Technology enhenced teaching is very common in European schools – especially in Highschools.
Many students (or learners) use their own equipment for their learning.
The use of technology in teaching increased continuously during the last ten years. Smirnova (2008) mentions advanced skills of students in the fields of electronic learning. Distance learning uses modern information and communication technology as well as onsite teaching. While technology in distance learning is widely discussed, researched and documented, the classical onsite teaching is following classic trails with ex-cathedra teaching, typical lectures, for example at universities and high schools, and extensively used technology.
Use of technology
In Europe, most of the students own their own computer equipment in form of multiple devices. These are computers, laptops, notebooks, tablets, smartphones or similar devices that can be used in class (in 2013 the average use was approximately 60% following Blamire et. alt, 2013). What is missing are specific ideas for teaching in groups or classes in which all students in an onsite setting are equipped with those multiple devices and use (or want to use) them for their learning. Teachers need various concepts for efficiently and successfully teaching in these environments. The specific education of teachers using technology enhanced teaching is at an insufficient level in Europe (European Schoolnet, 2013).
Difference between “technology enhanced teaching” and “technology enhanced learning”
The difference is the point of view: teaching also has the viewpont of the teacher, while learning addresses the learners (pupils, students, adult learners).
While Google offers approximately 23 million of search results to the keywords “technology enhanced learning”, the term “technology enhanced teaching” is found only 23.000 times. Most of the found sources refer to “teaching using a course management system” (University of Illinois 2015), to instruct teachers to use ICT in their teaching (Figg et alt, 2015; EUN MENTEP project 2015), game based teaching or similar activities.
The use of multiple devices must be taught before the practical use in class. It is particular important to know that the students do not learn basic skills during the practical use of the devices (Leask, 2014). They have to be well educated in using the devices before they start the technology enhanced teaching process. In this sense, further research should be undertaken to find out which knowledge and skills are necessary for technology enhanced teaching. Appropriate training must be developed and tested to support the students with the necessary abilities. In this case, different considerations must be done depending on the taught subject, because there may be a difference in teaching chemistry or languages.
References
Smirnova, Ludmila (2008): Technology Enhanced Teaching and Learning for Student (and Teacher) Success. In Faculty Resource Network New York University, checked on 4/22/2016.
Blamire, Roger; Wastiau, Patricia; Pagano, Michela (2013): One laptop per child in Europe: how near are we? In European Schoolnet: Observatory (2), pp. 1–4. Available online at http://www.eun.org/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=56f0b01a-844e-479c-994a-419bf2333ded&groupId=43887, checked on 9/10/2016.
European Schoolnet (2013): Survey of Schools: ICT in Education. BENCHMARKING ACCESS, USE AND ATTITUDES TO TECHNOLOGY IN EUROPE’S SCHOOLS. European Commission. Available online at https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/sites/digital-agenda/files/KK-31-13-401-EN-N.pdf, checked on 9/11/2016.
University of Illinois (2015): Certificate in Technology-Enhanced Teaching. Edited by Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. University of Illinois. Available online at http://cte.illinois.edu/programs/teach_cert/techenh.html, checked on 8/22/2016.
EUN (2015): MENtoring Technology-Enhanced Pedagogy. EUN. Available online at http://mentep.eun.org/home, checked on 9/10/2016.
Leask, Marilyn; Pachler, Norbert (2014): Learning to teach using ICT in the secondary school. A companion to school experience. 3rd edition. Lonon, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.