ICT and education Some considerations Eric Bruillard UMR STEF (ENS Cachan / INRP) IUFM de Creteil

Education an instrumented activity (Formal) education uses instruments: writing is certainly the most important (may be coming from educational activities) Learning and cognition change according to evolution of social practices and ways of storing and communicating information (culturo-historical vision) The point : new roles played by this instrumentation

Changing instrumentation Descriptive geometry example (Paulo Pavel) From Vitruve to nowadays... Available today...

Involving communication University birth: Disputacione, Bologne

Other communities: debates during design activities Un atelier aux Batignolles Henri Fantin-Latour - Paris, Musée d'Orsay © Photo RMN / H. Lewandowski Atelier sculpture

Other communities: ateliers « typographiques » Les compagnons : atelier de Martin Husz, figuration la plus ancienne d'un atelier typographique au XVe siècle Classe Freinet, académie Grenoble

What is changing? New teaching contents Relationship to instrumentation New learning and teaching modalities Production (projects) process / product ICT C (ICT for creation) Group work, management of distance… New form of schoolarization

Access, communicate, rewrite Networks Interconnected texts (hypertexts) accessible by link activation Interconnected persons and groups (synchronous or asynchronous) Multiple traces (see, analyze, modify) See and understand process, Invite to reflective postures Experiment / simulate…

Some results No clear evidence regarding effects of ICT on educational achievements Innovative ways of learning… but innovations are seldom sustainable Question: effects of ICT? Learning and teaching as situated and instrumented activities.

Three roles for ICT in education 1. Educational technology Pedagogical tools (electronic white board…) 2. Communication, access, production (General software tools, search engine) 3. Instruments in subject matters (specific for maths, literature, history…) According to each role, specific processes can be observed

Pedagogical tools Students No mastery required for activities Teachers Pedagogical freedom, no responsibility on the tools Teaching / Learning Same contents, evaluation, programs Student motivation, specific pedagogical modalities

Communication, access, production tools Students Familiarization: external ? Competences to build Teachers No specific responsibility or shared responsibility Teaching / Learning Modification of work modalities, no directly contents Collective work, resources access…

Instruments for disciplines Students Required mastery for activities Teachers Specific responsibility on instruments and their mastery Teaching / Learning Modification of contents, evaluation modalities, curricula Re-think activities, a curricular perspective is required (progression)

Pedagogical tools Issues: Professional gesture acquisition without well established tradition Which pedagogical plus-value? Time issue: do not loose to much, leading to suppress potential obstacles linked to tool mastery, not allowing student to grasp a sufficient mastery According to Cuban: does not work

Communication, access, production tools Issues: School uses are opposite to home uses (immediate use vs distance and reflectivity) (Immature culture, immediate satisfaction. See for example Mediapro 2006) What is the effective mastery of students? Competences (know-how) or conceptualizations

Instruments Issues: How instrument subject activity? Re-think activities? Instruments may solve a part of what is expected from students: restriction of use? (pocket calculator in primary schools) Acceptability by teachers relies upon their own vision of their discipline

Roles or statutes confusion Instruments –general tools Specialization: mathematical text processor, notation issues Generalization: mathematical Knowledge necessary (spreadsheet) General – pedagogical tools Student general competences Availability of work environment for activities

Instruments or pedagogical tools Tension: Introduction phase: pedagogical tool Generalization phase: Paradox, either we restrict pedagogical freedom, either instruments are considered as optional Collective legitimating process Dual case: Règles à calcul, tables, boulier : obsolete instruments become pedagogical tools (because their functioning is more visible)

School gestures and tech. Blackboard : collective visualization, short term memory Copy machine: local control of documents given to students Textbooks : an old technology? A worn model? Sheets of paper… Gestures learned in classrooms?

Teachers against ICT? Modernity cult? Opposed to classical « culture » Teachers use (Cuban, 1987) Simple and reliable technologies Which reinforce their control on the learning achievements

Don’t shoot the teacher Teachers as « bouc émissaires » Or double bind They have to be modern And to control precisely the acquisition of a group of students Professional uses / few classroom uses An official best pedagogy? (towards dequalification of teachers)

Example of new teachers Sesamath ( French association of teachers main goal is to freely provide, via the Internet, pedagogical resources and professional tools to be used for mathematical teaching and learning. a public service approach a commitment to the free software movement. Many projects: software, exercises (in school or at home)… Recently, they produced a mathematical textbook for 7th graders (Wikipedia like process)

Manuel Sesamath “Sésamath 5e is a complete textbook, in accordance with new prescribed curricula for 7th graders, rather classical in its organization (in chapters, and in each chapter, in sections: methods, activities, exercises...) and in its editing quality (quality of the cover, of the setting and of the printing)” (designers’ discourse)

Sesamath First, it is a textbook (form with great resonance), a classical textbook Subject matter unique reference and stable (few links with research) Recommended usage of computer instruments Which innovation? Reinforcement of control (see Cuban)

France: a new pre-service training New organization: Competitive exam (civil servants) Professional year Two first years (T1 and T2) after tenure An approach structured by competencies?

Instruments Which uses before the exam at university? No legitimating process Goal: show how we can do maths or physics or literature using ICT instruments, afterwards how one can learn maths… Give legitimacy to specific instruments use: build a new professional identity Show progressions for their mastery One example is not convincing: it does not answer teacher’s concerns

General tools Use them during training as new training modalities “Live” training situations (distant communication …) Collaborative work: from sharing resources to taking into account points of view of the Other Work with other subject matters

Pedagogical tools Work in / with classrooms Exchanges with different categories of teacher trainers Reflect on his/her practice (individually or collectively) Multiples examples (within a community)

Training continuity Main interest of a collaborative work platform (alternance training): keep link between training institutes and schools A professionnalisation process, autonomisation? A sort of integration in teacher’s culture, building a professional identity Substitute to the old opposition between theory-practice by problematisation (from particular to general)

Which model? Competencies list, simple completion (accumulation model) Integrated model: interest of T1 and T2, see annual progression as un object (lived), from emergency to reflective look Collect traces Animate a community which builds itself its professionality

Bridging the gap IFIP TC3 / WG 3.1, October 1997, Grenoble (Yvonne Buettner)

… Building the wall

Change school to adapt it to what exists outside? Or do the contrary ?

School at home?