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Student
Words
To find out
how ICT—notably CD-ROMs and the Internet—help or hinder learning, CERI set up an
international network comprisedof 29 students between 17 and 20 years old, which
culminated in a roundtable in December 2000. Whether they came from North America,
Europe or the Pacific, their assessments were remarkably aligned. While recognizing
that the Internet was a powerful tool for learning, many expressed frustration with
it: “Teachers say ‘You can search on the Internet,’ but mostly do not give us time
to do so”; “Sometimes teachers give us addresses but we discover that they do not
exist”; “Very often the lesson is spoiled by having to solve technical problems”;
“the traditional method of searching [in the encyclopaedia] is faster and safer.”
While crying out for better teacher training and software, students also proposed
steps for reducing the frequent “digital divide” between school and home. Finally,
they expressed unease over the cultural dominance of Microsoft, rejecting the idea
of a commercial monopoly making big profits from schools. Students felt that greater
priority should be put on developing materials with a local cultural flavour, while
acknowledging that computers had the potential to start bridging the cultural divide.
http://bert.eds.udel.edu/
oecd/roundtables/
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Schools
still have to make a quantum leap if they are to prepare students for the information
society, says Edwyn James, of the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation
OECD
countries allocate one to two percent of their education budgets to information and
communication technology (ICT). How far have they come in making them real learning
tools?
Relatively speaking, education hasn’t even begun to look at what the implications
are, and they are huge. On average, OECD countries spend around 0.25 percent of their
education budgets on research and development compared to seven percent for certain
sectors of industry. As a result, we still know very little about ICT impact on individual
learning, and teachers are not being equipped with the necessary skills to use these
new tools.
So
schools are being equipped without much thought about the next step?
Here
there is a paradox. ICT can help students develop a range of skills required by the
modern economy, such as learning how to learn, problem-solving, knowing how to acquire
and evaluate information, but these are not reflected in the school curriculum. Teachers
are not going for open-ended inquiries and the exchange of ideas with other schools
and people. Leaving exams at the end of secondary school are still broadly based
on a corps of knowledge and the ability to produce. Why should teachers invest time
in developing new techniques that are not sufficiently valued by the system? At
the same time, those who are doing so run the risk of prejudicing their students’
chances at exams.
Is
ICT nonetheless changing the teacher’s role?
I
recoil strongly from the idea of the teacher just being there when a student is having
trouble. It suggests an aimless kind of educational experience. Learning is a planned
exercise. But the pace of change ushered in by computer technology has made us more
aware than ever that knowledge is transient. We cannot see the teacher as someone
who gets pumped up at university and repeats the same lessons for the next 40 years.
Teachers have to develop more ties with universities and be well enough connected
within society to know whom to turn to and ask questions, on a basis of mutual respect.
How
could training be improved?
Teachers
have to be empowered to use ICT. If professional development could take place online
and provide teachers with resources to integrate ICT, they would gain confidence
in these technologies. Poor-quality software is another big obstacle. The way forward
is to encourage dialogue between manufacturers and teachers in order to decide what
type of software is required and what is feasible, both technically and economically.
This is just beginning to happen.
Is
ICT economically viable?
Most
computers have five-year write-off periods at the very most. How do you justify putting
enormous amounts of hardware into a school open six hours a day, 40 weeks a year,
when in five years, things will be obsolete anyway? There are universities where
facilities are open around the clock, allowing users to plug in when they wish. The
school should also give the community a chance to take advantage of its facilities.
For example, technically skilled students could receive modest honoraria for doing
work in the evenings at school. You have to see the school as part of the community,
networking in both directions, rather than as a walled entity. |
