Is Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) a driving force for basic literacy learning?

Information and Communication Technologies

Why use information and communication technologies in literacy classes? Because IT is useful in everyday life because you have to get up to date? 

Yes, but not only. Well used and integrated into a process of expression and questioning of the learner on the role of the media and their challenges, information and communication technologies are an important factor of motivation and empowerment. Reading and Writing Brussels tells us about its long experience of ten years on these questions.

For many years, Lire et Write Brussels has been aware of the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), of the computerization of society, and of its impact on the illiterate public. The fight against the digital divide was thus included among the five main priorities of the Brussels Plan for Literacy (PBA) of 2002 and is still the subject of specific European funding from the European Social Fund (ESF).

The development of new Information technologies, web 2.0, and the mobile Internet is leading to the increasing computerization of society. This evolution changes our relationship to knowledge, time, and space as well as our relationship to others, to institutions, and to society in general. Via social networks, blogs, Wikipedia, Youtube, podcasting, ..., information is now produced and exchanged at an unprecedented power and seems accessible to everyone, from their living room, their classroom, or on the train. Even college courses are now available online Information! No need to go to the bank anymore, most of the transactions are done online. A series of administrative procedures also. But if everything now seems to us "just a click away" and "in real-time", this computerization of society often has the consequence of reinforcing the exclusion of people with reading and writing difficulties. In fact, in addition to these latter difficulties, there is the barrier represented by Information technology.

Far from our first introductions to computers alongside literacy courses, we now consider information and communication technologies as a support in the service of a group project focused on learning the spoken and written language. Rather than a technical approach - making information and communication technologies to make information and communication technologies - the latter is now part of the groups as one tool among others, except that they have tremendous potential for collaborative work. and enhancing the learning outcomes of learners.

In addition, our approach to information and communication technologies is firmly rooted in a perspective of lifelong education. Indeed, whether through the promotion and preferential use of free software, both in terms of our training and the daily work of staff, or through its approach to multimedia Information with groups of learners, it is important to Acts for Lire et Write Brussels to make users aware that IT is not socially neutral but is based on economic, social and cultural choices that must be able to understand.

It is as an educational tool in the service of language learning that we will address here the use of

Information and Communication Technologies in literacy training by asking more specifically about their potential to motivate participants and empower them.

Does ICT have an impact on motivation to learn?

Many factors (self-image, value attributed to the activity, feeling of having control over it, etc.) influence motivation to learn. Experimental work, including that of Rolland Viau, made it possible to identify pedagogical practices that promote the involvement of students in a learning situation. We believe that these findings can be transferred, at least in part, to adult learners. At present, according to this author, it thus appears that it is less the real capacities of the pupil than those which he believes to have which will make so that he learns and that he will be motivated to do it. In other words, if the student feels he has skills (and even if “objectively” this is not the case), he will be more motivated to continue his learning.

Moreover, according to research carried out at Stanford University in California, it would seem that it is rather class-specific perceptions that are the most important sources of motivation.

Three of these perceptions have also been the subject of intense research in recent years:

1. a pupil's perception of the value of an activity, that is, the importance, usefulness, and interest that he has in the task at hand. Beyond the sanction - reward or punishment - that he can obtain by accomplishing a task (a theory dear to the supporters of behaviorist approaches ), it is rather the perspectives and possibilities that it offers over time that motivate us to learn. ;

2. the perception of his competence to accomplish an activity: when faced with an activity to be carried out, the pupil will tend to evaluate his capacities to accomplish it adequately. Work on this subject has shown that pupils who think they are capable of accomplishing the proposed task use more elaborate learning strategies than simple memorization, for example by having recourse to self-evaluation;

3. his perception of the control he exercises over this activity. This perception is that of the control that the student believes he exercises over the course and consequences of a learning activity. The more the student feels at ease in the subject, the more he will be able to approach the subject in-depth, create links between the different parts and identify the structure.

If we refer to these three criteria, can we consider that information and communication technologies will support the learning of French in a literacy context and above all clarify the perception that learners have of the task at hand? To answer this question, let's take different examples from our practice.

In Reading and Writing Brussels, the participants in learning the written language work mainly based on personal texts, constructed by themselves according to the Natural Method of Reading and Writing (MNLE) inspired by the Freinet pedagogy or according to the ECLER method. The use of the computer makes it possible to rework their own texts to consolidate the spelling, work on the structure of sentences or even improve reading by offering a different medium from the paper sheet used initially.

A common activity in information and communication technologies workshops is learning to send emails. Our public, largely from immigrant backgrounds, sees it as a practical and free way to communicate with their family (perception of the value of an activity). To introduce this activity, the trainer first all questions the different existing means of communication and starts with letters in the paper version to help learners to establish parallels between the information that must be found both in the paper mail and in the email. Learners establish links with what they know, which has the consequence that they can carry out the activity (perception of their competence to be accomplished). The exercises of sending/receiving emails from

Another example is blogging. Indeed, a common extension in ICT workshops is the creation and animation of a blog where the group publishes its writings, collective or individual. In addition to seeing it as a way to communicate with loved ones, publishing your writings on the Internet and potentially submitting them to everyone for reading gives a strong added value to the writing activity, until then often confined to a very closed circle. of the learning group.

To introduce this activity, once they have produced several texts and printed them out, the group reflects with the trainer on the different existing modes of publication and chooses the one that suits them best (it can be a slide show which will present the different texts, a newspaper, etc.). If the blog is adopted, it is created, configured, and fed by the group collectively. Everyone can thus imagine the different stages leading to the publication of an article. Then comes the desire to improve the formatting of the text (font, colors ...), to illustrate it with images, a soundtrack, or videos ... This long process is made up of successive steps and back and forth -return between the manual writing of the text and its correction, the encoding in a word processor and posting to the blog. It allows learning to take root and the learner to feel more and more at ease in mastering these stages (perception of their competence to be accomplished).

The different stages and ultimately the article published on the blog allow everyone to check for themselves whether the learning is successful or not, whether the expected effect occurs, and at each level of the process (his perception of the control).

The supportive role of the trainer and the group is also important because it allows the learners to feel supported in their learning, which has the effect of (r) assuring them of their capacities to learn and to solve problems. They can then face more complex problem situations (eg: how to illustrate your text) and rich in these positive experiences, persevere to progress. Their motivation is therefore very present, reinforced by the attraction represented by computers and the aura (justified or not) that a publication on the Internet can have.

Knowing better about the causes of motivation, researchers tried to find out how to influence this motivational dynamic. The following are mainly cited as levers: problem situations that constitute challenges to be taken up, clear work instructions, tasks that lead to a finished product, the mobilization of knowledge acquired in different fields, etc.

The use of computers and/or multimedia tools make it possible to bring together a certain number of these sources of motivation and to create learning situations anchored in reality. Thus, during an outing, learners can take photos (with a camera or why not their mobile phone), back in class, transfer these photos to the computer, possibly retouch them using the software. (eg: Photofiltre or Pinta), illustrate them with a written text and create a poster for the other groups in the literacy center, send them by email, or even publish them on a blog that their friends and families can see!

These digital tasks require few technical skills (the trainer, even a beginner in the field, can easily rely on the resources of the group) but strongly support the learning of the language: oral comments, reconstruction of the chronology of operations, call for assistance. memory, writing sentences or texts, communicating to the outside world, etc. So many tasks enhance the learner's value and reinforce him in his role as an “adult” in a field - writing - where lack of knowledge tends to infantilize him.

But do ICTs promote autonomy ?!

It seems that autonomy is perceived in a deeply ambivalent way, in particular, because it is inscribed both in the register of means and in that of ends. It is as much a matter of finding ways to act alone, of fending for oneself to achieve a result (we are well within the means) as of training autonomous individuals, the ultimate goal pursued by education in general.

“Today, autonomy appears both as a factor of emancipation and self-fulfillment and as a factor of integration into the economic and social world. We can even speak of a real injunction to autonomy ”. But how do you become autonomous? What are the ways to get there? How do you learn to become independent?

If, like Philippe Meirieu, we consider autonomy as "learning the ability to conduct oneself", it requires taking into account three dimensions:

1. the definition of a specific field of competence for the educator: a nurse will aim for her public to be autonomous in the management of her private pharmacy, the teacher is responsible for training her students in autonomy in the management of his schoolwork, etc. Each, depending on his field, must work on specific and precise skills;

2. an option on the values ​​that one seeks to promote: being autonomous means progressively reaching the stakes of one's own actions because all behavior ultimately refers to a certain conception of humanity. It is not enough to be satisfied to act according to the only interests of the moment but to foresee and to take into account the type of society which would emerge if these behaviors were systematized;

3. an appreciation of the level of development of the person: the teacher should be able to appreciate the level of his students and offer accessible acquisitions but clearly superior to what they already know.

Going back to our blog example, we see that these three dimensions are met. Indeed, the field of competence is clearly defined, even if it is gradually widening: to use only a word processor to write its text, to save it, to publish it on a blog, to format it, to look for an illustration ( image, sound, video…). In doing so, the group cannot do without certain questions which touch on each person's values: what do we publish on a blog (is my word relevant? Solidarity, knowledge sharing); which platform to use (the notion of free access on the Internet, place of advertising on the Internet and in today's society, what freedom does consumers still enjoy, etc.?); what software to use (free software versus proprietary software; collaborative logic - private logic); do you have to sign your article (tension between the protection of privacy and responsibility for your writings) ... These questions effectively allow us to question the type of society in which we live and to consider the one we want.

To ensure that the person's level of development is taken into account, the trainer aims for everyone to be able at the end of the year to publish their article on their own. But the computer tool allows him to adopt this objective according to the starting skills and the pace of each: for a learner whose first contact with a computer and who does not have access to it outside the group, the objective will not be the same as for the learner who posts photos on social networks every evening.

Philippe Meirieu confirms that if the School confuses autonomy and resourcefulness, it is not the only one: there are a multitude of social practices which invite to go in this direction. But perhaps, he specifies, the School must resist here, and should it not hesitate to work against the tide? Perhaps it should form a real autonomy which is, at the same time, questioning the effectiveness and the value of its acts? Perhaps it should not systematically favor those who already know the "rules of the game" - because of their cultural and social complicity with school standards? Maybe she needs to teach all students to see the long-term consequences of what they do instead of sticking to immediate payoff? Maybe also,

It is in this sense that Read and Write Brussels takes a position in favor of free software. As a reminder, unlike proprietary software (eg Windows, Microsoft Office), free software is essentially characterized by four freedoms: freedom to use the software as desired, freedom to copy it, freedom to study its source code. and freedom to disseminate any modified version.

By being ready to assume a possible gap between a widespread practice (for example Microsoft Word) and the use of a new tool (Libre Office Writer), it is this same question of the efficiency and the value of our actions that Read and Write Brussels, by its objective of permanent education, decides to take into account.

Finally, Philippe Meirieu strongly insists on the need to organize shoring up situations, namely to make possible the transformation of knowledge into skills by suggesting to the learner to consider other situations in which to mobilize what he has learned. Thus, by varying the interfaces (use of different word processors and different operating systems for example), the trainer does not only aim to transmit procedures (which are difficult to transfer) but also logics (tree structure, parameters, menus…) with which users of multimedia tools are confronted: connecting, disconnecting, navigating in a tree structure, identifying the source of information (reference site, commercial or unknown…).

Conclusion

We believe that ICT offers real opportunities to vary the work endlessly and that, although it is quite possible to train adults to read and write without them, it would be a shame to do without this educational tool. Learners can, thanks to them, improve their control over what they produce (the effect is present or not and the result is visible), which has a beneficial effect, as we have seen, on their motivation to learn. As for autonomy, in our work with learners, we of course aim to learn basic language skills but it is also a matter of allowing them to be more autonomous in the different choices imposed on them. and work on the idea that ICT use can reproduce social inequalities by reinforcing the barriers posed by written language. It is at this price that we can hope to advance towards more social justice.

While it is illusory to want each literacy center to be equipped with a multimedia room, the pooling of existing spaces, the use of digital public spaces (EPN), and the strengthening of collaborations between the different actors of literacy and The fight against the digital divide seem to us to be the necessary step towards modern, quality and learner-centered literacy.