Tablet cannot replace book and pen
Learning gains can be made with new technology, but its use in the classroom can also turn out bad. Taking notes with pen and notepad works better than on the computer. And scrolling on the tablet a book does not last as well as on paper.
Picture: Fred van Die
Professor Eliane Segers knows from her own experience: a paper book offers guidance in learning. Storing a year in your memory is just a bit easier if you know that it is in a corner at the top left of the page. It doesn't work like that on a tablet. While scrolling, the words and sentences disappear into a diffuse mass. A change in font size completely changes the page layout. Just browsing to find something back is also not there. “Placing things in space helps with remembering,” says Segers, a specialist in learning, reading and digital technology at Radboud University and the University of Twente. “When you read from a tablet, you scroll often and scrolling is a bad idea. The information becomes fleeting. You don't know where you are and you don't know how much is to come. That is very unpleasant. ”
Book behind glass
So all tablets leave the classroom? Segers certainly does not want to draw that conclusion. “If you plop the text of a book onto a tablet, that's a step back. That's called a book behind glass, but it doesn't have to be that way, there are plenty of opportunities to do it better. ”
If the makers design a digital book well with a handy structure and a workable table of contents, the reader can also find his way without having to leaf through it. Segers also mentions the 'dynamic' use of text and images as an advantage of the tablet. "When a child reads about how the heart works, it helps when difficult terms light up at the same time in a picture of the heart next to it."
An elegant interaction between doing and reading often fails in a book
Segers is experimenting at the University of Twente with pre-vocational secondary education students who directly build the electronic circuits on a computer screen that they read about in the text next to it. Here must be the resistance, there must be the battery. If it is correct, the digital light will illuminate. Such an elegant interaction between doing and reading does not work in a book.
Intuition
“It's not about the technology, it's about the way teachers use it,” says Segers. Their intuition and experience should determine which learning resources enter the classroom and how they are used. Scientific research does offer guidance, because it does not change the way children learn, no matter which gadget is used.
“That is why, for example, a text full of hyperlinks is not necessarily a good idea,” says Segers. In the late XNUMXs there were scientists who argued that associative clicking through in a text would speed up learning. This way of recording information would be in line with the way in which we store information in our brain, which is also a network.
But there are also theories that say that these free association possibilities mainly distract the reader. Lost in hyperspace, that's what it is called. “Little research has been done on children,” says Segers. "But the research out there indicates that texts full of hyperlinks do not benefit learning."
Texts that the reader can click through in the form of a tree structure work better. In such a tree structure, a text starts with a general introduction, after which the reader can make his choices about what to do next. The student decides which line of thought he wants to follow or about which subject he wants to know more, but this is done in a structured way.
Sometimes new teaching aids invite a poor way of processing teaching material
Sometimes the new teaching materials seem to invite a lousy way of processing teaching material. Reading texts that appear simultaneously on the screen, for example, on a tablet or laptop. Segers: “Offering the same information in two ways usually doesn't work. The working memory can become overloaded as a result. ”
But this does not apply to everyone. Research that Segers and Roel van Steensel (Erasmus University) published last year in the book 'Successful reading in education' shows that dyslexic children do benefit from processing texts at their own pace with audiovisual support. And for toddlers it is also fine if the text becomes visible while reading or if the words light up while a text is spoken. “Toddlers usually can't read yet,” says Segers. "But this does create the realization that there is a connection between what they hear and the words on the screen."
Repeat
The new teaching materials can have a positive effect if they invite students to repeat the teaching material more often. The condition is that there is sufficient variety and that children themselves retrieve knowledge from their memory and make new associations.
Segers: "Exercises and games on the computer provide an amount of practice and repetition that a teacher with thirty children in the classroom would otherwise hardly be able to accomplish on her own." Computer games and exercises also provide instant feedback. If you made a mistake, you will be notified immediately. A spelling program works best if incorrectly typed words are removed immediately. Then the student gets the chance to give the correct answer. That these kinds of small, repetitive tests are effective, is shown, for example, in experiments by educational researcher Anna Bosman (Radboud University).
Keywords
Taking notes on paper works better than typing on a keyboard. Research that biologists from the University of California published in the scientific journal Computers & Education shows that students who take notes on the laptop score worse on exams. Students working on a laptop are more likely to type out spoken sentences and words literally. Writing down all those half sentences isn't effective. This tendency is less on paper. Notes are more often made in the form of catchwords, which is beneficial for understanding.
And besides: the laptop is distracting. If students are passionately typing in a full lecture hall, the teacher can safely assume that they are not all busy with the lesson material. Segers has already asked her students and more than half admitted that they were busy with social media during class.
Smartphone
Phones in the classroom? Its use has been banned in French state schools since the beginning of this school year, on the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron. The phone can come along, but it has to be turned off.
A smartphone distracts students and teachers. Even if it is out of sight and only vibrates in a school bag or pocket. Some teachers allow students to do their work with their mobile headphones in their ears. Segers does not understand that. "A headset may help to close you off from noise in the classroom, but it is important that a student learns to concentrate, even if there is some noise from the environment."
92 percent of Dutch teachers experience negative consequences of using social media on smartphones in the classroom
In a report that appeared at the end of last year, Duo Education Research & Advice concluded on the basis of a sample that 92 percent of Dutch teachers in the Netherlands experience negative consequences from the use of social media on their smartphone in the classroom. So hand in that phone and store it in a cupboard or a bag on the wall. The noise problem can be better tackled by the teacher with good classroom management. Where necessary and useful, the phone may appear: for a quiz, for example, and for a lesson about cyberbullying or the reliability of information on the internet.
Addition
Technology backfires when it comes at the expense of traditional ways of learning. Reading aloud on a tablet is not a substitute for reading in class. It can be a nice addition to that. If the teacher just Pick from the Petteflet it is fine if children hear that story again on the computer or on the tablet. Many preschoolers simply love repetition and that repetition is good for learning, especially when they are asked to point out things.
Due to practical objections, students may not experiment in the classroom as much and often as teachers would like. Then an explosion in a virtual laboratory is a great alternative. But the games or digital exercises should not be at the expense of real experiments, in which children get to work themselves and also feel what they are doing.
To feel
There is little to feel on a computer. And offering personal contact is also not the strongest point of the new learning resources. A teacher video is just a talking puppet on the screen.
This is disadvantageous because the interaction between student and teacher promotes learning and only a teacher in front of the class can engage in that interaction. By answering questions, for example, or by asking a question when attention is lost. Segers admits: “In a lecture hall with XNUMX students, you have less interaction anyway. And of course it is only nice if students look back at a lecture later. ”
This article appeared in the Education Magazine of November 2018. Would you like to receive the Education Magazine every month? Become member of the AOb!
