I don't know whether it was just me and my indecisive brain but I'm pretty sure I changed the title/subject of my dissertation WAY too many times!
Should I focus it on art because I'm doing a 'fine art' degree? Should I base it around mental health and/or stereotypes within art because that's what I'm doing within my creative practice?
I couldn't find anything that I thought "Yeah! I could write 7000 words on that!"
Until it was suggested to me that I do my dissertation on education. Well for someone wanting to become a primary school teacher, it was a perfect idea! So now I was all set to start my dissertation, right? Wrong.
I had no idea what aspect of education I wanted to research. I started with the importance of colour within primary education then moved to the importance of art and crafts. I still didn't have a clue. My tutor at the time, then suggested looking into more unorthodox approaches of primary education (for example: Steiner Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio Emilia) compared to the National Curriculum.
I was hooked.
I wanted to know everything there was to know about my subjects.
I researched into every one of the approaches until I found myself being drawn to one more than the others and I knew from that, what I wanted to write about. Although I still didn't have a title. I don't think it was until I'd written the majority of my dissertation that I finally had a set question I was happy with:
'Does the lack of structure in a Steiner Waldorf school mean children have limited potential?'
The question above came about through a criticism of the Steiner Waldorf education system that I read to do with there being a 'lack of structure'. From everything I had read about Steiner education so far, I saw nothing but positivity and creativity. I was drawn into a whole new education system, one that I couldn't believe there would be such harsh critics. But I guess everything in life has their praises and criticisms, right?
Anyway, I wanted to write about one of the biggest arguments not only within the education sector but in this generation...
Is technology a help or a hinderance?
I wrote a huge section in my dissertation about the use of technology within children in primary education in regards to Steiner Waldorf education and the National Curriculum and I wanted to share this part of my essay with you... enjoy :)
In today’s age, technology is forever advancing and from a survey took from November-December 2015 and later released in 2016, it shows the percentage of technology used from 8-16-year-olds in the UK based on 32,569 respondents. The Key Stage Two (8-11 year olds) statistics show that 86.1% of children had access to a computer with 57.2% of those children owning their own computer. As well as 54.6% owning a mobile phone and a massive 40.6% of children having a social networking profile (Access to technology among young people in the UK in 2015, by Key Stage, 2019). From these figures, it is clear how much impact technology has on all ages of life and all aspects of life. Due to these statistics being so high, Steiner practitioners know that children will no doubt be using some form of technology in their home life so even though they discourage all aspects of technology, teachers will always answer questions helpfully and positively when children want to discuss something surrounding the topic of technological devices from their home life (Nicol and Taplin, 2012, p.141). Even though the teachers will not dismiss topic of technological conversation, ‘Steiner educators, and others, believe that if young children play with device whose inner workings are hidden from their perception such as a common electronic gadgetry, then their learning can focus on too much on the pleasure that derived from the feeling of power that using specialised tools can provide’ and that feeling power for the children can then enter and ‘interfere’ with the ‘healthy fantasy or physical understanding of how they interact with the world through a direct experience’ (Nicol and Taplin, 2012, p.141).
It is highly intriguing to think about technology and the development and advancement of technology over the years and exactly what effects they have on not only early-years education but all ages of people. Does using technology constantly from a very young age has detrimental effects of your ability to be resilient and not rely on technology to give you all the answers for everything? On one hand if you think about technology and how children will play a lot of games on their computers, tablets, mobile phone etc., then their potential is highly limited to the parameters of whatever game they are playing; there is no doubt that this is problematic. However, if you think about the other way around, ‘making’ is a fundamental skill to develop through your life and the people that go on to ‘make’ things in their life are people such as engineers to help to develop technology, which in-term, uses all of the skills of creativity and independency developed all the way from early-years education. Nicol and Taplin (2012) argue that the use of screen technology does not allow the child to integrate knowledge through their senses but actually reduced the sensory diversity and richness of human interaction’ (Nicol and Taplin, 2012, p.141). Is there a big different between ‘using’ technology and ‘making’ technology? Maybe ‘using’ technology has negative effects of a human but wouldn’t ‘making’ and ‘developing’ technology mean the imagination is in constant use and it is helping to develop not only the technology but develop the world further?
According to Grabe (2001), in a book named ‘integrating technology for meaningful learning’ cited by Nehme (2002) states that in the past, being ‘educated’ meant being able to demonstrate skills such as reading at a certain comprehension level, applying grammar and punctuation within written work, being able to confidently solve mathematical questions that involve addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as well as being able to state series of historical facts (p.14). However, the world and the technology within it is developing at such a demanding pace that Brumbaugh (1997) cited by Nehme (2002) believes that the world is changing too quickly to be able to define education in terms of specific information and skills but should focus more on ‘general capabilities that will help future citizens manage successfully with inevitable technological change’ (p.15). Supporting this, The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) (2002) cited by Nehme (2002) believes ‘to live, learn, and work successfully in an increasingly complex and information rich society, students must be able to use technology effectively’ (p.15). Technology has a huge role in today’s society, including within education and it is not surprising that educators want children to become familiar with software within their school years, to be able to prepare them for later life which will inevitably involve technology somewhere within it; however there is no degree of certainty about how much technology will evolve and what kinds of software and products will predominate in the workplace or at home in 20 years (Plowman and McPake, 2012, p.31).
The benefits of introducing technology into children’s lives is not restricted to helping them in later life but also helping them through their education. Nehme (2002) states that from research found about the positives of using software within education, the use of technology meets ‘all of the requirements for fulfilling the constructivist prescription for improving learning environments and refocusing the curriculum’ (p.51). Technological products are highly complex items to wrap your head around and can sometimes take quite a while getting used too. For children, going from playing with wooden blocks for example, to a complex product such as a computer, it could be a massive milestone to be able to make that transition. Like anything, there is going to be concerns about this. Whilst using technology could help children to think in different ways, Fetterman (1998) cited by Nehme (2002) highlights one major limitation of using computers within education: they are ‘only as good as the user enters or retrieves’ (p.77), which in turn, could confuse a child. Not only this, within a study carried out in a nursery, Yursrita (2018) found that some of the children had physical limitations when it came to using a computer such as hand and eye coordination when using the technology present (p.55).
It is completely unpredictable how children will react with the technology and whether they will be able to understand it. Inevitably, not every child will learn at the same pace as another and some may struggle where as some may excel. According to Girard and Johnson (2009) cited by Yursrita (2018), ‘there is a lack of effective methods to help children to express their emotions in using products of various kinds, particularly software products’ (p.22). Although this could become a major setback for helping children to engage with technology, there has been tools that have been developed to aid development of understanding. A tool originally developed by Read (2008) called the Fun Toolkit, is a survey method to obtain children’s opinions on technology and to measure ‘fun’ with children ages 5 and 10. The intention of the Fun Toolkit is to ‘record a child’s opinion of the technology or activity, to gain a measure of the child’s engagement’ (p.38); this could help educators to heighten the engagement levels of children within their lessons. Using technology within the classroom can not only help the student but can help the teacher to transform the learning environment, combining traditional learning with the opportunities that technology holds (Nehme, 2002, p.135). Giving students the opportunity to engage with technology within the classroom ‘facilitates them in explorations that can invigorate in-depth analytical thinking, inspire creativity, stimulate curiosity and develop skills of innovation’ (Nehme, 2002, p.137). Palmer (2007) cited by Savage (2011) is highly against the use of technology for children, much like Steiner practitioners as it has been highlighted that children’s brains are ‘becoming damaged’ and goes on to claim that screen-based media are linked to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), dyslexia and autism (p.12).
There is a clear difference between the position of opinion about technology in the classroom with a Steiner setting compared to a Nation Curriculum setting. With the National Curriculum, updated and published in 2019, there is actually a section in which lays out the learning outcomes for ‘Information Technology’ within Key Stage One, which states: children have to ‘understand what algorithms are’, ‘create and debug simple programs’, ‘use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs’ and use technology for a range of different reasons including to create, to organise, to store, to manipulate, to retrieve digital content and to be safe and respectful (Department for Education, 2013). Simon et al. (2013) cited by Miller (2018) states that ‘to advance interactive technology in early years classrooms, it is important to recognise that teachers need professional development on the appropriate use of technology in the classroom’ (p.2). This is a very interesting point to make as it makes you think about how much time it takes to prepare teachers so that they feel comfortable using the technology to teach the children and whether there are any beneficiaries to bringing in Information Technology at such a young age. According to Nabi (2013), another similar problem with introducing technology into a classroom is that ‘pedagogy must adapt to the specifications of educational apps’ that may employ less traditional methods than the practitioners would use to ensure the engagement of the children and their learning experience. Although based on a study, within Miller’s Developing numeracy skills using interactive technology in a play-based learning environment, it was found that the introduction of technology in early learning ‘did not appear to hinder learning’ (p.3), there has been no evidence to suggest an increase in engagement or level of achievement and using technology so frequently, meant that there was a necessity to maintain the technology and the program and systems within each one that allows the devices ‘full functionality’ (Nabi, 2013).
References:
1. Department for Education. (2013) Computing programmes of study: key stages 1 and 2 [Internet]. Available from https://www.computingatschool.org.uk/data/uploads/primary_national_curriculum_-_computing.pdf [Accessed 16th January 2020].
2. Miller, T. (2018) Developing numeracy skills using interactive technology in a play-based learning environment. International Journal of STEM Education, 5(39), pp. 1-11.
3. Nabi, S. (2013) iPads – 4 challenges and 4 rewards schools need to know [Internet]. Available from https://www.educationdive.com/news/ipads4-challenges-and-4-rewards-schools-need-to-know/142945/ [Accessed 22nd January 2020].
4. Nehme, S. (2002) Information technology as a tool for teaching primary mathematics. Ed.D thesis, University of Leicester.
5. Nicol, J. and Taplin, J.T. (2012) Understanding the Steiner Waldorf Approach: Early years education in practice. Oxon, Routledge.
6. Plowman, L. and McPake, J. (2012) Seven Myths About young Children and Technology. Childhood Education, 89(1), pp.27-33.
7. Savage, L.J. (2011) Exploring young children’s social interactions in technology-rich preschool environments. PhD thesis. University of Stirling.
8. Statista Research Department. (2019) Access to technology among young people in the UK in 2015, by key stage [Internet]. Available from https://www.statista.com/statistics/299129/access-to-technology-among-young-people-in-the-uk-by-key-stage/ [Accessed 23rd December 2019].
9. Yursrita, Y.M. (2018) Feelings Toolkit: a new evaluation tool for very young children. PhD thesis. University of Strathclyde.