Information and communication technologies
By Rachel Bolstad
It’s winter in New Zealand. Here in Wellington we’ve had a wonderfully crisp and sunny winter except for a few days recently where the city disappeared under a thick grey blanket for a day or two. I think it lends the city a certain air of mystery. Is the city still there? If we can’t see it, how can we be sure? Isn’t it strange when you can only make out little bits and pieces?
Imagine if, when it rolled back, some of the things we knew from before were gone, and some other new things were suddenly visible?
As promised in my previous post, today I'll discuss a few points of interest from the just-published report Digital technologies for learning: Findings from the 2016 NZCER national survey of primary and intermediate schools.
Last year I wrote a blogpost called “games OR learning?”. At the time, I was pondering over some of the data we’d seen coming through in NZCER’s 2015 national survey of secondary schools. One year on, we’ve now got some new national survey data, this time from the 2016 national survey of primary and intermediate schools. I’m sure you have all been waiting patiently to find out what new information we have about the role of digital games in Year 1-8 classrooms!
By Rachel Bolstad
Today NZCER released a report called Digital technologies for learning which presents some findings from the 2016 NZCER national survey of primary and intermediate schools.
This article considers home learning for students whose schools have moved to digital learning environments. In this study we sought to gather perspectives about what sorts of home-learning activities might support school learning given that students have individual digital devices and access to the internet and class websites. Interviews with parents, students, and teachers at decile 1 schools focused on the learning activities that students might engage in at home as well as the role of parents to support their children’s learning. Findings indicated differing perspectives on the relative merit of formal and informal learning activities and whether these should be set by the teacher or taken up by students independently. The role of parents to support learning was agreed on by all participants, however, less clear was what form that support should take. The potential for unintended constraints to learning through mismatches in understandings is discussed.
This article considers home learning for students whose schools have moved to digital learning environments. In this study we sought to gather perspectives about what sorts of home-learning activities might support school learning given that students have individual digital devices and access to the internet and class websites. Interviews with parents, students, and teachers at decile 1 schools focused on the learning activities that students might engage in at home as well as the role of parents to support their children’s learning.
