E-learning interview

Kids are really capable

Looking to challenge your students when they use computers? WAYNE ERB talks to a man with plenty of great examples

A young man confronted Dr Gary Stager in an American prison for teenagers where he was running an educational programme.

“He said ‘I want to do something hard, something no-one has done before’,” says Gary. The programme was gaining a positive reputation among the inmates, many of whom had learning difficulties.

Gary gave the teenager an opportunity and he took it, making a record player from building blocks and a robotics kit. He examined the record grooves with a microscope, programmed his creation and designed the best gear ratio to make it rotate at the right speed.

“Kids are really capable and willing to engage in serious work if given the opportunity to do so,” says Gary during his keynote presentation at ULearn. “We can make things that we never thought possible before.”

Gary has worked around the world as a consultant on educational computing. He is director of The Constructivist Consortium, a group that promotes a learner-centred approach to using ICT.

He recalls his own feelings of empowerment as a child when his teacher brought computers into the classroom. This was the 1970s and if you wanted a computer to do something you had to program it. The young Gary proceeded to do just that.

“For the first time I felt intellectually powerful in Mr Jones’ class, because I had got the computer to do something it hadn’t done before. I felt accomplished.”

He says e-learning works well when teachers provide appropriate materials, enough time to complete an activity, and a supportive culture.

His presentation covered 10 things students can do with a laptop and his examples, all being done in schools, range from writing a novel to building a killer robot.

Gary tells Education Gazette there has been 30 years of discussion about how to support teachers to use ICT.

“I think there needs to be a clear expectation for teachers to get to grips with modernity, but I also think they need the resources and freedom to explore and innovate.”

He says computers can “give agency” at three levels of education – to the system as a tool to monitor performance, to teachers themselves, and at what he sees as the most important level. “The third option is giving agency to the learner and the examples I share are consistent with this view.”

In fact, he says to teachers at almost every presentation: “Less us, more them.”

And while Gary says he could not live without the internet, many of the successful uses of ICT he observes do not require it. There are plenty of great things teachers can do with the technology they have now.

Those opportunities are broader, from a curriculum perspective, than a lot of teachers appreciate.

“Using the computer as a lab or art studio or writing platform can open up all sorts of opportunities,” he says.

Most best practice in educational computing is within the fields of literacy and languages, he says, but there is potential for more e-learning in science, technology, maths and the arts.

“There are these whole vast worlds of knowledge and domains to explore.”

He says if we want students to be great learners, they should be surrounded by other great learners – teachers themselves, who need to apply a willingness to learn about new technologies.