Technology is a Tool not a Learning Outcome

This blog can't be the only one in the blogosphere without this smart poster and reflection. The thing is that although I agree with the premises on the most part I still feel there's something misssing in between.

 The idea behind the poster is clear and most techy teachers, the ones that actually use Communication & Information Technologies in the classroom (yet also to be used everywhere else) will agree with that. But we can't forget that a tool, any tool, has to be taught how to use it, that's the techy part. Our students are supossed to end their academic life mastering the most commonly used tools and why not, gadgets as a medium to reach other learning outcomes.

 I teach mostly adults, students from 17-50 or more, but it happens the same every single school year, they do not know how to make a collage or a glogster, or a presentation, and I'm not talking about prezis. I have to teach them the basics, upload, download, embed, fonts and I'm an EFL teacher and they usually complain about having to visit and register on so many websites. As the author of the poster says in his blog kids aren't motivated by technology. Students in general I would say, but all of them need to know how to proceed first or at the time of the objective setting.

When I ask my students to make a wordle about Halloween, for example, I'm actually telling them ther's another way to learn cultural related vocabulary and that they can do it in a beautiful way and then share with others, So it's not about the wordle that I'm worried but about their acquiring more vocab in the first place and the sharing and also the ICT skills they are supposed to manage effectively by the end of their training.

Not long ago a Spanish colleague wrote a very interesting blogpost and I couldn't agree more. It's about that globally accepted fallacy that our students (or the younger generation) are digital natives. At least in Spain the bare truth is that they spend longish hours on tuenti ( the most popular social web here) or texting but that does not make them digitally competent or does it? 

In fact, according to the recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union 1 December, 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning  Digital Competence involves the confident and critical use of IST (Information Society Technology) for work, leisure and communication. It is underpinned by basic skills in ICT: the use of computers to retrieve, assess, store, produce, present and exchange information, and to communicate and participate in collaborative networks via the Internet.

What follows now it's a translation from the aforementioned blogpost:

Since 2006, teachers have been required by the Organic Law 2/2006 to develop the digital competence in the classroom. But how? The howto was not developed (as those who write the laws have the foggiest idea, or are pretending we live in Finland!). So, in the end everybody tries to dodge the issue.

In Spain, the Organic Act on Education 2/2006 (LOE) included, for the first time, the term ‘basic competence’ in the education regulations establishing that the ‘curriculum is understood as the set of objectives, basic competences, 

contents, pedagogic methods and assessment criteria’. The State regulations developed by the LOE setting the common core curriculum for compulsory education for the whole State have defined eight basic competences and have 

described how each area or subject contributes to the development of these basic competences. Specific strategies for mother tongue (reading), foreign languages, science, digital competence and sense of Initiative and entrepreneurship 

have also been put in place.

There's national and European legislation regarding ICT skills curriculum  integration but there's something missing in the picture. Guess what?