Yes, yes, I know that teachers are a sociable bunch, always giving time to others, always there, following a vocation, yada yada yada. But when it comes to the crunch, what you actually do in your lesson, and in your classroom, you suddenly become the monarch of all you survey.

I'm not saying this in any sort of blaming way, just stating what I see as a fact. I was exactly the same when I was a teacher, although mainly in a metaphorical sense. I actually had my door open most of the time, and liked to encourage an ethos in which members of my team -- and anyone else, for that matter -- could wander in and out as they pleased.

My reasoning was as follows: Being insular is all very well, but ideas don't get exchanged like that. What I hoped to achieve, in my own small way, was a cross-fertilisation of ideas. And it worked. When I first adopted the technique, I was teaching economics. Occasionally, my second-in-command would walk into the classroom, and look for some books or papers and then stop to listen to what I was saying, and then say, to nobody in particular, "If you believe that, you'll believe anything!"

Sometimes, this was prearranged. If you're interested in getting students to question things, I can thoroughly recommend it as a technique. Their first reaction is one of stunned silence. They simply cannot understand (a) how one teacher could openly question what another teacher was saying, and (b) how their teacher could possibly be telling them something that isn't true.

Then they start to move beyond that, if you play it properly. When they say, as they inevitably will, "Well who's right then?", the correct response is something along the lines of "Well, why don't you look into it, and then you tell me?"

Later, I adopted the same approach with information technology. Now and then the Principal would walk into my lesson and walk around, and sometimes he would say to a pupil something like "So why should we use computers then?"

Bear in mind that students' learnt response to any question by a teacher is to say, not what they believe to be the truth, or even what they can palpably see to be the truth. Their response is to say what they believe the teacher or examiner will regard as the correct answer.

Thus, the response to a question like, "Why should we use computers" is always "Because they are more efficient."

Try it. You will find that I am right. Never mind that they may have only that day been sent a letter telling them that if they didn't return the library book they returned 3 months ago they would be arrested on a charge of grand larceny. Never mind that their grandmother has just received a final demand sent to her deceased husband. Never mind that, if you live in England, the headlines that morning are more likely than not to be that some idiot has lost yet another laptop containing the names of 15 million people's bank accounts. Computers, they will tell you, are "more efficient".

"More efficient than what?", one is tempted to enquire.

Going back to my scenario, the Principal walks in, walks around, and then rounds on some hapless youngster and asks that question. And when the Pavlovian response kicks in, he says: "Oh really? Have you tried telling my bank manager that? His computer accidentally put 20 grand in my account yesterday!"

I could have said that myself, but for some reasons students are much more likely to believe something anecdotal is true if someone other than their teacher has said it. Bottom line: Leaving your door open, to facilitate an easy exchange of ideas, is a great way of broadening your students' horizons, in small but definite ways.

These days, we can actually open doors to the world, not just the corridor. We can get projects going that require students from different parts of the world to collaborate with each other. That's the kind of thing stipulated by NETS:

"Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others."

It's one of the new curriculum's Personal Learning and Thinking Skills in England:

"Young people work confidently with others, adapting to different contexts and taking responsibility for their own part. They listen to and take account of different views. They form collaborative relationships, resolving issues to reach agreed outcomes."

I'm currently conducting a survey about international projects, to find out what the benefits and difficulties are. It's early days, but the results coming in are most encouraging.

For example, MaryFriend Shepard, a professor in the USA, ran a project involving a wiki and declared that the project was a success: "Once students found out the history page showed their participation, collaboration was a hit."

A key issue is making the right choices at the beginning. For example, Kim Cofino, a teacher in Thailand, advises: "Start small, with something achievable and let it grow from there. Find a partner that has close curricular goals - don't try to force a connection that doesn't match with your learning needs."

If you've run a collaborative project, or even been involved in one as a student or teacher, why not add your own insights to the survey? You don't even have to give your name or email address, so you can feel perfectly safe!

You'll find the survey here. I look forward to hearing from you!

Terry Freedman is a U.K.-based education technology consultant and publishes the ICT in Education website at www.ictineducation.org, and the electronic newsletter “Computers in Classrooms."

POSTED ON HOTCHALK.COM

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