:Let’s Bring Schools to XXI Century! Lightning Talk, FTP2018 Ilaria Bortolotti

XXI century A typical classroom We are constantly in contact with technologies, for the easiest thing to the more complex, but this kind of reality seems to disappear as we walk into a typical classroom. Why is this a problem? May some old fashioned asks. Our society asks us to be active and competent citizens, able to overcome different challenges and one of the primary educational (formal) context in which we can develop our competences is school. School should prepare tomorrow citizens and guarantee to everyone opportunities to develop themselves in the most complete way. This is the point. How can we imagine a school that prepare future citizens living in the past? I learned how to use technologies since I was a child thanks to my father, because he’s a technology enthusiast. I can use Office, I can browse Internet, I can solve common problems and communicate with people from different countries, so I consider myself a quite good technology user. And very often I get called by friends of mine or teachers that I’m following as a tutor asking me “How do I put a summary in Word? It’s too complicated”, “How can I get graphs from data in an excel?”. And I recall that no one let me or my friend use these technologies at school with a support (yeah, I usually did the practical-technological part in all the research and presentations, I am very proud of this). I learned thanks to my father, but the others? But teachers? A typical classroom

Research activities Observation Survey results Technology perceived as useful, but difficult to integrate in daily practice In my research activities what emerges is that teachers recognize the value of technologies in their professional practices, but they point out some difficulties to apply them every day, lack of infrastructures and technical support primarily (these data come from an online survey filled by 281 teachers from 8 different countries and from observation at school). Some teachers told me “Yeah, technologies are very motivating for students, but I’m not very able with them, and I don’t have wifi connection at school, and there is only a class with a pc and an interactive whiteboard…I can’t do my class there everytime because I have to reserve it almost a week earlier, and often it’s already reserved” If we want to exploit educational potential of technologies and develop a genuinely innovative didactic, able to support collaboration between people and develop their skills, we must do it through their effective and competent application in practice. I was doing some observation in a high school. Those teachers appeared really motivated to use technology in the class and they presented their activities as a real innovation in educational practice, but what I saw was a simple use of the interactive whiteboard as a projector. They were not really interested in exploit real educational potential of technologies, or, more probably, they were not conscious of its possibilities? Difficult due to infrastructural problems and to lack of specific techno-pedagogical competencies

Our solution… Teachers' training course Focus on specific contents presented in an organized way Structured embracing experiential learning (providing practical activities) Collegial and collaborative, based on sharing between teachers Continuous nature of the activities (not sporadic) It provides peer support and resources to create a network beyond the course end Final objective: collaborative construction of a product useful for teaching practice To solve the problem, technologists can help to exploit technologies potentials in education creating new software, apps and environments useful for education or, better, integrating already existing tools and adapting them to educational purposes, while educational researchers and educators can provide teachers’ training courses which should present some characteristic to effectively get some results: they must be practical, collaborative practices supportive and focused on specific topics close to teachers’ professional needs, engaging their creativity. The teachers’ training in Up2U, based on these assumptions, is designed to build a teachers’ community of practice in which learn actively to integrate innovative virtual environments and tools in innovative daily teaching practices, building durable technological and pedagogical competences.   If we start considering technologies as a positive tool able to enrich educational possibilities, we begin to understand its importance in educational context. But we must remember that “Technology does not, and cannot, support the old pedagogy of telling/lecturing” (Prensky, 2008). Researchers must co-operate with technologists and teachers to change educational practices and bring the future in our classroom through specific training programs.

Support education, support teachers, support people developing! Donate Create My father will be really proud when I’ll bring technologies into classrooms, and I’m doing my best to try, but there’s something each of us can do according to his/her competencies and possibilities. If you are able to use technologies, teach to use them to teachers and educators or develop/adapt tools useful for education. If you have economic possibilities, make a donation to schools or educational centers in your city. Support education, support teachers, support people developing. Thank you 😊