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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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