Five minutes with Philip van Heusden

Philip van Heusden is a music and ICT teacher at Northern Peninsula Area College (Bamaga Campus) he also won a 2008 Smart Classrooms Teacher Award. He chats with us about his ICT journey.

What's your ICT learning journey been like?
My learning journey has almost been like a change in life pathways for me. I have a previous career in audio engineering, so you could say that in teaching I've found a way of imparting all the learnings of my younger years to the next generation.

How has Smart Classrooms helped?
Smart Classrooms has helped me to gather information about digital pedagogy from the ether and pull it all in so I can then show the students how they can express themselves in the digital age.

What was your first ICT activity/project?
A Year 7 website using Microsoft Publisher. Students were introduced to html code as well as the WSYWYG concept: What You See Is What You Get.

What did you think about ICT, back then?
I thought ICT was a tool to help students understand and get engaged.

What do you think about ICT, now?
The future adult needs proficiency in a range of skills. Problem-solving is one of them and ICT has become, in many ways, a high energy medium. It's not the only one, but it's one that is dynamic enough to maintain engagement and enable 'real world' authentic learning.

What would you say is the most exciting thing you do with ICT?
A documentary my students are working on has encouraged them to examine a whole range of genres and text types. A visiting filmmaker is currently working with Year 12 students to help. From scriptwriting and acting to editing and mixdowns, we have had to work with limited resources. The students are finding their way. They are really picking up on audio-recording processes.

What are you doing now, that you were not doing before you began using ICT for teaching and learning?
I am now exploring more avenues and ways of getting to a desired result. Also, I am working more within an integrated curriculum because I touch on many more key learning areas than before. Students are getting there faster.

Do you think using ICT is changing your pedagogy?
I will always maintain that if a task can be achieved with just the simplest of tools, then that's okay as well.
I like to think ICT has helped us think more readily outside the square.

What have you found to be best thing about digital pedagogy?
Digital pedagogy helps me plan and keep together my overall focus on units. It has allowed me to work with students at their own pace and has fuelled my constructivist and connectivist ideology and approach.

What has been the most difficult thing about digital pedagogy?
It's sometimes a challenge to keep up with innovations and qualifications.

What's on the horizon (digital pedagogy-wise), for you?
I am investing in further skill development.
I would also like to help facilitate teachers with their planning and skills by working on projects with them, or the faculty, to examine how they could best achieve a desired and possibly more successful outcome.

Any advice for teachers who are just starting their journey to embrace digital pedagogy?
Start with your own projects just for interest. Think of them as challenges. Once you are comfortable with these projects, work with your colleagues on similar ones. Do it for personal motivation and maintain a creative approach.
Throw in some unexpected ways of using ICT and you may be pleasantly surprised with yourself.
Also, save your work. Always remember to save your work!