportunity for everyone. ‘Off-line Factors Contributing to Online Engagement’ explores some of the factors that contribute to patterns of engagement in online experiences, focusing on pre-service teachers who are ‘math anxious’ and participating in an online environment to engage in group discussion of maths education problems. It highlights a range of factors involved: some related to the technology, such as access and familiarity; some related to the students’ beliefs and attitudes towards themselves as learners in this context; and some relating to the previous success of face-to-face group experiences. A pattern that seems to emerge over a two-year period is that successful participation in the online community was also related to confidence and determination in the wider sphere. The work raises questions about the nature of the scaffolding required by different individuals taking part in online discussions and course experiences, reminding us of the complexities of human interaction and pedagogy.

The final article by David Zandvliet in Canada and Barry Fraser in Australia, ‘Learning Environments in Information and Communications Technology Classrooms’, gives us a detailed account of approaches to investigating and describing the physical and psychosocial aspects of learning environments. It raises important issues of classroom design and calls for a closer integration of design, management and teaching strategies to express the approaches to ‘transformations’ in curriculum and pedagogy.

Ben Williamson reviews James Paul Gee’s book What Video Games have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. It offers a discussion of the ‘critical learning’ that goes on when groups of players engage with multimodal games and considers the ‘distributed smartness’ of knowledge existing in the interconnection of networks. Gee claims that games can be

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extremely successful learning mechanisms and give insight into young people’s complex motivations in playing video games.

The range of articles in this issue present a critical discussion of many problematic areas in the development of pedagogy and technology. They not only represent the scope of studies in the field, but also help us to engage with the research questions which still need to be asked about the nature of professional knowledge, changing curriculum and the transformation of learning experiences and environments.

Avril Loveless School of Education, University of Brighton,

Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, United Kingdom (aml@brighton.ac.uk)

References

Becker, H.J. & Ravitz, J. (1999) The Influence of Computer and Internet Use on Teachers’ Pedagogical Practices and Perceptions, Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 31, pp. 356-385.

Goodson, I. with Anstead, C.J. & Mangan, J.M. (1998) Subject Knowledge: readings for the study of school subjects. London: Falmer Press.

Shulman, L.S. (1987) Knowledge and Teaching: foundations of the new reform, Harvard Educational Review, 57, pp. 1-22.

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