In Peques y Más it is a pleasure to bring an interview with Meritxell Viñas, co-founder of TotemGuard, a company that has been working with educational centers in Spain for more than ten years in Technology projects for the ICT classroom and computer network management. In addition, Meritxell writes in the ICT Resources blog dedicated to teachers since 2011. The blog has become a reference in education for the information and advice she shares about the use of new technologies in the classroom. Its objective is, through its well-elaborated and documented articles, to provide solutions to common classroom problems, gather information about ICTs and especially present the reader with original ideas that motivate students to learn and develop their creativity.
The interview aims to bring the readers of the blog closer, mainly parents and teachers, what are ICTs, how are they used in the classroom, what training is required among teachers, what future we expect in education, what politicians do in education and in general how expectations of the use of technology are being managed in the education of children in the classroom and at home.
What specific products for the classroom are sold from Totemguard and what services they allow to build in the classrooms
The two products that TotemGuard markets specific to the ICT classroom are the NetSupport School classroom management and control software and the NetSupport Protect desktop protection software. Basically, the two products are designed so that teachers and students can make the most of the ICT classroom without risks or limitations. More and more teachers rely on multimedia resources to transmit knowledge and students autonomously research, document and even publish their work online. But in practice, the use of technology in the classroom presents teachers with certain difficulties. On the one hand, students are easily distracted, whether with the Internet, games, Facebook, etc. Although schools have a web page filter, students learn to skip it quickly. The teachers are found as police, walking through the halls of the classroom or watching since the end of class.
There are also management problems at the beginning of each class to verify that each student has successfully logged in to their netbook or PC. They must also try to resolve technical failures that sometimes arise. On average, about 10 minutes are lost each day with this type of difficulties, which end up adding hours and especially frustration at the end of the year. Another frequent difficulty lies in finding a way to communicate effectively in the classroom and make students collaborate on projects in groups. Teachers find it difficult to have immediate feedback to know if students follow the lesson, answer questions individually or make the classes more participatory.
Our software solves these problems of management, communication and control of students in the ICT classroom. With its implementation, teachers gain time to teach and are able to offer greater autonomy and motivation in the classroom through multimedia learning with safety guarantees.
What schools are doing with their investments in ICT. How the return on investment is being measured
Schools have mainly invested in wiring and Internet connections, especially wireless, digital whiteboards, computers and more recently digital textbooks, although the offer of the latter category is still low. I fear that the return on investment that has been made in ICTs is not being measured in many cases or the parameters used to measure its success are wrong.
The question would be, has the quality of teaching in the center improved? Has technology allowed us to offer learning experiences that result in a better and faster understanding of the issues? The answer to these questions must be based on concrete, quantifiable and even scientific data and not only on the teacher's personal feelings in the classroom.
These are investments in homogeneous technological resources by type of school: public, concerted, private and geography in Spain
In general, private schools have been investing in technological resources for a longer time and especially experimenting with new educational methodologies to differentiate themselves with this added value. On the other hand, public schools in some Autonomous Communities such as Castilla-La Mancha, La Rioja, Extremadura or Andalusia, accepted the plan of the School 2.0 with which quantitatively speaking they have more resources than the concerted schools. Now, public schools have the least discretionary power to decide which technologies they want to use and how to do it, since they depend on the Ministry. In this regard, the fact that the Autonomous Communities opted for free software due to flexibility and economic cost, but in practice the option to boot with the Linux operating system, which is integrated by default in all Netbooks of School 2.0 stands out , it is rarely used.
Therefore, public administrations have assumed unnecessary expenses by having developed 17 different Linux distributions, one for each Autonomous Community: Linkat, LinEx, Lliurex, Max, Molinux, Asturix, Guadalinex, etc. when teachers do not want or do not know how to handle this operating system.
The arrival of web 2.0 provides a lot of applications that complement the way of teaching and learning in the classroom. What are the tools that you consider most appropriate to enhance creativity in the classroom, collaborative work and learning in a way that relies less on memory and repetition
I believe that success in learning and creativity in the classroom does not depend on the selection of a tool 2.0 or another but on the use made of it. In fact, it is entirely possible for a class without using computer science to learn better concepts of Physics, for example, than a class fully equipped with technological resources. If we use a digital whiteboard simply to project the sheets of a textbook, will there be any difference in the result of understanding the subject matter than if we read directly from the book? I imagine not.
However, if we project a video that makes us discuss in class about the forces involved in the frontal collision between two cars, perhaps the use of this ICT resource has a really positive impact so that they understand Newton's law better. That said, I would point out that multimedia resources seem to attract greater participation in the classroom and therefore should try to be incorporated into the agenda of any subject. The most appropriate tools depend on the age of the students and the subject we teach. But in any case there should always be a blog or classroom wiki where students publish the class work, they reflect on the difficulties and a positive evolution can be observed throughout the course. This practice can also be useful to communicate with other centers, teachers and parents. It is also important to always assess a posteriori in an objective and quantifiable way the results obtained with the use of a technology: have the students been more participatory? Or have you really understood the subject instead of memorizing it?
What trends are perceived in the future of education. In Peques we have commented on the Khan Academy, the school where no one can be the last and we talk about the iPad as an element to enhance education with its applications, books and games.
Just last month I was at BETT, the most important fair on technology applied to education. Logically, tablets, 3D technology, interactive floors, robots and social networks dedicated to education grow in popularity. But the biggest impact on education is arising from a change in methodology, what is called the Inverted Class (the Flipped Classroom in English). A proposal that has been implemented for years by some professors at MIT and Stanford, but has been widely disclosed through the Khan Academy.
In less than 10 years, it will no longer be sustainable for a teacher, to come to class and drop a large paragraph or give notes on a subject, as it appears in a textbook. Students will have great free and interactive resources through the Internet, (for example, now we have online videos of the Khan Academy, MIT, simulations on YouTube, etc.). The student can consult online and independently any topic and learn at their own pace at home. Classes will be transformed into a place where teachers and students meet, explore, experiment and learn with practical activities: build a robot, program new software, design a medical instrument, write a book, play a play, work with other scientists, propose a system to improve water hygiene in Africa, etc. The viability of projects in the classroom will be increasingly extensive thanks to the technological revolution.
This new autonomy acquired to learn will also allow us to be able to continue training all our lives. When it comes to finding a job, they will no longer evaluate us by the results of some exams, but by our creations and direct contributions in real projects.
This concept of “the Inverted Class” will continue to evolve but it is already a reality in some schools in Spain.
How is the level of teacher training in the use of ICT tools.
It is definitely a real problem for many teachers the lack of computer skills they have to take advantage of ICT resources. Learning to use a tool and, above all, understanding how to take advantage of it within a subject, takes time. Including training in the center's ICT program is essential to achieve its use among teachers. But in many cases adopting intuitive technologies simplifies the learning process and converts teachers more easily with more technophobia.
My advice would be:
- Test any technology before implementing it definitively. Teachers with different levels of information technology should test the new technology to ensure that they are comfortable with its use or identify potential problems when teaching.
- Offer training programs creating events (even if they are virtual) that bring teachers together and can exchange experiences in the use of technologies.
- Introduce the new technologies little by little to allow time for learning and, as far as possible, be the same in all classrooms to simplify their mastery.
At TotemGuard, we dedicate many hours to teacher training in the use of NetSupport School software so that all teachers who wish to make the most of the tic are able to use it freely. Anyway it is a very intuitive program that has been designed by the teachers themselves.
How is the level of training of parents in the use of IT that sometimes instead of preventing we go to the phase of prohibition directly.
I believe that involving parents in the use of technology that is carried out in the center is increasingly important. In my experience, most parents don't see any difference between using Facebook and a platform like Moodle in the classroom, simply out of ignorance. For them, their son is continuously on the Internet and chatting with his classmates. When a technology is not understood, it is usually rejected and an ICT-based curriculum can create family conflicts, if one cannot explain and communicate. It is advisable to conduct ICT training sessions aimed at parents to have their support in the center's technological project and thus fears disappear due to lack of information.
Anyway, the fathers and mothers of today have had to live a true revolution in technology and therefore it is also our responsibility to train even if it is personally uninteresting.
To educate our children in the appropriate use of ICT and especially social networks, we must get involved in them and overcome only this generational barrier.
Tell us a little about the experience of the blog you maintain as well as the page that TotemGuard has on Facebook.
I started writing regularly on the ICT Resources for Teachers blog last July. The initial idea was aimed at communicating with our client teachers as they seemed to have learning problems with the rapid technological change that had occurred in their classrooms: school 2.0, digital whiteboard, social networks, mobility, etc. We were in a unique situation to make ICT resources more accessible to them.
The response has been very positive with a great participation, being 90% of our fans teachers and people related to the field of Education. There are also parents who ask me for resources to educate their children at home, another growing trend.
On Twitter a medical student wrote: "Reading the blog of @totemguard even makes you want to be a teacher." Since the teaching profession is going through a bad time, I am pleased to contribute to making it more attractive.
Explain to us what needs teachers identify and what lessons you learn as a conversation company and that you become service improvements
The most important needs that identify us are the lack of training and reliability in the use of ICT, the lack of security and control in the classroom and the lack of content adapted for each subject. For the Autonomous Communities that opted for the NetSupport School, the Ministry of Education of La Rioja and the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands, we have begun to conduct training sessions directly to teachers from TotemGuard. Initially, these Councils decided to organize these days themselves.
But through social networks we have identified that some public schools require additional training and technical support from us and we are working with teachers who wish to bring more potential to our classroom control and management software.
How do you see the management of education from the Ministry of Spain and from the Autonomous Communities that have competencies.
Education in our country requires a great change in methodology and definition of the teacher's role given the great technological change we are experiencing. In times of change, new ideas and new alternatives are needed as current approaches have become obsolete. But the design of a new educational system must be developed in close collaboration with teachers.
In this sense, politicians have shown a great lack of empathy with educators and are completely disconnected from their needs and concerns.
The evolution towards a new educational model requires politicians to spend hours in classrooms, in teachers' rooms and in the halls of public, concerted and private educational centers. Its objective should be to learn the reality in which educators live and together work constructively to identify what they need, what role technology can play and how their role in the classroom can evolve. No one better than them understands the problem of the classroom and only in this way can new solutions be designed to guarantee success.
And with this final paragraph dedicated to politics and the necessary intervention of the protagonists of the educational process to participate in the reforms, we close this interview. In my opinion Meritxell's responses significantly exceed my expectations and I thank you for the generosity in the responses, the detailed explanations and their level of commitment to education. Thank you very much Meritxell and many successes in your work because that will mean that the education of Spain progresses, improves and generates competitive, productive and judicious students. We recommend that you follow the TotemGuard blog to further expand the experience we have presented in Peques and More.
