Assessing the effects of ICT in education

In the introduction to "Assessing the effects of ICT in education - Indicators, criteria and benchmarks for international comparisons", the editors Friedrich Scheuermann and Francesc Pedró, state that: 

"... despite  the fact that education systems have been heavily investing in technology since the early 1980s, international indicators on technology uptake and use in education are missing. For more than 25 years education systems have been able to design and implement policies in this domain without those indicators..."

In my opinion, the report fits well in the aims and purposes of the course on "Educational technologies", because indeed, every week we are confronted with the question on the use and perceived benefits of ICT in educational settings, but without hard research data to structure the discussion, our views remain just opinions and feelings, coloured by our personal affinity or dislike towards ICT.

As such, the book does not provide any data as of yet, but clearly demonstrates the need to develop a consensus around approaches, indicators and methodologies aims to provide a basis for the design of frameworks, the identification of indicators and existing data sources, as well as gaps in areas needing further research.

The book is a collection of articles that found their origins in the April 2009 meeting of international experts organised by the Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRLL), in co-operation with the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI), on benchmarking technology use and effects in education and is organised around four blocks:

1. Contexts of ICT impact assessment in education
2. State-of-the-art ICT impact assessment,
3. Conceptual frameworks 
4. Case studies.

An interesting read and perhaps the basis of a research project in the future...

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Assessing the Effects of ICT in Education
Indicators, Criteria and Benchmarks for International Comparisons
OECD, Joint Research Centre- European Commission. Published by : Joint Research Centre- European Commission
Version: E-book (PDF Format)
Imprint: Centre for Educational Research and Innovation
Publication date: 02 Jun 2010 
Language: English 
Pages: 217 
ISBN: 9789264079786
OECD Code: 962009111E1 
Electronic format: Acrobat PDF
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Digital textbooks open a new chapter

Recently, I came across this BBC article on education and ICT. In the article, Gary Eason explores South Korea's (SK) announcement that:

South Korea, one of the world's highest-rated education systems, aims to consolidate its position by digitising its entire curriculum.

By 2015, it wants to be able to deliver all its curriculum materials in a digital form through computers. The information that would once have been in paper textbooks will be delivered on screen.

The arguments of the South Korean Minister of Education to support this initiative is that it will allow students in remote rural areas access to more and better information and that "... allow students to leave behind their heavy backpacks and explore the world beyond the classroom".

South Korea however is not a universal example. The penetration of technology and the ICT skills of SK teenagers should make the transition relatively easy, says the Organisation for Economic Co-ordination and Development (OECD).

In the United States of America (USA), the government is also looking at making more and better use of ICT, but not from an educational starting point. For President Barack Obama and his administration ICT could help lessen the burden on a very stretched education budget. Obama's "Digital Promise", announced in September 2011, involves a new national centre to advance technologies that could transform teaching and learning. The USA will first evaluate what works and what doesn't before making major changes.

Eason rightfully asks the question whether more technology also means better results, both for the students and the teaching/learning process. And he points to the fact that the role of teachers in this digitalisation is important. They will require more training on the use of digital learning aids, for themselves and their students as part of the curriculum.

"The sad truth is that students can learn just as badly with a class full of computers, interactive whiteboards and mobile technology as they can with wooden desks and a chalkboard." ICT teacher David Weston, founder of  'Informed Education'.

I agree with Weston that the methodological approach to teaching is what makes the difference and that ICT in itself does not offer an improvement of children's motivation, knowledge or results. In the end, an e-book is a book; the content is what is important, not the carrier. A good book, with an approach that helps children and students to acquire new skills in a meaningful and motivational way is a good tool. Whether on paper or on LCD. 

I do believe that ICT offers new ways of presenting meaningful content in a novel way, but '3-dimensional content' with hyperlinks that lead off in all directions pose a serious challenge for curriculum developers, methodologists, pedagogues and authors alike.

Microsoft in 2019

When Microsoft was established in 1975, hardly anyone believed that it would be a dominating company. But even though the enterprise is considered "evil" by some, its owner, philanthropist Bill Gates, wants to donate 95% of his wealth to charity. This fact wouldn't come as a surprise to those who will see the following video:

Presented at the 2009 Wharton Business Technology Conference by Microsoft's Business Division president Stephen Elop

Note how the video starts with the next generation, the kids that still haven't been born. The emphasis is on imagination, not only at home but in the classroom. What the company suggests we should expect is an intelligent computer, a superior touch-screen that will be of great value in school. The idea of Microsoft's future operating system is what Google Translate stands for today - quick automated translations from one language to another, of course such that are taken to another level.

A teacher is presented in the following scene. She is checking her schedule ('Firehouse Field Trip') and in a quick second we can see the students who have signed up for it.

Learning new things is made easier for business people, too. The graphics flexibility helps an architect with his new projects and the computer estimates the needed data. We are also shown how we can be guided during a flight, at the airport, etc.

The interaction between people shouldn't come as a surprise either - this futuristic Bluetooth use can even check previous communication history between people.

But... if you get too excited about this, maybe you shouldn't. A quite sceptical article by Fast Company (the world's leading progressive business media brand, with a unique editorial focus on innovation in technology, ethonomics (ethical economics), leadership, and design) - "Why Microsoft's Vision of 2009 Just Doesn't Cut The Mustard" - calls the idea "uninspiring". The authors basically accuse the company of plagiarism ("Minority Report") and state that these technologies are already in development: "All of these technologies are under current development. And nearly every application of the tech shown in the video is already dreamed-up: Multi-touch gestures have been catapulted into the public's eye by Apple--it's why the iPhone is so very snazzy (and the iPhone's not much "dumber" than the device in the video.) E-paper is already in the best-selling Kindle, Fujitsu's trialing a color e-book, and touch-screen e-paper has recently been demonstrated. Ubiquitous "touch controls everywhere" have been foreseen often, and location-based tech--with cellphone widgets like NRU-- is just beginning to get off the ground.

So the video is set ten years hence, by which time all of this technology will have matured and be in common use. It seems all Microsoft has done is bunch it all up and applied the same--very "conventional" Flash-like--user interface to it all. And though, as Boutin notes, Microsoft's been careful to not smear everything with a Window's logo, that's the clear message of the video: "Microsoft will run everything."

However, even though it is impossible to predict what the future will bring, one person's ideas from decades ago might actually happen. Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" talks about how people have three walls in the living rooms that are actually TVs. Of course, at the time of writing (1953) computers weren't part of people's lives but maybe the author was on to something. Judge for yourselves:

(the video is from 2011)

Where does all of this lead education and its development? Hopefully people will pay more attention to countries from the Third World where technology would make life easier. Given the right amount of time and the possible interaction between people in the future, helping countries in need must be a priority. Unless, a fourth wall is turned into a screen in our rooms.

A propos last week...

Baby Thinks a Magazine is a Broken iPad!

Though not strictly an article on educational technologies - I believe this shot video has a place here. It is not about a learning theory, or even about the usefulness of technology in education, but simply the recording of the environment that today's toddlers grow up in.

The explanation under the video says:

... It shows real life clip of a 1-year old, growing among touch screens and print. And how the latter becomes irrelevant. 

The author introduces (in my opinion rightfully so) the concept of a 'digital native' which according to Wikipedia is "...a person who was born during or after the general introduction of digital technology, and through interacting with digital technology from an early age, has a greater understanding of its concepts." But the term - originally coined by Marc Prensky in 2001 in his article "On the horizon" has implications for how educators integrate new technology - and place 'old' technology such as physical books, in the classroom. And perhaps more importantly, how to ensure that 'digital immigrants' - those who move into the 'territory' of the natives and who '... are expected to adapt and begin to adopt the native's custom..' catch up.

Both categories, natives and immigrants, pose a challenge for teachers and curriculum developers, many of whom, not because of where they come from, but because they were born afte the start of the digital nativity. Younger "technology guru's" are quick to make the case for a fully digital teaching and learning environment - but as one teacher on an education blog wrote: "...that rarely have they ever had it modeled ... in a real day-to-day classroom environment. They know how to use it, but they don't know how to use it to teach."

Having worked for E***ina, which markets itself as the first 'full service digital native agency', I have had the chance to listen to a lot of discussions about the 'complexity' of the 'brave new world' where 'nothing is like before' ... but I still went through reams of paper when I needed to study, annote and correct; we still rely on f2f meetings - in spite of a state-of-the-art video conference room. And even though I was already at 40 a dinosaur among the digital natives in the company, I often had to scramble to get a copy of the magazines I subscribed to, otherwise some young DN would have snapped it up before me.

But I agree - in a broader context - that digital technologies and the people who use them are changing society…Personal identity, privacy, safety, property rights, distribution of information, political activism and not to mention power, have all undergone significant transformation. Fear and apprehension of such change is normal - the same happened after Gutenberg had invented the printing press and ideas started spreading some 500 years ago - but access to information, without a 'knowledge-framework' is meaningless and ultimately useless. And I am not convinced that technology can provide such framework unassisted.

I strongly believe that the technology is a tool to enhance knowledge, a means to an end, and not an end in itself.  In this sense, Isaac Asimov's "three laws of robotics" could be adapted to information technology and the information society:

1) Information technology may not harm society or allow it to come to harm.

2) Information technology must be developed for human beings, except where such developments would conflict with the First Law.

3) Information technology must justify its own existence as long as such justification does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

And just for the end - one more video...

Let's all sing from the same hymn-sheet

Words are important - they carry meaning, they convey ideas. But finding the right word to convey exactly what we want to say, and to be sure that our readers understand each other is not always easy. Especially when - as communicators - we have to venture into new territory.

Like all of us, in the VUB's English Master's programme. For most of us, we are moving in strange new lands, where people speak in many tongues. The only thing we have in common is a desire to conquer these new territories, and we can talk to each other in a shared language, English.

But, English is for almost all of us a foreign language as well. And we are not familiar with the specifics of the anglo-saxon terminology that describes our field of research: 'curriculum development' might mean the whole cycle from the political guidelines to the nitty-gritty of day-to-day teaching to one person, and just the broad content that a teacher needs to teach on a given subject to someone else.

I believe therefore that it is important that we come to a common understanding of what we mean when we use as certain word. The European Union's European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) seems to share this point of view and and have developed a glossary - a list of term with  an explanation - on (quality in) education and training.

Do we share a common language on these issues, and are we sure we correctly understand the terms employed? For the EU-27, with its current 501 million citizens and single labour market, such questions are hardly academic: common understanding leads to common trust.

Cedefop’s new glossary is intended for all stakeholders in (vocational)  education and training, researchers, experts, those involved in improving learning curricula; and education and training providers. While it does not represent an exhaustive inventory of the terminology used by specialists, the glossary takes into account recent developments.

glos·sa·ry	/ˈgläsərē/
An alphabetical list of terms or words found in or relating to a specific subject, text, or dialect, with explanations; a brief dictionary.
Synonyms: vocabulary - lexicon - dictionary