When I read or watch the Harry Potter series of books and movies, I am always drawn to the relationship between Harry and Snape, who used to be his Potions teacher. The snarling Snape never made Harry feel welcome, in fact he was always intimidating and even hostile towards Harry. Harry, never liked Snape and Potions as a result and unsurprisingly, never quite did well in the subject.

Similarly, when many schools try to integrate ICT into the school curriculum, they often face their own version of Snape in the classrooms, and their plans to integrate ICT into the lessons seem to flounder or even sink. This is because they usually find that ICT integration has not taken place as they had wished despite, and perhaps, especially after they have invested so much in ICT hardware. Very often they end up in such a situation because little attention is paid to the true gatekeepers of ICT integration; the teachers.

Teachers are truly the kings and queens of the classroom. They are the ones who can turn the atmospheric barometer in their classes from one that is welcoming and safe to one that is intimidating and unwelcoming. They can be the Snape of ICT integration too or they can help weave their magic to make ICT integration successful. Like Harry Potter, ICT integration, despite its enormous potential, will not have much of a chance of success in Snape’s classroom. It is a well-known fact that successful ICT integration is dependent very much on the ones in charge of the classrooms. For example, according to Roblyer (1993) a teacher’s vision of the use of technology to improve the existing classroom practices will determine the extent and effectiveness of ICT integration in the classroom. Martin (2000) pointed out that developments of useful educational ICT projects will be impaired without the input and acceptance of teachers.

Teachers also are important for the success of any ICT integration program in schools because they represent the most important source of information about the design of lessons and what is to be taught. This implies that a lot more thought must be given to win over and convince the teacher population of any school going towards ICT integration. Teachers must be convinced about the viability of using ICT in their work. The adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is something that many teachers believe in. If they have been happy teaching the same way for many years and getting the results that they seek, it is going to be very difficult to convince them to add the ICT dimension to their teaching practice. This perhaps, is even more true if at the end of the day the teachers know that their students are only going to sit for high stakes written examinations where the students can still do well by teaching them through the usual tried-and-tested methods that does not require use of ICT.

Furthermore, teachers are a group of people who have seen so many new trends and ideas introduced into their professional arena. They have seen these come hurriedly and be forgotten and dumped, just as speedily. Many have taken to a “wait-and-see” approach to most new ideas introduced into teaching. Many of them also see these trends and ideas as things pushed by people who have little knowledge about teaching. These explains their scepticism to change.

This is not to say that teachers are a very negative group of people. Teachers, like most other workers, need to be convinced that new ideas introduced will really benefit them at the work place; their classrooms. Plans for ICT integration will only flounder if this most important group of people are not persuaded and won over to the cause. They can be the Snapes to ICT integration if school administrators do not tread carefully.

Teachers planning to move their teaching and learning online must be aware that it is important for them to equip themselves with certain skills. Besides the ICT literacy that is to be expected of them, what other skills would they need?

In truth, the basic teaching skills that a teacher is supposed to have in brick-and-mortar classroom still applies and perhaps it may be argued that some of them become even more essential. The essential ingredients of what makes a good class and lesson will still remain. Teacher beliefs and values, class management skills, a clear understanding of the learning outcomes, the assessment of the learning, good instructional planning and motivational skills are all still important ingredients of a successful class whether online or otherwise.

However, the manner these skill are put into practice in the online classroom will differ quite considerably. For example, with regards to the need to create a safe learning environment, in a brick-and-mortar classroom, everyone is able to see and talk to each other spontaneously while in an online classroom, this is not the case. Plus the facial gestures and the nuances in the way words are spoken that is so important in everyday communication is replaced with only dry and impersonal text. This is where the well-known emoticons come into play. Other examples of unique online class management skills include for example taking into account the types of online behavioral tendencies of online participants.

Good instructional planning or design becomes even more important in the online classroom. Good instructional planning is required in a brick-and-mortar classroom but in such classrooms, teachers can make spontaneous adaptations to the situation in the classrooms. In an online environment it is not as easy to do so. This can influence considerably the flow of the lesson or instruction.

In short, teachers need to familiarize themselves first with the likely online classroom environment. They must also remember that the online classroom environment can differ according to the kind of learning activity that is to be used. A discussion forum is quite different from a synchronous chat session. The facilitation approach for both would also be quite varied. Drill-and-practice activities require perhaps less class management attention. The best way for teachers to understand the differences between these environments is to perhaps undergo an online class themselves.

In seeking to understand the students’ online experience, the teachers must learn to be online students themselves. The online experience for the teachers does not have to be a class on online learning itself. But it is important that whatever the online course the teacher undergoes, the teacher should consciously note the experience and compare it with their past classoom learning experience. Only then can they craft an online lesson themselves. The crafting of an online lesson goes beyond the technicalities of the online learning platform. More important is the re-shaping of the traditional teaching skills to fit the new environment.

Too often, when we talk about the kind of curriculum we want, we tend to think in terms of the high stakes examinations that the students will be sitting for. This is perhaps quite natural because, high stakes examinations, like the GCE, IGCSE and IB, are usually well-known and perhaps give academic credibility to the students and schools concerned. They also come with fixed curricula which means that the schools would not have to design a curriculum from scratch. That alone is a major factor perhaps because schools choose the road to high stakes examinations because it is a relatively quick way to “excellence”.

Schools in Indonesia have been heading in this direction. As a Jakarta Post report said, the sharp decline in the value of the rupiah have meant that Indonesian parents, who would have otherwise sent their young charges overseas, now prefer sending them to the mushrooming number of international schools in Indonesia. Many of these schools rely on high stakes examinations to give them academic credibility.

However, whether high stakes examinations can actually lead to excellence is open to debate (see here, here and here for examples of the debate over high stakes examinations). I will not be debating the merits or otherwise of high stakes examinations. What is more important perhaps is too see what kind of students our schools today have to produce. I will therefore refer again to the same RAND report that I had quoted in an earlier post. In this same report it said:

“…the skills of the workforce will increasingly be the defining characteristic that determines the extent to which an economy can develop and exploit new technologies and compete in the global marketplace. A highly skilled workforce will be needed to realize and take advantage of change in IT, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. The shift in organizational forms and the nature of employment relationships also favor strong cognitive and entrepreneurial skills. For example, … knowledge workers require high-level cognitive skills for managing, interpreting, validating, transforming, communicating, and acting on information. Valued skills include such non-routine analytic skills as abstract reasoning, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration. Workers with these skills can perform tasks that require higher-skill human action not easily codified into computer software.”

The skills indicated above surely demands that school seriously think (or re-think as the case may be) how the teaching and learning is to take place in the school. The typical high stakes examination curricula that has been adopted by many schools may have worked for an industrial system of the late 19th and 20th century. The 21st century demands a very set of workers and therefore different teaching and learning goals and approaches.

A school that intends to produce the workforce of the 21st century should place a heavy emphasis on understanding. The passing or even the acing of high stakes examinations does not mean that a student has understood what he has learned in school. David Perkins argued that teaching of understanding should be pursued. He said:

“Knowledge and skill in themselves do not guarantee understanding. People can acquire knowledge and routine skills without understanding their basis or when to use them. And, by and large, knowledge and skills that are not understood do students little good! What use can students make of the history or mathematics they have learned unless they have understood it?”

- “Teaching for Understanding” by David Perkins

Perkins has written about the Smart School, his conception of a school that would pursue the need for understanding. The Smart School is guided by seven key principles. These principles are guided or underpinned by two beliefs. The first is that, learning is a consequence of thinking, and good thinking is learnable by all students. Secondly, learning should include deep understanding, which involves the flexible, active use of knowledge. It is because deep understanding “involves the flexible, active use of knowledge” that it becomes vital for school to seriously consider Perkins’ proposal. To be flexible and use knowledge actively is to dive into the unknown as opposed to going back to what is already known. This understanding is so important because it allows for real application and re-assessment of concepts already learned.  It is this flexible and active use of knowledge which is the hallmark of the worker of the 21st century.