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AN ANALYSI S OF THE BENEFI CI AL USE OF I CT (VI DEO) TO

ENHANCE TEACHI NG AND LEARNI NG I N MTW
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Seamus Lyons
G00282041


Thesis Supervisor: Mr. Anthony Clare
Second Reader: Mr. Kevin Maye
Programme: B. Sc. (Hons) in Design and Technology Education
Module Title: Thesis
Submission Date: 7
th
April 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following people for their support and assistance throughout this thesis:

To my dear wife and family, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your continuous love
and support in helping me to fulfil my inner desire and ambition to become a teacher in the
technical subjects. For this I will be forever grateful. Love, Seamus

To the entire staff affiliated with the B.Sc. (Hons) in Design Technology Education GMIT
Letterfrack, I thank you most sincerely for extracting the best out of me.

To the entire staff associated with the library in GMIT Dublin Road, I thank you for your
assistance and help with all of my academic research, especially my thesis. Keep up the good
work!

My thesis supervisor, Mr. Anthony Clare, I wish to designate special thanks for your tremendous
support in goodwill and your relentless strive for excellence. You have been a much-needed rock
of support during this time.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the following:

The teachers involved in both the survey and for attending the demonstration/presentation on
ICT video especially Mr Eamon Madden.
Principal, Mr. Padraig Kelly, New Inn Vocational School, Galway, for allowing me to use the
facilities in the school to record videos.
Mr. Steven Colgan, for affording me his time to conduct an interview on current issues regarding
ICT training and teaching and its benefits.

Finally I would like to thank you the reader for taking time out to read this piece of research,
your imput is deeply appreciated.

AUTHOR

I the author, Seamus Lyons believe this short descriptive personal profile has value related to this
thesis and therefore I wish to familiarise the reader with the following:

I was born on a small farm in south Roscommon, where I enjoyed my upbringing as the last
child in a family of seven. I attended St Grellans National School in Ballinasloe, Co.Galway and
subsequently attended St Michaels Vocational School, Ballinasloe. Here I developed a keen love
and appreciation for the technical subjects Materials Technology Wood; Materials Technology
Metal and Technical Drawing. I achieved excellent grades in all three subjects in the Leaving
Cert in 1997.

In the summer of 1997 I secured a job working with a Carpenter. By the end of the summer I
decided to defer college (Polymer Engineering in Athlone ITC) in order to pursue a career as an
apprentice Carpenter which I enjoyed immensely. During the 14 years that followed I continued
to gain a vast amount of experience in carpentry and joinery of every description. I also
continued to educate myself, starting with my National Craft Certificate in Carpentry and Joinery
with merit; I followed that with another award from FETAC in Building Construction and I also
achieved a Building Energy Rating Assessor Certificate (BER assessor). I also enjoyed coaching
children and young adults of rugby and athletics during this time.
In 2011, I followed the path, of which I can only explain to be natural progression and return to
full-time college to pursue a lifelong ambition of becoming a teacher of the technical subjects.

Throughout my education and career path as mentioned above, I had little or no dealing with ICT
in any formal or professional capacity. September 2011, at 33 years young, I returned to full-time
education in GMIT Letterfrack. For the first time, I was now required to use ICT on a regular
basis for educational purposes. The BSc (Hons) in Design and Technology Education course
demanded that I become an expert in software; Microsoft Advanced Word editing, Microsoft
Excel, PowerPoint, PowerPoint Animation, CAD and Solid Works and the hardware of; PCs,
Laptops, Graphic Visualizers, Data Projectors and Webcams.
As the old saying goes; is it possible to teach an old dog (me), new tricks (I CT).
ABSTRACT

In December 2
nd
2013, The Minister for Research and Innovation, Sean Sherlock, together with
Pat Rabbitte, Minister for Communications and Ruairi Quinn, Minister for Education welcomed
the launch of the public consultation phase in developing the new digital strategy for schools.
The development of a digital strategy for schools affords us the opportunity for further consideration of
the use of ICT in the teaching of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects
(Skills, 2013). Minister Quinn commented on the new strategy:
The potential for using technology in the classroom is huge but we need to be asking ourselves
important policy questions like what is the actual benefit we expect from using technology in schools
(Campbell, 2014).
Through secondary research, this thesis identified that there are vast benefits when using ICT
video to enhance teaching and learning. This is accomplished by exploring and critically
assessing the theories and styles associated with teaching and learning. This research identified
methods in which learning through ICT video can be enhanced and tailor made to suit individual
lessons or the individual learner.

Primary research in the thesis takes the form of surveying practicing teachers. This identified: the
willingness of existing teachers to up-skill their ICT video knowledge, the existing equipment in
MTW classrooms is sufficient, the software is free, and the only missing link in the chain is
training. This research was reiterated by further primary research in the form of an interview
with one of the countrys leading ICT in-service providers associated with PDST, Mr. Steven
Colgan. When asked; is there an appetite for a teachers resource pack in how to download, edit
and make videos?, the reply was definitely, it would be very popular among teachers.

Also addressed is the need for a teacher resource pack to enable the incorporation of ICT video
into the MTW classroom, to enhance teaching and learning. It furthermore addresses the need for
change associated with the new digital strategy for schools and assists with the teachers
responsibilities associated with CPD.

This thesis also recommends that all those in the teaching profession can embrace the power of
ICT video for the enhancement of teaching and learning in the classroom.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS


From the outset of this thesis I wanted to discuss the advantages of using ICT video in MTW to
enhance learning from a pedagogical viewpoint of learning theories and learning style. The
initial literary review investigating the learning theories and styles sets the foundations for this
thesis by directly linking the use of ICT video to enhance teaching and learning in MTW to
various learning theories.

The analysis of the study highlights that ICT video can be used to facilitate multiple learning
styles. ICT video can demonstrate visual, auditory, reading and writing and kineasthetic styles of
learning all in one package whereby producing a looped video on a certain topic will touch on
each of these individual learning styles.

ICT video can lend itself to The Cognitive Approach, building on previous knowledge in the
form of scaffolding or spiraling back to previous knowledge in order to build on and advance.
ICT video can accumulate to an archive of videos on topics associated with the subject, where
students have access to this material at any time.

ICT video can encourage positive reinforcement of best practice skills during loop videos of
particular skills thus linking to The Behavioral approaches. As outlined before I believe practice
does not make perfect, on the contrary best practice makes perfect.

ITC video can play an important role in revolutionising homework, perhaps flipping learning.
For example, video could be viewed at home as part of homework or pre-work, this learning
would take place prior to or after a lesson and therefore it would be considered self-directed
learning at home rather than in school i.e. flipping the learning.

Subsequent to this review on learning theories and styles, I investigated how ICT video can be
used to enhance teaching and learning. Highlighting some interesting points in this area, ICT
video can be used to great effect when teaching mixed ability and disability pupils within the
classroom. It allows the teacher to present a video to the cohort of students demonstrating best
practice in a particular skill, thus freeing up precious time to facilitate learners at both ends of the
ability spectrum. This I believe would be invaluable within MTW classroom.

Furthermore in the area of ICT in teaching and learning it has been discovered that ICT is seen
on a global stage to increase competition and facilitate demands for young people to acquire ICT
knowledge to contribute to the smarter economy. The government recognises the importance of
ICT as we move towards a more sustainable and smarter economy both nationally and
internationally. They reacted to this by announcing (according to the Sunday business Post and
editor Ian Campbell) the ICT integration into schools revolution is beginning with new digital
strategies for schools, integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into
teaching and learning in schools remains a major priority for this government according to the
Department of Education and Skills. Furthermore Campbell reveals that rapid advancements in
technology and increased global competition, is making learning more critical than ever.
According to Campbell, Ruairi Quinn, Minister for Education sees Smart Schools equalling a
Smart Economy. He believes our challenge now is to ensure that every child in every school has
some opportunities to engage with technology across all aspects of the curriculum (Campbell,
2014).

The opportunity for up-skilling exists through Professional Development Services for Teachers
(PDST). These services are available throughout the country, and as outlined, courses can also be
adapted to whole school staff training.

In reaction to the above findings, I conducted primary research in the form of interviews to
establish how much ICT is currently being used in MTW classroom. It revealed ICT video is not
being used in MTW to enhance teaching and learning. On further investigation through
surveying, I discovered the classrooms and schools are well equipped with adequate software to
enable ICT video to be viewed. Furthermore it was revealed that the appetite and desire amongst
new and existing teachers to up-skilling in the area of ICT is very strong. The missing link of the
puzzle is that there is inadequate amount of training for existing teachers to up-skill in ICT.

This is where my thesis embarked on a fundamental shift to address the need for a resource pack
to develop ICT skills in video where teachers themselves can use ICT video technology to
enhance their teaching. Equipped with this knowledge teachers can now develop their own
individual videos to address the needs of their own pupils topics, or a skill they wish to enhance.

When testing this video tutorial I can reveal in Sample Survey No.2 question 10, that 100% of
those surveyed would consider making videos to enhance learning in their classrooms. The
response given by the teachers after the video tutorial was that they found tasks such as video
downloading, editing and making that they could not do before, were now easy.

This Thesis has brought me on a journey to formulating hypotheses to a problem; insufficient use
of ICT video to enhance teaching and learning. I investigated the need for ICT video that
contributes to the different pedagogical learning theories and styles that exists in individual
learners. I then proposed the solution whereby tutorial videos will assist teachers to develop their
use of ICT video to enhance learning in their classrooms while catering for their own individual
scenarios of learning style and pedagogical theories in the MTW classroom. Finally having
tested the tutorial videos I concluded that they have been positively received by teachers in the
hope that they themselves will begin to implement ICT video in the MTW classroom to enhance
teaching and learning.

The scope for this topic of ICT video is enormous and the need for further studies is essential.
MTW teachers in the future should embrace ICT video and integrate it where possible. Existing
MTW teachers have shown the appetite and desire to integrate ICT video into the classroom. It
has been indicated in this thesis that the abundance of equipment and software, along with the
willingness that exists amongst teachers to adopt the use of ICT video in the class, can be used to
enhance learning and teaching in MTW.

I recommend further studies should specifically look at the area of training and up-skilling all
teachers in the area of ICT video. Such studies could reveal what is the most effective, least
expensive and a fast-track way in solving the problem of up-skilling new and existing teachers in
this area of ICT video. I would also strongly recommend this integration of ICT video up-skilling
would benefit all teachers teaching all subjects across the entire curriculum and not just in the
area of MTW.

My message to all in the teaching profession is to embrace the power of ICT video in catering for
the enhancement of teaching and learning in the classroom.

Finally I have recognised that I CT (video) can teach old dogs new tricks!