After 20 years of teaching, I was good at what I did. I was part of the senior leadership team and had “crossed the threshold”. Yet the persistent thorn in my side was technology.
I attended university in the late-1980s when computers were a rarity, so they were something I learned to use on the job. I quickly developed a love-hate relationship with technology and my husband soon discovered that suggesting a hi-tech “easier” or “more efficient” way to do something was not a good idea.
Computers made my work life both more streamlined (goodbye, Banda machines; hello, beautifully presented worksheets) and more stressful (no, I didn’t have a back-up and no, I can’t make the data look any better in Excel).
I recall going home in tears in my second year of teaching after my headteacher put a new Apple Mac Performa 6200 in my classroom and expected me to use it with my pupils. I couldn’t even find the off switch. Years later, the arrival of an interactive whiteboard in my classroom, courtesy of the Tesco Computers for Schools scheme, had me wanting to throw my laptop out of the window as I struggled to get it orientated. I cursed the inappropriately named Easiteach software that powered it.
My scepticism and fear of technology spilled over into my personal life, too: I wouldn’t entertain the idea of online banking and thought social media should be avoided at all costs. I even resisted getting a mobile phone until 2011 and I’m still not very good at checking it.
Start small. Take risks. Go for marginal gains
So how on earth does someone with such a technophobic attitude find themselves winning an all-expenses-paid trip to Chicago, courtesy of an education tech company, for her “innovative use of technology in the classroom”? The short answer is because I took on the role of computing subject leader, which no one else wanted, and was driven to seek some professional development in my quest to do the job as well as possible.
I am a perfectionist: I like life to be orderly, tidy and timely. But children (and computers) are not like this. Once I stopped haranguing myself for not being perfect and started to give myself permission to make mistakes or to get things only near-perfect, I realised I was actually achieving more. And then I realised that what was even more powerful was making those mistakes in front of the children and talking them through the problem-solving process.
Surround yourself with positive people
I discovered the power of “Twitter chats”, although only because someone suggested using TweetDeck and my husband was on hand to explain the acronyms and what was happening.
Through this personal learning network, I have found that I am not alone in struggling to lead a subject that many teachers shy away from, and I have gleaned valuable strategies for supporting less confident colleagues. Taking risks and reaping the rewards spurred me on to take bigger risks, and my confidence grew as one success led to another.
I have delighted myself by achieving Apple Teacher status, a professional learning programme that celebrates educators using Apple products, through free online training. I have become a Computing at School (CAS) Master Teacher, largely as a result of my enthusiasm for learning, rather than any particular expertise, and the CAS network continues to provide superb support for my professional development.
I’m still not on Facebook and have yet to be convinced of its worth, but I am open to the fact that this may change. I have also started a code club using great free online resources, and here I see the wonder of what is known as “computational thinking” develop before my eyes. In this informal setting, I learn more from the children than they do from me.
If at first you don’t succeed, try again
As my own learning journey gathers momentum, I am not ashamed to say that I need to have the same concept explained more than once and in a variety of different ways before I really understand it (thank goodness for online videos that can be replayed at will). So I genuinely appreciate when others need more than one explanation of something new.
I have always strived to foster independence in learners, whatever their age. In my Reception classroom I don’t jump in and rescue children who are struggling to put their socks on, so why do I feel the need to jump in and rescue them when technology goes wrong?
Just as me putting their socks on for them is not going to help children learn to do it for themselves, so I am not doing them any favours if I sort out the bugs in their code or abandon a lesson because the technology is not working as I want it to. I am now confident enough to say to children and colleagues: “I don’t know how to do that yet, but I’d like to find out.” As we all begin to adopt this attitude in school, great progress is being made.
“Start by doing what is necessary, then what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” St Francis of Assisi
When I reflect on my journey from technophobe to digital pioneer, it really does sometimes feel as though I am achieving the impossible, and the impact of this change is far-reaching. Technology remains a source of frustration and anxiety in my life, but this is tempered by my determination to be the best teacher I can and by my resilience in the face of failure.
We don’t just need to instil a sense of self-belief, resilience and determination in our children, we need to do it for our teachers, too. Giving teachers the time and space to develop new skills, make mistakes and refine their pedagogical understanding of how technology can transform their practice is one of the many challenges schools face, but when it’s achieved I can vouch for the fact that the rewards are phenomenal.
Rachael Coultart is computing subject lead at St Nicholas School in Hertfordshire and tweets at @rcoultart
