EDU430 Official Handouts

Handouts of Information Technology in Education (Topic 1 to Topic 227) Chapter 1

My Story-My School · Topic 1 · Formative Years

Since antiquity knowledge has passed from generation to generation through stories. We all have stories to tell. To commence with I, felt my story might have some utility. Maybe it can provide some insights into the role of technology in education? What do we mean by pedagogy and the science of learning? How the two configure in relation to technology and integration into education? How has the classroom evolved and technology incorporated? I remember my aunt who was a professor, author of numerous articles and few books, sitting beside her typewrite and researching her work. The click clack of the keys remains with me today. These were the times of romantic early and mid-sixties - The US invasion of Vietnam and the daily carpet bombing on Hanoi used to be the first news on the BBC. My aunt was extremely active in writing articles against the super power who invaded a small country for no reason - there was no Osama Bin Laden hiding in the North Vietnam. Now she writes her articles against the invasion of Iraq and Libya using a word processor. These days the computer has been incorporated in most classrooms but does it act a little more than a word processor with some research component? The answer sadly is no – the classroom may appear different yet for the most part remains the same.

Topic 2

The Story of My Education

This is then the story of my education. I was an only child and father (who was a senior officer in the Pakistan Army) passed away, only a year after birth. The responsibility of my upbringing fell solely on my mother. We resided in Multan with my maternal family. The question of education was a critical one, since we had no personal resources it was imperative that I acquire a good education and look after my family. Being the sole child and much loved my schooling started a little later than usual and initially I was educated at home. When I started my home education; I had great difficulty with English. A solution was proposed by my aunts and my mother: my grandfather would teach me. He was a professor of English and it was said about him that he had no peers in his field. I was repeatedly told how lucky I was that my grandfather would teach me English. While my grandfather taught me English, a local preacher was employed to teach me recitation on my mother‘s insistence. The combined learning experience was tremendously traumatic. My grandfather would sit in our veranda overlooking our back garden and I started avoiding going in the veranda. If I needed to go to the back garden I hide behind my mother‘s legs. If this was being lucky I shuddered to think what unlucky would be! Why was this experience so painful for me? My maiden encounter with English commenced through the Radiant Reading books. These books, as far as English teaching went were very good and I believe remained the books of choice for many years to come in so many schools. The problem was that they were designed for people with an English background, i.e. their mother tongue was English. Despite the fact that I had mastered the English alphabet and knew the words; when it came to reading and stories I could not understand. I had tremendous difficulty in learning since I was unable to comprehend - for me making meaning of what I was studying was essential - Now I see several experts of pedagogy insisting that deep learning takes place only when you relate it to your experiences - you make sense out of it? Memorization and understanding are both components of the learning process. While memorization is a critical part of learning, it is only a small part. Without comprehension, and only memorization, there is no understanding. Comprehension is derived from how particular information is related or understood by a person in a personal context – it is experiential in nature. Having learnt a little about Pedagogy now, I realized that our brain is wired to learn in a particular manner. We learn through association to an experience or context which we have gone through. If you try to teach and there is no association this leads to an inability to learn. This, I now understand, was why my early learning experience was so painful. Was Radiant Reading the right methodology for learning English? Later we will discuss in detail what pedagogy should be applied for learner like me and how can technology assist in the process.