The world of education technology has never moved faster, nor been more exciting. From digital exercise books and online collaboration spaces, to virtual reality and the infinite possibilities for research offered by the internet, learning has been transformed.
Across education, the surface pen has replaced the real pen. Even lined paper is digital. Exercise books and folders are replaced with ‘One Note’ or ‘Google Classroom’. The old fashioned piece of sugar paper, over which pupils huddled for group work, has been replaced by an online ‘collaboration space’. The blackboard, which became a whiteboard, is now a smartboard, onto which pupils can project their work.
And these changes affect physical spaces too. Across the sector, more forward thinking educators are moving away from the traditional classroom layout. Schools are creating more flexible classroom spaces without the desk, board and teacher model, where pupils can work on new ideas together, moving much more freely around the space and using walls as writing surfaces. Of course, the nature of the ‘fabric’ of most schools means that this sort of change is piecemeal, but it is an interesting and exciting development. Making learning more collaborative, creative and digitally orientated will help the next generation make the transition from the educational setting to the work setting.
Some changes cost very little. Our own Religious Studies department now has temporary displays created using adhesive white board paper. Pupils can pose questions to each other by writing on the classroom or corridor walls. It feels like some giant exercise in the more constructive use of graffiti.
The way pupils do ‘reading’ has also changed. A ‘text’ is no longer a collection of words on a page. In terms of linguistics, a ‘text’ can be any of the following: a documentary, a billboard advertisement, a podcast or, of course, a good old fashioned periodical or book. When we set further reading now, the pupil is as likely to be directed to a podcast or an online literary resource bank as they are to the Library. There is a treasure trove of material that appeals to every learning style at the click of a mouse; you could argue we have entered a golden age in terms of the material available to this generation.
Where is this all leading, you may ask. Are we done with pen and paper? Are we done with physical books? Will we lose the ability or need to handwrite over time? How are these changes affecting the next generation’s literacy? Does it matter?
At Sherborne Girls, we have been considering these questions very carefully. Our observations of the impact of lockdown taught us to be wary of the pace of change. Firstly, we noted a particular decline in handwriting standards over the pandemic as all learning went digital on Microsoft Teams. Secondly, both pre and post lockdown, we observed a worsening trend in concentration and a negative trend in pupils’ ability to process long or complex texts. Although alarming, all these trends made sense to us. In the same way that one loses one’s fluency in a second language without practice, one can lose one’s ability to handwrite or read complex material.
This is why we have developed a hybrid approach to the use of technology in the classroom. On return from the pandemic, we did something we never thought possible: we reintroduced the exercise book. Initially, we took this step to ‘fix’ the handwriting problem, given that we knew public examinations were likely to remain in their current form. But in the process, we re-discovered the beauty of the written word and the creativity, spontaneity and satisfaction it can engender. Our pupils took pride in their notes again. Complex, creative mind maps, and the colouring, highlighting and underlining of notes became a source of pleasure. Many pupils realised that they wrote better essays by hand because they had to plan carefully and be succinct – once they started writing, they were committed to the ideas to the page.
We have made other changes too. We re-introduced reading lessons once a week for our Year 9 pupils (alongside Year 7 and 8) where the pupils had to re-learn the art of reading in silence, independently. We brought back paper anthologies of poetry, so that pupils could annotate by hand. We continue our research, working in teams across departments to explore ways to help pupils unpack tougher, more complex texts.
But this is not just about the old versus the new or how much we should use ‘tech’ in the classroom. There is also an intrinsic beauty and authenticity about what we create by hand. Steve Jobs did a wonderful job at Apple with his fonts (inspired of course by his love of calligraphy) but, in my mind, nothing can beat the handwritten letter or the hand-drawn card. We know this instinctively as adults and parents. In our experience, the majority of girls make better notes, write better essays and take more pride in their work when they write. There is something magic about pen and paper, just as there is something magic about a sketch or a painting that no technology can touch for me.
Technology has its place. It has opened up the most incredible avenues for me in my teaching. But please, let us never abandon the printed and written word. The physical and the digital are not separate realms, but one.
Louise Troup, Head of English and Assistant Head (Pupils Aspiration & Wellbeing)
