summarising ideas about pedagogy and ICT

Yesterday, I spend time working with the secondary graduate group explaining how and why I organised their PICT (=pedagogy & ICT) module as I did. Now that they are nearly at the end of their programme, it was time to show them what had happened and why.

I also confessed that I hadn't actually taught them anything about how to use any particular technological tool: I only gave them permission to try them out - in groups and individually. I then needed to explain why- it's because technology changes so much. I argued that if I taught them a particular tool, in 6 months it may be superceded by something else. Instead, I hope I gave them courage to experiment, to wonder 'what if I...?' and to think about pedagogical purposes to drive any use. I also argued that if they had a good learning reason to try things out in a school, it's really hard for a school to refuse - especially if they already have in place answer to the 'yes, but...' counters.

What was lovely, was that generally they left the session in a really positive frame of mind, remembering how overwhelmed they were at the start of the year, and how differently they feel now about they can do and what they've learned.

And a lot of that learning has been from each other. By making them use some kind of technological tool in their practicums and write about it in Moodle, they are now (more or less) grateful they had to do it. They even discussed how they sometimes had to think creatively to get things to work, or even think creatively about tools they could possibly use when their schools had limited access, few or creaky equipment. However, they also cursed me at the time!

This is a really good example of assessment driving creativity and learning. Sometimes it takes ages for the understanding to come, but the wait is truly worth it! All power to the cohort of 2010.