iPads Reveiw

To iPad or not to iPad
Tara Fagan and Tania Coutts
CORE Education
Christchurch
New Zealand
Introduction
The introduction of the iPad in 2010 marked significant steps in the development of
tablet computing and mobile devices in education. Their intuitive touch screen
interface, portability and extended battery life make them an appealing option for
students of all age levels. In this pilot investigation, the authors observed how two
early childhood services (one kindergarten and one childcare centre) used iPads to
extend the range of learning opportunities they offer for children up to five years
old. The centres involved provide a varied curriculum guided by children’s interests
and adults’ provocations. Both centres are part of the Healthy Heart Awards
Programme with a philosophy around promoting fitness, outdoor exploration and
learning through play. There is a history of the integrated use of digital technologies
for teaching and learning purposes and in both cases a catalyst for this has been the
centre leaders who have a strong interest and competence in information and
communication technologies. The thoughts and recommendations shared are
gleaned from the authors’ on-site observations at the two centres as well as
discussions with both teachers and children about the use and value of the iPad.
This pilot investigation is intended to provide early childhood teachers who may be
contemplating the use of iPads with some pointers regarding why and how these
devices might be used. It also recommends some apps that complement the
pedagogy underpinning Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 1996).
An educational case for iPads
As iPads are such a recent phenomenon, there is scant research on their use and
value in early childhood contexts. However there is a body of literature that
supports the educational value of digital technologies in general and which is
relevant to this investigation. In a literature review, Bolstad (2004) argued that ICT
deserved serious consideration in early childhood contexts because it was already
part of the lives of children born in 21st century. Eight years on this argument is
even more compelling although as Bolstad inferred, and we would agree, this alone
is not a sufficient justification for their use in centres. Bolstad concluded that under
certain conditions ICT can enrich or transform the everyday learning, roles and
relationships experienced by young children. One of these conditions is educators
having clear learning intentions for children as a prerequisite to the selection of ICT
tools. In Aotearoa/New Zealand such intentions would logically flow from our
national curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 1996).

The World is Flat

Book Review: 'The World Is Flat': The Wealth of Yet More Nations... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/books/review/01ZAKARIA.h... 1 of 4 11/4/07 5:17 PM THE WORLD IS FLAT A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. By Thomas L. Friedman. 488 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $27.50. May 1, 2005 Book Review: 'The World Is Flat': The Wealth of Yet More Nations By FAREED ZAKARIA OVER the past few years, the United States has been obsessed with the Middle East. The administration, the news media and the American people have all been focused almost exclusively on the region, and it has seemed that dealing with its problems would define the early decades of the 21st century. ''The war on terror is a struggle that will last for generations,'' Donald Rumsfeld is reported to have said to his associates after 9/11. But could it be that we're focused on the wrong problem? The challenge of Islamic terrorism is real enough, but could it prove to be less durable than it once appeared? There are some signs to suggest this. The combined power of most governments of the world is proving to be a match for any terror group. In addition, several of the governments in the Middle East are inching toward modernizing and opening up their societies. This will be a long process but it is already draining some of the rage that undergirded Islamic extremism. This doesn't mean that the Middle East will disappear off the map. Far from it. Terrorism remains a threat, and we will all continue to be fascinated by upheavals in Lebanon, events in Iran and reforms in Egypt. But ultimately these trends are unlikely to shape the world's future. The countries of the Middle East have been losers in the age of globalization, out of step in an age of free markets, free trade and democratic politics. The world's future -- the big picture -- is more likely to be shaped by the winners of this era. And if the United States thought it was difficult to deal with the losers, the winners present an even thornier set of challenges. This is the implication of the New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman's excellent new book, ''The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century.'' The metaphor of a flat world, used by Friedman to describe the next phase of globalization, is ingenious. It came to him after hearing an Indian software executive explain how the world's economic playing field was being leveled. For a variety of reasons, what economists call ''barriers to entry'' are being destroyed; today an individual or company anywhere can collaborate or compete globally. Bill Gates explains the meaning of this transformation best. Thirty years ago, he tells Friedman, if you had to choose between being born a genius in Mumbai or Shanghai and an average person in Poughkeepsie, you would have chosen Poughkeepsie because your chances of living a prosperous and fulfilled life were much greater there. ''Now,'' Gates says, ''I would rather be a genius born in China than an average guy born in Poughkeepsie.'' The book is done in Friedman's trademark style. You travel with him, meet his wife and kids, learn about his friends and sit in on his interviews. Some find this irritating. I think it works in making complicated ideas accessible. Another Indian entrepreneur, Jerry Rao, explained to Friedman why his accounting firm in Bangalore was able to prepare tax returns for Americans. (In 2005, an estimated 400,000 American I.R.S. Book Review: 'The World Is Flat': The Wealth of Yet More Nations... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/books/review/01ZAKARIA.h... 2 of 4 11/4/07 5:17 PM returns were prepared in India.) ''Any activity where we can digitize and decompose the value chain, and move the work around, will get moved around. Some people will say, 'Yes, but you can't serve me a steak.' True, but I can take the reservation for your table sitting anywhere in the world,'' Rao says. He ended the interview by describing his next plan, which is to link up with an Israeli company that can transmit CAT scans via the Internet so that Americans can get a second opinion from an Indian or Israeli doctor, quickly and cheaply. What created the flat world? Friedman stresses technological forces. Paradoxically, the dot-com bubble played a crucial role. Telecommunications companies like Global Crossing had hundreds of millions of dollars of cash -- given to them by gullible investors -- and they used it to pursue incredibly ambitious plans to ''wire the world,'' laying fiber-optic cable across the ocean floors, connecting Bangalore, Bangkok and Beijing to the advanced industrial countries. This excess supply of connectivity meant that the costs of phone calls, Internet connections and data transmission declined dramatically -- so dramatically that many of the companies that laid these cables went bankrupt. But the deed was done, the world was wired. Today it costs about as much to connect to Guangdong as it does New Jersey. The next blow in this one-two punch was the dot-com bust. The stock market crash made companies everywhere cut spending. That meant they needed to look for ways to do what they were doing for less money. The solution: outsourcing. General Electric had led the way a decade earlier and by the late 1990's many large American companies were recognizing that Indian engineers could handle most technical jobs they needed done, at a tenth the cost. The preparations for Y2K, the millennium bug, gave a huge impetus to this shift since most Western companies needed armies of cheap software workers to recode their computers. Welcome to Bangalore. A good bit of the book is taken up with a discussion of these technological forces and the way in which business has reacted and adapted to them. Friedman explains the importance of the development of ''work flow platforms,'' software that made it possible for all kinds of computer applications to connect and work together, which is what allowed seamless cooperation by people working anywhere. ''It is the creation of this platform, with these unique attributes, that is the truly important sustainable breakthrough that has made what you call the flattening of the world possible,'' Microsoft's chief technology officer, Craig J. Mundie, told Friedman. Friedman has a flair for business reporting and finds amusing stories about Wal-Mart, UPS, Dell and JetBlue, among others, that relate to his basic theme. Did you know that when you order a burger at the drive-through McDonald's on Interstate 55 near Cape Girardeau, Mo., the person taking your order is at a call center 900 miles away in Colorado Springs? (He or she then zaps it back to that McDonald's and the order is ready a few minutes later as you drive around to the pickup window.) Or that when you call JetBlue for a reservation, you're talking to a housewife in Utah, who does the job part time? Or that when you ship your Toshiba laptop for repairs via UPS, it's actually UPS's guys in the ''funny brown shorts'' who do the fixing? China and India loom large in Friedman's story because they are the two big countries benefiting most from the flat world. To take just one example, Wal-Mart alone last year imported $18 billion worth of goods from its 5,000 Chinese suppliers. (Friedman doesn't do the math, but this would mean that of Wal-Mart's 6,000 suppliers, 80 percent are in one country -- China.) The Indian case is less staggering and still mostly in services, though the trend is dramatically upward. But Friedman understands that China and India represent not just threats to the developed world, but also great opportunities. After all, the changes he is describing have the net effect of adding hundreds of millions of people -- consumers -- to the world economy. That is an unparalleled opportunity for Book Review: 'The World Is Flat': The Wealth of Yet More Nations... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/books/review/01ZAKARIA.h... 3 of 4 11/4/07 5:17 PM every company and individual in the world. Friedman quotes a Morgan Stanley study estimating that since the mid-1990's cheap imports from China have saved American consumers over $600 billion and probably saved American companies even more than that since they use Chinese-sourced parts in their production. And this is not all about cheap labor. Between 1995 and 2002, China's private sector has increased productivity at 17 percent annually -- a truly breathtaking pace. Friedman describes his honest reaction to this new world while he's at one of India's great outsourcing companies, Infosys. He was standing, he says, ''at the gate observing this river of educated young people flowing in and out. . . . They all looked as if they had scored 1600 on their SAT's. . . . My mind just kept telling me, 'Ricardo is right, Ricardo is right.' . . . These Indian techies were doing what was their comparative advantage and then turning around and using their income to buy all the products from America that are our comparative advantage. . . . Both our countries would benefit. . . . But my eye kept . . . telling me something else: 'Oh, my God, there are just so many of them, and they all look so serious, so eager for work. And they just keep coming, wave after wave. How in the world can it possibly be good for my daughters and millions of other young Americans that these Indians can do the same jobs as they can for a fraction of the wages?' '' He ends up, wisely, understanding that there's no way to stop the wave. You cannot switch off these forces except at great cost to your own economic well-being. Over the last century, those countries that tried to preserve their systems, jobs, culture or traditions by keeping the rest of the world out all stagnated. Those that opened themselves up to the world prospered. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything to prepare for this new competition and new world. Friedman spends a good chunk of the book outlining ways that America and Americans can place themselves in a position to do better. People in advanced countries have to find ways to move up the value chain, to have special skills that create superior products for which they can charge extra. The UPS story is a classic example of this. Delivering goods doesn't have high margins, but repairing computers (and in effect managing a supply chain) does. In one of Friedman's classic anecdote-as-explanation shticks, he recounts that one of his best friends is an illustrator. The friend saw his business beginning to dry up as computers made routine illustrations easy to do, and he moved on to something new. He became an illustration consultant, helping clients conceive of what they want rather than simply executing a drawing. Friedman explains this in Friedman metaphors: the friend's work began as a chocolate sauce, was turned into a vanilla commodity, through upgraded skills became a special chocolate sauce again, and then had a cherry put on top. All clear? Of course it won't be as easy as that, as Friedman knows. He points to the dramatic erosion of America's science and technology base, which has been masked in recent decades by another aspect of globalization. America now imports foreigners to do the scientific work that its citizens no longer want to do or even know how to do. Nearly one in five scientists and engineers in the United States is an immigrant, and 51 percent of doctorates in engineering go to foreigners. America's soaring health care costs are increasingly a burden in a global race, particularly since American industry is especially disadvantaged on this issue. An American carmaker pays about $6,000 per worker for health care. If it moves its factory up to Canada, where the government runs and pays for medical coverage, the company pays only $800. Most of Friedman's solutions to these kinds of problems are intelligent, neoliberal ways of using government in a market-friendly way to further the country's ability to compete in a flat world. Book Review: 'The World Is Flat': The Wealth of Yet More Nations... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/books/review/01ZAKARIA.h... 4 of 4 11/4/07 5:17 PM There are difficulties with the book. Once Friedman gets through explicating his main point, he throws in too many extras -- perhaps trying to make that chocolate sundae -- making the book seem slightly padded. The process of flattening that he is describing is in its infancy. India is still a poor third-world country, but if you read this book you would assume it is on the verge of becoming a global superstar. (Though as an Indian-American, I read Friedman and whisper the old Jewish saying, ''From your lips to God's ears.'') And while this book is not as powerful as Friedman's earlier ones -- it is, as the publisher notes, an ''update'' of ''The Lexus and the Olive Tree'' -- its fundamental insight is true and deeply important. In explaining this insight and this new world, Friedman can sometimes sound like a technological determinist. And while he does acknowledge political factors, they get little space in the book, which gives it a lopsided feel. I would argue that one of the primary forces driving the flat world is actually the shifting attitudes and policies of governments around the world. From Brazil to South Africa to India, governments are becoming more market-friendly, accepting that the best way to cure poverty is to aim for high-growth policies. This change, more than any other, has unleashed the energy of the private sector. After all, India had hundreds of thousands of trained engineers in the 1970's, but they didn't produce growth. In the United States and Europe, deregulation policies spurred the competition that led to radical innovation. There is a chicken-and-egg problem, to be sure. Did government policies create the technological boom or vice versa? At least one can say that each furthered the other. The largest political factor is, of course, the structure of global politics. The flat economic world has been created by an extremely unflat political world. The United States dominates the globe like no country since ancient Rome. It has been at the forefront, pushing for open markets, open trade and open politics. But the consequence of these policies will be to create a more nearly equal world, economically and politically. If China grows economically, at some point it will also gain political ambitions. If Brazil continues to surge, it will want to have a larger voice on the international stage. If India gains economic muscle, history suggests that it will also want the security of a stronger military. Friedman tells us that the economic relations between states will be a powerful deterrent to war, which is true if nations act sensibly. But as we have seen over the last three years, pride, honor and rage play a large part in global politics. The ultimate challenge for America -- and for Americans -- is whether we are prepared for this flat world, economic and political. While hierarchies are being eroded and playing fields leveled as other countries and people rise in importance and ambition, are we conducting ourselves in a way that will succeed in this new atmosphere? Or will it turn out that, having globalized the world, the United States had forgotten to globalize itself? Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek International and author of ''The Future of Freedom,'' is the host of a new current affairs program on public television, Foreign Exchange. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS First Look Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map

Digital Natives / Digital Immigrants

Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants ©2001 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________ Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants By Marc Prensky From On the Horizon (NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001) © 2001 Marc Prensky It is amazing to me how in all the hoopla and debate these days about the decline of education in the US we ignore the most fundamental of its causes. Our students have changed radically. Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. Today’s students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. One might even call it a “singularity” – an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back. This so-called “singularity” is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century. Today’s students – K through college – represent the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, but over 10,000 hours playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. It is now clear that as a result of this ubiquitous environment and the sheer volume of their interaction with it, today’s students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors. These differences go far further and deeper than most educators suspect or realize. “Different kinds of experiences lead to different brain structures, “ says Dr. Bruce D. Berry of Baylor College of Medicine. As we shall see in the next installment, it is very likely that our students’ brains have physically changed – and are different from ours – as a result of how they grew up. But whether or not this is literally true, we can say with certainty that their thinking patterns have changed. I will get to how they have changed in a minute. What should we call these “new” students of today? Some refer to them as the N-[for Net]-gen or D-[for digital]-gen. But the most useful designation I have found for them is Digital Natives. Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. So what does that make the rest of us? Those of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many 1 Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants ©2001 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________ or most aspects of the new technology are, and always will be compared to them, Digital Immigrants. The importance of the distinction is this: As Digital Immigrants learn – like all immigrants, some better than others – to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past. The “digital immigrant accent” can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than first, or in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it. Today’s older folk were "socialized" differently from their kids, and are now in the process of learning a new language. And a language learned later in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain. There are hundreds of examples of the digital immigrant accent. They include printing out your email (or having your secretary print it out for you – an even “thicker” accent); needing to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it (rather than just editing on the screen); and bringing people physically into your office to see an interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL). I’m sure you can think of one or two examples of your own without much effort. My own favorite example is the “Did you get my email?” phone call. Those of us who are Digital Immigrants can, and should, laugh at ourselves and our “accent.” But this is not just a joke. It’s very serious, because the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language. This is obvious to the Digital Natives – school often feels pretty much as if we’ve brought in a population of heavily accented, unintelligible foreigners to lecture them. They often can’t understand what the Immigrants are saying. What does “dial” a number mean, anyway? Lest this perspective appear radical, rather than just descriptive, let me highlight some of the issues. Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work. (Does any of this sound familiar?) But Digital Immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the Natives have acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice. These skills are almost totally foreign to the Immigrants, who themselves learned – and so choose to teach – slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously. “My students just don’t _____ like they used to,” Digital Immigrant educators grouse. I can’t get them to ____ or to ____. They have no appreciation for _____ or _____ . (Fill in the blanks, there are a wide variety of choices.) 2 Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants ©2001 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________ Digital Immigrants don’t believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music, because they (the Immigrants) can’t. Of course not – they didn’t practice this skill constantly for all of their formative years. Digital Immigrants think learning can’t (or shouldn’t) be fun. Why should they – they didn’t spend their formative years learning with Sesame Street. Unfortunately for our Digital Immigrant teachers, the people sitting in their classes grew up on the “twitch speed” of video games and MTV. They are used to the instantaneity of hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops, beamed messages and instant messaging. They’ve been networked most or all of their lives. They have little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic, and “tell-test” instruction. Digital Immigrant teachers assume that learners are the same as they have always been, and that the same methods that worked for the teachers when they were students will work for their students now. But that assumption is no longer valid. Today’s learners are different. “Www.hungry.com” said a kindergarten student recently at lunchtime. “Every time I go to school I have to power down,” complains a high-school student. Is it that Digital Natives can’t pay attention, or that they choose not to? Often from the Natives’ point of view their Digital Immigrant instructors make their education not worth paying attention to compared to everything else they experience – and then they blame them for not paying attention! And, more and more, they won’t take it. “I went to a highly ranked college where all the professors came from MIT,” says a former student. “But all they did was read from their textbooks. I quit.” In the giddy internet bubble of a only a short while ago – when jobs were plentiful, especially in the areas where school offered little help – this was a real possibility. But the dot-com dropouts are now returning to school. They will have to confront once again the Immigrant/Native divide, and have even more trouble given their recent experiences. And that will make it even harder to teach them – and all the Digital Natives already in the system – in the traditional fashion. So what should happen? Should the Digital Native students learn the old ways, or should their Digital Immigrant educators learn the new? Unfortunately, no matter how much the Immigrants may wish it, it is highly unlikely the Digital Natives will go backwards. In the first place, it may be impossible – their brains may already be different. It also flies in the face of everything we know about cultural migration. Kids born into any new culture learn the new language easily, and forcefully resist using the old. Smart adult immigrants accept that they don’t know about their new world and take advantage of their kids to help them learn and integrate. Not-so-smart (or not-so-flexible) immigrants spend most of their time grousing about how good things were in the “old country.” So unless we want to just forget about educating Digital Natives until they grow up and do it themselves, we had better confront this issue. And in so doing we need to reconsider both our methodology and our content. 3 Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants ©2001 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________ First, our methodology. Today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students. This doesn’t mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills. But it does mean going faster, less step-by step, more in parallel, with more random access, among other things. Educators might ask “But how do we teach logic in this fashion?” While it’s not immediately clear, we do need to figure it out. Second, our content. It seems to me that after the digital “singularity” there are now two kinds of content: “Legacy” content (to borrow the computer term for old systems) and “Future” content. “Legacy” content includes reading, writing, arithmetic, logical thinking, understanding the writings and ideas of the past, etc – all of our “traditional” curriculum. It is of course still important, but it is from a different era. Some of it (such as logical thinking) will continue to be important, but some (perhaps like Euclidean geometry) will become less so, as did Latin and Greek. “Future” content is to a large extent, not surprisingly, digital and technological. But while it includes software, hardware, robotics, nanotechnology, genomics, etc. it also includes the ethics, politics, sociology, languages and other things that go with them. This “Future” content is extremely interesting to today’s students. But how many Digital Immigrants are prepared to teach it? Someone once suggested to me that kids should only be allowed to use computers in school that they have built themselves. It’s a brilliant idea that is very doable from the point of view of the students’ capabilities. But who could teach it? As educators, we need to be thinking about how to teach both Legacy and Future content in the language of the Digital Natives. The first involves a major translation and change of methodology; the second involves all that PLUS new content and thinking. It’s not actually clear to me which is harder – “learning new stuff” or “learning new ways to do old stuff.” I suspect it’s the latter. So we have to invent, but not necessarily from scratch. Adapting materials to the language of Digital Natives has already been done successfully. My own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content. After all, it’s an idiom with which most of them are totally familiar. Not long ago a group of professors showed up at my company with new computer-aided design (CAD) software they had developed for mechanical engineers. Their creation was so much better than what people were currently using that they had assumed the entire engineering world would quickly adopt it. But instead they encountered a lot of resistance, due in large part to the product’s extremely steep learning curve – the software contained hundreds of new buttons, options and approaches to master. 4 Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants ©2001 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________ Their marketers, however, had a brilliant idea. Observing that the users of CAD software were almost exclusively male engineers between 20 and 30, they said “Why not make the learning into a video game!” So we invented and created for them a computer game in the “first person shooter” style of the consumer games Doom and Quake, called The Monkey Wrench Conspiracy. Its player becomes an intergalactic secret agent who has to save a space station from an attack by the evil Dr. Monkey Wrench. The only way to defeat him is to use the CAD software, which the learner must employ to build tools, fix weapons, and defeat booby traps. There is one hour of game time, plus 30 “tasks,” which can take from 15 minutes to several hours depending on one’s experience level. Monkey Wrench has been phenomenally successful in getting young people interested in learning the software. It is widely used by engineering students around the world, with over 1 million copies of the game in print in several languages. But while the game was easy for my Digital Native staff to invent, creating the content turned out to be more difficult for the professors, who were used to teaching courses that started with “Lesson 1 – the Interface.” We asked them instead to create a series of graded tasks into which the skills to be learned were embedded. The professors had made 5-10 minute movies to illustrate key concepts; we asked them to cut them to under 30 seconds. The professors insisted that the learners to do all the tasks in order; we asked them to allow random access. They wanted a slow academic pace, we wanted speed and urgency (we hired a Hollywood script writer to provide this.) They wanted written instructions; we wanted computer movies. They wanted the traditional pedagogical language of “learning objectives,” “mastery”, etc. (e.g. “in this exercise you will learn…”); our goal was to completely eliminate any language that even smacked of education. In the end the professors and their staff came through brilliantly, but because of the large mind-shift required it took them twice as long as we had expected. As they saw the approach working, though, the new “Digital Native” methodology became their model for more and more teaching – both in and out of games – and their development speed increased dramatically. Similar rethinking needs to be applied to all subjects at all levels. Although most attempts at “edutainment” to date have essentially failed from both the education and entertainment perspective, we can – and will, I predict – do much better. In math, for example, the debate must no longer be about whether to use calculators and computers – they are a part of the Digital Natives’ world – but rather how to use them to instill the things that are useful to have internalized, from key skills and concepts to the multiplication tables. We should be focusing on “future math” – approximation, statistics, binary thinking. In geography – which is all but ignored these days – there is no reason that a generation that can memorize over 100 Pokémon characters with all their characteristics, history and evolution can’t learn the names, populations, capitals and relationships of all the 181 nations in the world. It just depends on how it is presented. 5 Marc Prensky Digital Natives Digital Immigrants ©2001 Marc Prensky _____________________________________________________________________________ We need to invent Digital Native methodologies for all subjects, at all levels, using our students to guide us. The process has already begun – I know college professors inventing games for teaching subjects ranging from math to engineering to the Spanish Inquisition. We need to find ways of publicizing and spreading their successes. A frequent objection I hear from Digital Immigrant educators is “this approach is great for facts, but it wouldn’t work for ‘my subject.’” Nonsense. This is just rationalization and lack of imagination. In my talks I now include “thought experiments” where I invite professors and teachers to suggest a subject or topic, and I attempt– on the spot – to invent a game or other Digital Native method for learning it. Classical philosophy? Create a game in which the philosophers debate and the learners have to pick out what each would say. The Holocaust? Create a simulation where students role-play the meeting at Wannsee, or one where they can experience the true horror of the camps, as opposed to the films like Schindler’s List. It’s just dumb (and lazy) of educators – not to mention ineffective – to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way is the only way to teach, and that the Digital Natives’ “language” is not as capable as their own of encompassing any and every idea. So if Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives – i.e. all their students – they will have to change. It’s high time for them to stop their grousing, and as the Nike motto of the Digital Native generation says, “Just do it!” They will succeed in the long run – and their successes will come that much sooner if their administrators support them. See also: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 2: The scientific evidence behind the Digital Native’s thinking changes, and the evidence that Digital Native-style learning works! Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed thought leader, speaker, writer, consultant, and game designer in the critical areas of education and learning. He is the author of Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill, 2001), founder and CEO of Games2train, a game-based learning company, and founder of The Digital Multiplier, an organization dedicated to eliminating the digital divide in learning worldwide. He is also the creator of the sites , and . Marc holds an MBA from Harvard and a Masters in Teaching from Yale. More of his writings can be found at . Contact Marc at marc@games2train.com. . 6

Education for Maori

Education for Maori in New Zealand: an ongoing debate For Maori in New Zealand, education has always been an issue in debate. From the very beginning of New Zealand’s European settlement Maori have had a different experience in education compared with Europeans. The differences can be seen throughout the varied education sectors, from early childhood to further education such as university. The New Zealand government’s Ministry of Education has throughout the years established goals for Maori education, with the focus now being on empowering Maori students into using their culture as a positive approach to realizing their potential. Although, through the establishment of schools and educational environments by Maori it is now clear that they are taking the responsibility of educating their youths themselves. These goals and differences as well as the statistics for education in New Zealand will be covered throughout this paper. Early childhood has been a major focus for New Zealand, with the introduction of 20 free hours recently being introduced, thus ensuring that every three and four year old is able to attend a early childhood setting, low socio-economic families that have not previously been able to attend such settings are able to enroll. “In budget 2004 significant changes were made to the way ECE is funded and also to the childcare subsidy which helps low-income families to meet the cost of ECE” (www.minedu.govt.nz/educationsectors/MaoriEducation/AboutMaoriEducation). The Early childhood curriculum is very focused on Maori and has been since the introduction of Te Whariki, this curriculum ensures that te reo, and the culture and beliefs behind being Maori are incorporated into the every day working of all childcare centres. “Te Whariki rest on the theory that all children will succeed in the Education System if the foundation to their learning is based on an understanding of their own cultural roots first. For the Maori child this could mean programmes that reinforces the self-view of being Maori in very positive ways” (New Zealand College of Early Childhood, 2009). Te Kohanga Reo is a full emersion centre that allows the option for families to enroll their children in to an environment truly focused on the goals of Maori. How ever, even though there is true support behind educating Maori from a young age there are still a fewer percentage in attendance compared to Europeans “Maori participation in early childhood education (ECE) still lags behind that of non-Maori (45 percent compared to 68 percent)” (www.tlri.org.nz). It is not only in the pre-school years that these Maori initiated environments can be found “In recent decades immersion programmes have been established. In these education is largely driven through the initiatives of Maori, Maori are responsible for educating their children successfully” (Carpenter 2001, P11). Kura Kaupapa Maori has been established with out the help of the government, and has a focused curriculum of full emersion Maori. This is a direct stand on turning around the statistics of Maori under achieving in schools, promoted by the whanau and kaiako ma. Despite all of the effort behind this there are still clear signs that Maori are under achieving and not reaching their potential “Compared to non-Maori, Maori are less likely to attend early childhood education, are less likely to remain to senior levels of secondary school, and are less likely to attain a formal qualification upon leaving secondary school. Maori are also less likely to undertake formal tertiary training, particularly in universities. Maori who are in tertiary training are more likely to be enrolled in second chance programmes.” (A Report to the Minister of Maori Affairs, 1998) There are many statistics that are easily found that support this comment such as the reading bench mark of students in 2005/2006 this found the there were far fewer Maori children in the advanced grouping with a percentage of only 4, where as Pakeha were up at 17 percent (http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/2539/pirls_0506/34905). Although this comment does not seem to be taking into account other training programmes that New Zealand has on offer, which often lead to skills in the work force, these are the programmes that accept students without previous qualifications, and with out needing to wait until they are 22 years of age to attend, as universities do if a person has not achieved appropriate school qualifications. There are 2500 training courses and options that have nationally recognized qualifications on completion; they also provided a vast number of skills and practical experiences which many universities do not have on offer. Between the ages of 16 to 24 years there was a greater number of Maori participation than Pakeha or Pacific (www.stats.govt.nz), with signs on this increasing rather lowering, as the Minister of Maori Affairs seemed to imply, as found in the previous quote. A lawyer Moana Jackson has been found in the New Zealand Herald stating his belief that it was “the impact of colonization as a background to criminal activity. That process, he argued, led to higher levels of poverty and poorer outcomes across every social indicator, including health and education. Tribes, which had settled and had built their asset base, should be looking at pumping the resources into development and "wellbeing", in sectors like education, health, job creation and whanau support. (Tahana, 2009 p.1) This comment shows that Maori want to take action for themselves, it is also bringing up the varied debate of crime amongst Maori. This may seem as though it is a different issue from the Education and lack of success of it from the state, however, some recent articles found are stressing the importance of education being the foundation to lowering crime rates, particularly in low-income families and Maori and Pacific. An incite on ten key factors that are ‘causing offending, including Maori offending’ (www.nzherald.co.nz) will be looked at with a ten year plan being put in place “Dr Poulton's key message is expected to be that efforts should be focused as early as possible in children's lives because children who are disruptive even at the age of 3 are more likely to go on later to crime and to poor mental and physical health” (www.nzhearld.co.nz). Ka Hikitia- Managing for Success is the Maori Education Strategy from 2008 to 2012 this focuses on strengthening Maori achievements through using the resources of the culture and background, utilizing the way in which Maori learn to create an individualized focus for success in education. By increasing an overall level of effective home to school partnership, including whanau and community aspirations. The plan works in partnership with those that are already in place such as Pathways to the Future and Schooling Strategy rather than replacing them, covering all aspects of education in New Zealand with a major focus on quality teaching and engaging children in the environment so that there is a change in the level of early school leavers, with Maori making up more than 50 percent (Ministry of Education, 2008). There have also been findings that student engagement is higher in Maori-Medium schools compared to that of Maori students in English-Medium schools (Ministry of Education, 2008). Nga Haeata Matauranga - the Annual Report on Maori Education 2007-2008 - showed 56 per cent of Maori left before achieving the second level of National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA), compared with 34 per cent of all learners” (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10556383). This shows that at present Maori do not reach their full potential, is this because of the school system? "Maori learners are three times more likely to be stood-down, suspended, excluded or expelled than their Pakeha peers and four times more likely to be frequent truants" (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10556383). From this point of view the major issue was that Maori need to be able to take responsibility for their own education “ Whanau know their children's potential, and they know how to release it, right from early childhood through to tertiary education. When whanau take ownership and are encouraged to invest in their children's learning, they are able to place high expectations on their children, and to support them to achieve the highest standards." (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10556383). In conclusion it is obvious to see the New Zealand government has prepared plans to turn around a group that is not reaching their full potential, which has often been blamed on the poor state systems, however there is also the argument that Maori children are achieving to a higher standard in Maori-Medium schools, therefore is it enough to try and improve a system that so far is not working, or would it be better for all involved if more Maori-Medium facilities were available? No matter the answer "Maori learners and their whanau deserve excellence, no matter where they are in our education system." (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10556383) The Treaty of Waitangi to this day has great importance, through the treaty there is modern relevance to education and the concept of Maori taking a stand for their own learning, “both the courts and tribunal have identified this principal about the tribal right to self regulate” (Herald, 2009, p.7). References: Carpenter V, Dixon. H., Rata.E. & Rawlinson.C. (ed). (2001). In Theory in Practice for Educators. Palmerston North, Dunmore Press. Ministry of Education (2008) Ka Hikitia. Wellington, Leaning Media Mutch, C. (1998). “Schooling for the Future: Some New Zealand Initiatives”. A paper presented to the Pacific Circle Consortium International Conference: Education for the 21st Century, A Bridge in the Pacific New Zealand College of Early Childhood, (2009). Social and Cultural Studies paper 309. Christchurch, Author. Tahana, Y. (2009, March 28). Lawyer: put Maori in control. The Herald, p.1 Waitangi Now (2009, February 3). The Herald p.7 ECE (retrieved 22 March, 2009) www.minedu.govt.nz/educationsectors/MaoriEducation/AboutMaoriEducation ECE (retrieved 22 March, 2009) www.tlri.org.nz Reading statistics (retrieved 28 march, 2009) http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/2539/pirls_0506/34905 Education statistics (retrieved 28 march, 2009) www.stats.govt.nz Most Maori leave school without NCEA Level 2 – report (retrieved 28 March, 2009) www.nzherald.co.nz Maori schooling (retrieved 28 march, 2009) http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10556383

ECC on Vulnerable Children

White Paper will save many, but comes with ‘fish hooks’

The White Paper for Vulnerable Children is likely to see many saved from neglect and abuse, but comes with ‘fish hooks’, says the largest representative body of licensed early childhood centres in New Zealand.

Early Childhood Council (ECC) CEO Peter Reynolds said today (11 October) that his organisation was concerned about the idea that everyone working with children should report suspected abuse or neglect.

“If this was not handled very carefully, there was risk of ‘irreparable damage’ to relationships of trust between teachers and at-risk families”, he said.

“The result might be reluctance to attend early childhood education or reluctance to seek help from teachers. And the consequences of this could be increased vulnerability for some children.”

Mr Reynolds said, however, that the white paper addressed significant omissions in the current system, and was likely ‘to result in substantial improvements overall’.

The ECC was especially supportive of both the requirement for different agencies to work more closely together, and the web-based system that would enable child-focused workers to access and contribute to a national database on vulnerable children, he said.

‘Abused children tend to be transient and hard to keep tabs on. These two changes, jointly, will mean they will be less likely to disappear from the radar.’

Mr Reynolds said the ECC supported the idea that workers such as teachers should be better trained to recognise the signs of abuse and to take effective action.

And supported also the establishment of the proposed Child Protect telephone line for the public to report child abuse.

There remained, however, ‘a question mark over whether or not the aspirations of the White Paper will be financed adequately’.

The Early Childhood Council has more than 1100 early childhood member centres, about 30% of which are community-owned and about 70% of which are commercially owned. Its members employ more than 7000 staff, and care for tens of thousands of children.

  

Criteria 3

Professional Relationships and Professional Values

Fully Registered Teachers engage in appropriate professional relationships and demonstrate commitment of professional values

Criteria 3: Demonstrate commitment to bicultural partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand

Key Indicators

Demonstrate respect for the heritages, languages and cultures of both partners to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Reflective questions to inform my evidence.

How do I reflect in my professional work respect for the cultural heritages of both Treaty partners in Aotearoa New Zealand?

What does this Criteria look like in my setting?

What are my Strengths

My Goals/Objectives.

Label all evidence relating to this as Criteria 3

Teachers are getting too friendly with their students

Teachers are getting too friendly with their students and the blame is being levelled at teacher training institutions.

Patrick Walsh, president of the secondary principals' association, is also on the teachers' disciplinary tribunal and he's seen a rising tide of teachers charged with serious misconduct.

"It comes on the back of the sexual abuse case up in Kaitaia and also the report from the teachers' council where there was an offender who was able to work in a number of schools," he said. "There is an indication that teacher education providers don't attach sufficient weight and importance to teachers respecting professional boundaries between themselves and students."

Last month, Pamapuria School deputy principal James Parker pleaded guilty to 49 charges of indecent assault, performing an indecent act and of unlawful sexual connection.

The attacks, on boys aged under 16, occurred over a period of nearly eight years up until his arrest.

Parker's conviction came the same week a ministerial inquiry into sexual offender Henry Te Rito Miki was released.

Miki pleaded guilty in April to seven charges of using a fake CV and birth certificate to gain employment, then fobbed off a suspicious principal who confronted him about his convictions by saying he had a twin brother.

Walsh said a small minority of teachers breach professional boundaries at a serious level but he was worried about a trend for teachers to be too close to their students.

"We've had a number of cases, male and female teachers, ending up in sexual relationships with students, and in some cases teachers have become pregnant to students," he said.

"It's also quite a common occurrence for teachers to text students and when it's done on a professional basis that's fine, but a number of cases before the tribunal have resulted in inappropriate relationships between teachers and students."

Walsh said texting students about getting homework in on time or football practice is useful, but the messages that have come before the tribunal prove that some teachers do not understand boundaries.

"The texts that often end up before the tribunal are saying ‘I like the way you dress' and ‘I'm having problems with my boyfriend, can I talk to you about it'," he said.

"They're sent by students, and teachers who are unfortunately talking about their own marital problems.

"You would think common sense would dictate that is not a good idea but it's something we cannot assume and has to be spelt out."

Walsh said training institutions need to reinforce that teachers are not there to be friends with students.

"It seems to me they should be bringing in experienced principals to talk to teacher trainees about what the expectation is in the school setting and some of the things that have gone wrong," he said.

"That includes pointing out some of the cases that have ended up at the disciplinary tribunal and what the expectations are of parents, boards and principals in relation to the way they behave and what can go wrong for them if the breach those protocols.

"It's very easy to become too involved; we've moved away from that very strict relationship into one that is a lot more personal."

Teachers' council director Peter Lind said not all the blame can be put on teacher training institutions, and that schools themselves need to take stronger measures.

"You just can’t front load everything into pre-service teacher education," he said.

Walsh also called for ways of testing a person's readiness for teaching that look at their maturity and ability to relate to students "in an appropriate manner".

"But how you go about testing that I'm not too sure."

Lind said testing the mental capacity of trainee teachers came though clearly in Mel Smith's ministerial inquiry into sexual offender Miki.

"We do need to think very carefully about who gets selected into programmes, who gets employed as teaches and what their dispositions might be," he said. "There needs to be in-depth interviewing of individuals."

- © Fairfax NZ News

Children Start School at 4

Y JOHNSTON

JOHN SELKIRK/Fairfax NZ

BETTER NOW: Nga Teariki with children Skye, 4, and Saul, 3.

Children could be packing their bags to start primary school a year earlier if a proposal to lower the entrance age goes ahead.

The move would see 4-year-olds included on school rolls and would take early childhood education away from private operators and into public hands. The compulsory school age is six, although most schools take children at five.

Manurewa MP Louisa Wall, fresh from a success with her marriage equality bill, is leading the charge.

''Too many of our kids aren't prepared for school,'' Wall said. ''It hasn't made sense to me for a long time why we've commodified the early years, making early childhood education only available to those who can afford it.''

Unlike primary and secondary schools, preschool learning is made up from private, community and parent-led centres.

Preschool children receive 20 hours free early childhood education but poorer communities struggle with a lack of centres, transport issues, cultural misunderstandings and extra "hidden" costs.

A South Auckland early childhood education taskforce set up to tackle the problem found only 27 per cent of new entrants have had any form of early childhood education. Nationally, participation rate is 94.7 per cent, with Maori and Pacific Island children at the lower end of the scale.

Wall says a burgeoning birth rate in those vulnerable areas meant the problem would get worse.

''The thinking around allowing schools to take 4-year-olds is that it would immediately meet the need,'' Wall said.

It would also save money. To build a new centre for 50 children cost $1.2 million - not including land. Using existing school facilities would solve that problem, Wall said.

Weymouth primary school in South Auckland is one of the first in the country to allow a private preschool provider to build on public land, providing a much- needed learning centre within walking distance for many families.

Being able to drop her ''big kid'' at school at the same time as taking the little ones to an on-site early childhood centre has worked wonders for Manukau mum Nga Teariki.

''We love having the kindy onsite,'' Teariki said. ''It made the move to primary much easier.''

She noticed a big difference in her son, now five, after going to early childhood before he started school.

''He developed a lot of skills. He learned how to write his name and could count to 30. Now he's in the top reading class.''

Teariki said she didn't think lowering the acceptance age for primary school was a bad idea - especially if it reduced the cost to families.

Dr Sarah Farquhar, chief executive of ChildForum, said countries which let 4-year-olds go to school, such as the Netherlands, had a high level of academic achievement.

Some principals, including Manurewa East principal Phil Palfrey, agree, at least in theory.

''It would make a difference to a lot of our kids who don't have any preschool experience,'' Palfrey said.

''People will think that it's ridiculous and that it's crazy but schools have to embrace new ideas. And if we really want to make a difference, we have to do whatever it takes.''

Chair of the taskforce Colleen Brown said the Government's aim for a 98 per cent participation rate in early childhood education by 2016 meant thinking outside the square.

''Fundamentally we can't afford to rely on building centres with Ministry of Education funding to relieve the pressure. What [Wall] is putting up is an option. If principals want to support that then we need to look at that.''

The taskforce suggestions are now with a Ministry of Education implementation committee.

- © Fairfax NZ News