Expert says education should shift focus to new technology

SCHOOLS should move way from a focus on basic skill acquisition and standardised testing and embrace new technologies, a leading educational expert says.

TEACHERS should stop focusing on standardised testing and become more tech-savvy, a leading educational expert says.

Flinders University Professor of Early Childhood Studies Nicola Yelland wants schools to move away from a focus on basic skill acquisition and embrace new technologies.

She said teachers see “governments and the public obsessed with national tests results which focus on print literacy” while young children in their homes are fluent in both digital and print technologies.

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“This is problematic as we strive to educate children to be active citizens in the 21st century for a wold of ‘work’ that is continually evolving and changing,” Professor Yelland said.

She studied the school-based learning of 459 children aged two to 12 over four years and found their experiences were enhanced when both digital media and traditional methods of teaching were used.

“Teachers should be encouraged and supported to incorporate the use of tablets and a range of apps in learning options,” Professor Yelland said.

Evia, Claudia and Tiger use their tablets to research school projects, as well as for reading and maths apps. Picture: Nicole Cleary

She found apps such as iWrite Words, Alpha Tots and Monkey Lunch Box helped younger children learn their alphabet, explore sounds and write letters and numbers, together with activities in their everyday lives with real objects. Other apps like Book Creator and Sock Puppets enabled them to create their own stories and document their learning or create plays.

Her study found children from low-income areas, who tend to perform less well in standardised tests, don’t have as much chance to explore more diverse learning methods.

In some cases, tablets are available but teachers don’t know how to use them properly.

“We need to reconceptualise more progressive thinking towards early childhood pedagogies in literacy,” Professor Yelland said.

“What is different about learning in the 21st century is not that it is digital but that it is multimodal. We have a large range of materials and everyday experiences to help children learn in new and dynamic ways, and we need to use them all.”

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