Digital devices for quality teaching practices: The necessity for smartphones in learner-centred education

My phone started ringing from 6:31 in the morning, when the Daily Graphic headline, “Allow SHS students to use Mobile phones” [August 23, 2017] hit the newsstands.

The front-page caption must have been derived from media interviews after my keynote address at the fifth quadrennial regional delegates’ conference of the Greater Accra branch of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in Accra.

[It’d have been better had the message been headlined, “Allow students to use smartphones in schools”. The image portrayed by the “Mobile phones” in the caption possibly suggested to some readers the erratic purpose of time wasting texting, unproductive talk, gossip and others].

The uses of technology and smartphones

The engineers of technologies and algorithms have done their jobs and given the rest of us new tools that we can use to great advantage. With the modern devices we can think of an idea to change our world, then put technology into action to change that world for the better. But of course the apprehensions of abuses of technology are in order.

There is hardly anything in the world that cannot be misapplied or misused. Take that much touted virtue – love - for example: how many parents does one not know who have loved their children to death – by spoiling them into dependent slobs. Take food as another example, and consider the epidemic of obesity that is fast becoming life threatening - particularly the obesity of respectable but voracious eaters who should know better than quaff more than a healthy share of food at any opportunity. Does that then suggest that we abandon love and food? By that same token, smartphones should not be thrown with the proverbial bath water.

WhatsApp for example is useful with teachers I trained in the various regions when I send copies of my articles on education. The other benefits of the smartphones include: Voice recorders, dictionaries, calculators, action memos, reminders, downloads, scrapbooks, presentations, etc.

The important thing is for teachers and parents themselves to learn the uses of smart technologies. The fear of the task to upgrade and learn the applications have been corroborated by suggestions of “homosexuality”, “demonic” practices, and all things “suicidal for the country”.

Another lame excuse was that even at board meetings people would be seen not paying attention by fidgeting with the phones. My response is that whether people fidget with their phones or actually doze off at particular meetings, how do these negative practices have to do with the quality teaching and learning found in progressive nations around the world with whom Africa’s youth have to compete? The alarm is rather that these myopic distractions tend to come from the “educated” people we expect to know and do better.

Technological innovations are the order of the day, and perennial reflections of practice are the requirements; but a proportion of our chronic academics are passive resistors blocking the way for the youth to progress. In reality they stumble when confronted with new challenging technology or pretend that the radically new ways of doing things do not exist.

On being misunderstood

Such were the concerns I expressed in interviews from morning till the final discussion with Radio Univers, University of Ghana, Legon, at 7:20 in the evening. In between, my WhatsApp was flooded with messages. It was a busy but very productive day.

A key feedback said, “I was monitoring the paper review segment and most people were not getting your point right.” That was somehow expected from some quarters: I had been misunderstood before when I advocated strongly against corporal punishment of caning and other physical abuses of children in the public and private schools. I also continue to insist that the purpose of the human head - in this day and age - was not for carrying loads.

Both the print media and television houses needed to be praised for having been that sensitive and concerned about issues of quality teaching and learning in classrooms and lecture halls in Ghana. I regret that – as much as I wished – it was impossible to respond to most of the calls for interviews.

The concerns were timely considering that the week before [August 16, 2017] I had expressed similar views regarding the importance of learner-centred teaching in another keynote address, “The environmental factors influencing education: The way forward for private schools”. That was at Wa [Upper East region] for the regional delegates of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS).

Selected feedback

One: “I agree that usage of technology should be allowed to the extent that discipline and the other control mechanism including sanctions are in place. Otherwise we ought to stick with ‘desktops’ in designated space (with monitoring devices) until those structures are in place. Times are changing fast and we should be bold and take advantage of situations like this.”

Two: “Wow, congratulations. On my way to join the free SHS laptop distribution and training to the headmasters and IT teachers in the Ashanti Region …. I agree with the suggestion you have made.”

Three: “My own view dictates that the use of any available means of knowledge acquisition including mobiles / iPads, etc., must be encouraged and used properly for optimum results … As usual, great work, solid bold stand on critical issue. Congratulations and salutations.”

[To be continued]

Email: anishaffar@gmail.com

Blog: www.anishaffar.org