Designing the Classroom Curriculum Designing the Classroom Curriculum | Page 163

Lynch, Smith, Howarth
More pedagogic change in 10 years than last 100 years:
Donald Clark at TEDxGlasgow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEJ_ATgrnnY
Khan Academy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-vj6BhQa5w
Perhaps, the largest example of virtual worlds is “Second Life”, a virtual space where you design yourself as
an avatar and explore. SCU has three separate islands set up in “Second Life”, which can be visited by
student to experience how the simulated environment works. To gain an idea of the variety of activities that
can be undertaken by using “Second Life”, in education visit the following site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOFU9oUF2HA. As with other virtual sites teachers have started to
develop wikis and blogs to share and develop the skill-development, problem-solving and practical benefits
that virtual gaming can add to their classrooms. A suggestion is to try a google search for virtual worlds in
education and discover there uses within your specialised area of interest.
"If you look at the life of a student a lot of [them] play on average about 10,000 hours of video games by
the time they are graduating high school. That is almost the same amount of time they are spending in
schools. You can imagine a lot of the time which of the two activities they might feel more engaged in or
more relevant." (Erik Martin 2015 quoted in Polygon (Crecente, 2015)
Technology has the potential, when incorporated into the classroom curriculum in a strategic learning intent
fashion, to radically change the premise of a ‘classroom’ and importantly allow the teacher to deal with each
student as an individual. The SAMR model (Substitution>> Augmentation>> Modification >>
Redefinition) was detailed as a four step approach that teachers can use to best incorporate technology into
their classroom curriculum. Flipped and virtual classrooms, together with TPACK, are insights into this new
technologically based classroom premise. We explore these insights in greater detail in the next chapter by
exploring the concept of ‘learning spaces’.
1. Do you teach a subject or do you teach students?
2. Outline a lesson plan that does not include technology. Then modify the plan so that
some part of the lesson is substituted with technology. See templates for lessons in
Chapter 5.
3. Construct a report to yourself outlining the changes you can make to your teaching
pedagogies as you are confronted with different classes. How might technology be used to
support such changes?
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