To Jennifer and Erica

As I read your article, “From Literacy to Multiliteracies: Diverse Learners and Pedagogical Practice,” my memory led me back to the university where I did my first degree and to the last school where I taught in before coming to Singapore. It was rather an extremely opposite experience. Similar to the institutions where you underwent your interesting research, the traditional atmosphere was prevalent in my alma mater while the use of technology was fast becoming a common practice in the school where I taught. Sadly, I had to leave before I could fully immerse myself in the emerging culture therein characterised among other things by technology-enhanced teaching environment.

This initial exposure, however, made me realise what the organisational culture in a school can do. This is probably because like human beings, schools create their own self-image, identity and culture.

Not all teachers, however, could cope easily with technology. Note that recognition is not akin to full-blown utilisation of technology. Any plan to use of technology in teaching ought to take into account a number of factors like school budget; attitude of administrators, teachers, parents and learners; availability of media resources; interests; values; and, the like. Moreover systematic changes should be implemented based on a carefully planned vision of the schools. Needless to say, pedagogical innovations can hardly be achieved overnight.

What I noticed was that in the initial stage, there was this constant pulling and pushing between traditional methods and technology-based approaches in the classroom. Consequently there created an impression among teachers that technology is but a ‘garnish’, a show-off, without much substantive impact on learning outcomes. This chain reaction also puts the utilisation of technology in a state of mediocrity. Well, I take it as probably a necessary part of birth pains, a challenging transition that a start-up teacher like me has to negotiate well.