Teachers need to know the why when it comes to technology, says award winning educator Paul Fuller who formed Podkids - one of the first school podcasting websites in Australia.
Fuller recently won a National Excellence in Teaching Award for his work on emerging technology with teachers at Orange Grove Primary School in Western Australia and the wider community.
“I think teachers need to understand the why first, why they’re doing something, if they think this is going to help kids they’ll go to the ends of the Earth because it’s important for kids’ futures. Teachers are naturally motivated people,” the primary teacher says.
The tech whiz has helped teachers learn the skills students will need in the future and has held one on one training sessions to find out what the educators themselves wanted to learn - covering questions from how to transfer digital camera images onto a computer to the benefits of movie making software in the classroom.
“A lot of professional development is focused on what to do, how to do it, rather than why you do it. So teachers go to courses and they get all this ‘how’ shoved down their throat but they then go back to school and don’t implement it because it hasn’t resonated with them personally.”
Thanks to Podkids, primary students can upload their work online for a global audience. The site has prompted interest from other teachers in England, Singapore and Japan who visited Orange Grove Primary School to see it in action. “Even though we were staying in the classroom the kids and I were sharing our learning with the outside world,” he says.
Fuller is not opposed to schools jumping on the technology bandwagon with new laptops, iPads and computers, so long as teachers are equipped with the skills to make implementation effective. “Technology magnifies, it amplifies, so if you’re a good teacher using technology the technology with amplify your effectiveness, but if you’re a poor teacher using technology is going to be a distraction and it could magnify your ineffectiveness.”
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