Impacts of increased ICT use in Business Studies: A reflection on past, present and future!

This blog post will consider the development of my pedagogical practice. It will examine how my teaching has changed since beginning the MTeach program at the start of this year, it will evaluate questions such as:

·      How much ICT was used in my previous lessons?

·      Did ICT make positive and/or negative contributions? and;

·      How will the increased use of ICT change in facilitating content and therefore the development of students in the future?

 

Specifically this post will highlight how my approach to implementing ICT within the Business Studies classroom has changed since beginning my professional practice.

In teaching Year 12 Business Management, Unit 4 requires students to study The Management of Change. Students identify organisational change can come from a wide range of areas to affect the way Large Scale Organisations (LSO’s) are run. Changes are identified as coming from three main environments:

·      Internal (created within the company),

·      Operating (generated often from within the industry, i.e. competitor forces) and;

·      External (from outside the companies influence, of which technological changes are the most prevalent).

During discussions I quickly observed my students were very receptive to discussions based on the use of technology, both within the world of business and within the scope of their learning while at school. Successful teachers will often purposely examine their student’s behaviours, including their language and social interaction. Victorian Institute of Teaching standard 3 states; “Teachers know their students” (VIT 2010). Understanding this key point (along with the remainder of the teaching standards) is crucial to the success of a newly graduated teacher.

During my professional practice I ensured I surveyed my students fields of interests so that I could use this knowledge in order to make meaningful connections when facilitating content.

In a previous post here, I assessed the use of iPads within the business studies classroom. Using the Apple iPad proved to be a significant leap, students were able to construct knowledge through the use of differentiated learning, involving social interaction with peers and trading thoughts regarding the use of the iPad as a suitable learning tool.  As the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) it was very interesting to study the strong links to social constructivist theory, observing the communication and interaction between students.

Indeed the possibility of substituting “tired, old textbooks” (as one student remarked) with that of an app based educational and learning software, is already beginning to take place in schools! Find out more here.  The use of iPads within the schools is a very popular topic in the education sections of newspapers, for another article click here

The use of ICT and the use of learning tools involving ICT within the study design of  Year 12 Business Management lessons is very minimal (if at all!). By implementing the use of the iPad within a lesson, I was able to observe students eagerness to incorporate popular technology within the scope of learning business content. I am optimistic in the future use of iPads as a learning tool, with the development of app based learning software in conjunction with the possibilities of cloud computing.

It is the duty of all teachers to guide their students in the construction of knowledge. In future I will be examining ways in which I can achieve differentiated learning of students with a range of learning styles and intelligences by incorporating ICT as a learning tool.   

References

Apple (2011) iTunes Preview: GCSE Business Studies. Retrieved Oct24th 2011. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gcse-business-studies/id437783373?mt=8

MacNN (2010) Textbook publishers reformatting school books for iPad. Retrieved Oct 24^th 2011. http://www.macnn.com/articles/10/02/02/study.guides.and.test.prep.content.also.considered/

The Age (2011) Schools ponder if an Apple a day keeps ignorance at bay. Retrieved Oct 24^th 2011. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/schools-ponder-if-an-apple-a-day-keeps-ignorance-at-bay-20110730-1i5kr.html

Victorian Institue of Teaching (2010) Professional standards. Retrieved Oct 24^th 2011. http://www.vit.vic.edu.au/standardsandlearning/Pages/professional-standards.aspx

Wikipedia (2011) Clous Computing. Last modified on 23 October 2011 at 23:27. Retrieved Oct 24^th 2011.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing