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ICT in Education: The Public Policy Problem Chris Yapp Click here for a print version of this article. We are nearing the 30th anniversary of the introduction of Computers into State Education. Yes, it really has been that long in schools! So, why is it that after all this time, that the role and use of Computers in Education is still problematic in many schools? Most teachers who have entered the profession in the last decade will have used computers in their own school days, even in a limited manner. It is easy to claim that the rate of change within IT, from the BBC micro to the WWW, has been so great that for non-IT specialists, keeping up to date has been impossible against the demands of other curriculum and school changes in the same period. Yet the recent Livingstone-Hope report has indicated problems with the teaching of IT itself in schools. I'm not comfortable with putting the blame on funding. Many organisations in the public, private and third sectors have changed dramatically over the last 30 years. The way work is done and how work is organised, the "content" of a job has changed from the professional to the semi-skilled worker. Schools have changed quite dramatically in many cases over the last 30 years, so arguing that schools are change averse is itself a dubious argument. For me, looking back on my 20+ year involvement with IT in Education, I think that looking at many rounds of initiatives that there are some common problems in the development and deployment of ICT in school settings. By far the biggest is the confusion over the roles of ICT in schools. I can remember being told on many occasions that "we've done IT", at Department of State and school level, where my observation would be that the surface had actually barely been scratched. I'd like to unpick the roles of ICT, to explain the different types of roles that ICTs can play.
The use of a tablet device supporting ebooks may be introduced to support say literacy. Checking ebooks in/out of a library is also possible. Books read can be added to a record of achievement. Resources to support reading such as dictionaries, multiple choice assessments to test understanding can be built in. Access for instance to the British library educational website can give students access to contextual information around literature. Children could email, or use social networks, to reach teachers or friends for support when in difficulty, supporting peer learning and allowing teachers to personalise support for gifted or slow learners. This could easily be added to as a set of possibilities. The example illustrates my earlier comment about being told "we've done IT". Roy Blatchford has written an interesting piece on the idea of an app-based curriculum. I'd like to push beyond that. http://www.mikebakereducation.co.uk/articles/90/the-app-curriculum-for-2014 Schools are incredibly complex organisations. What initiatives have tended to focus on is IT as a tool or vehicle for specific solutions to specific problems, opportunities and challenges. Core to benefiting from IT investment, in any organisation, is the alignment of ICT with the organisational direction, organisation design and the core processes. Teaching, Learning and assessment processes are themselves complex processes. They can be supported by automation, they cannot be automated. Borrowing from John Naisbitt, a great Futurist, "the more technology there is in the environment, the greater the need for the human touch". Nowhere could this be more apparent than in education. I have long believed that ICT in education cannot be justified solely on educational gain, for instance in improved grades. That may be the most important outcome, but more effective use of teacher time, improved attendance and behaviour, greater personalisation and engagement cannot be measured in grades alone. So, how can we make the next few years more productive, rewarding and more fun for teachers and pupils alike? My initial view is that every policy document and every school level project should be accompanied by a core purpose for the specific IT usage as per my five roles above. At school level, each school should look at how other purposes could be met by integrating the IT better into the organisation of school resources and time. That cannot be dictated by the centre because the state of play in individual schools is so varied. It has to be in tune with the school context. In turn, each IT investment needs to be considered against various targets:
For that reason, my way forward is that schools need to become action-research-based institutions sharing the learning of what works based on practice in individual organisations. It is the interdependence of schools, collaborating, for the greater good, that is the real value of autonomy. That requires mind set changes, not structural changes. Thoughts welcomed! Chris Yapp is a NET Leading Thinker and will be running a workshop-seminar for NET on 8th March 2012 in London to develop these ideas. |
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