Policies for ICT in education

Focus: What policies guide the use of ICT in education?

Alongside the urgings of the techno-optimists and techno-pessimists and the published findings of researchers, a fourth source of influence on the use of ICT in education is the policy environment in which educational institutions exist.

Early developments in the educational use of ICT occurred largely independently of any focused policy as enthusiastic educators introduced computers for which they were able to find funding and proceeded to develop approaches to working with computers in their classes. Initially there was little or no commercial software available and the focus was on learning how computers worked. Often this process of learning about computers was tagged as "computer literacy" and elements of it soon began to appear in subject syllabi.

As the interest in computers in education grew, schools, systems and governments responded by developing relevant policy and programs of support. Not surprisingly the first work in this area tended to focus on ensuring that students learned sufficient about computers to ensure that they could function in a technological society.

Over time educators and policy makers recognized the potential of computers or, more generally, ICT to support learning across the curriculum. The emphasis in policy, syllabi and support programs shifted accordingly. We now have a plethora of policy and guideline statements covering what students and teachers should be doing with ICT at all year levels and across state, national and international boundaries.

Our purpose here is not to review the history of these developments but to gain some appreciation of the current policy environment. Probably the best that can be done in that regard is to encourage students to be familiar with documents that apply specifically to them and with some of the key influences from other regions.

International documents related to ICT in education

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) maintains a web site on Education & ICTs with a variety of resources including material related to relevant policies and their development. There is additional material on a site maintained by the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau for Education with particular emphasis on policy for ICT in education.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) which have been adopted by a majority of states in the USA and are frequently referred to in discussion of ICT standards elsewhere in the world. The NETS project began by developing standards for students but has been expanded to include related standards for teachers and administrators.

The International Computer Driving Licence has been promoted as a worldwide standard for computer literacy. In Australia it is promoted nationally by the Australian Computer Society. Insofar as the concept relates to teacher ICT skills it has been critiqued by the Australian Council for Computers in Education as deficient in relation to the specific pedagogical components that would be required. In Denmark the ICDL has been extended to create a Pedagogical ICT Driving Licence which has been used as the basis for teacher professional development.

Australian documents related to ICT in education

Australia is a federation of states in which the primary responsibility for education rests with the states although the national government does exert some influence through funding. Especially in the past decade, there has been increasing cooperation at the national level through the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) and joint initiatives such as Education Network Australia (EdNA) and The Le@rning Federation. Although the various states and territories maintain their own educational systems there is increasing consistency, at least in the overall directions of initiatives.

In relation to policy on ICT in education, according to Toomey (2001), the Education Network Australia (EdNA) Schools Advisory Group has developed a statement, Learning in an online world (2000), which includes

a school education action plan in keeping with the current policy of Government. Specifically the document contains two overarching school education goals for the information economy:

All students will leave school as ‘confident, creative and productive users of new technologies, including information and communication technologies, and understand the impact of those technologies on society’
All schools will seek to integrate information and communication technologies into their operations, to improve student learning, to offer flexible learning opportunities and to improve the efficiency of their business practices.

It is clear from this statement that there is now recognition of a dual role for ICT in education, as a legitimate object of study with implications for future social roles and as a means to increase the general quality of education. Translating that recognition into policy and effective practice remains a challenge.

The Commonwealth Department of Education Science & Training has established a project to examine the policies being developed in Australia and elsewhere to support effective use of ICT in education and training. The project web site includes a searchable database with entries for almost 400 relevant policy documents from ten countries including Australia. It also includes two commissioned research papers dealing with policies in Australia (Kearns & Grant, 2002) and internationally (Kearns, 2002). These are substantial documents and are NOT required reading in this course. The executive summaries provide a useful insight into the content of the documents.

In addition to national documents, each of the Australian states and territories has its own policies, guidelines and associated programs. In Queensland, the current thrust is under the banner of Information and Communication Technologies for Learning which includes a number of more specific initiatives. The core program includes "foundation and preferred futures benchmarks" towards which schools are required to work and identifies six key drivers for the process:

The six key ICT drivers reflect the necessary conditions for successful learning with ICTs and form the basis for the foundation and preferred futures benchmarks:

Teaching, learning and the curriculum — How well is our school using ICTs to assist students in learning the curriculum?
Learning and development — Are our teachers proficient users of ICTs? Are they able to use ICTs to help students to learn?
ICT infrastructure — What access do students have to ICTs at our school?
Connectivity — Are the ICTs at our school connected across the school and to the Internet?
ICT support — Does our school have a plan to support ICT resources should they fail or breakdown?
Innovation — Is our school looking to become progressively better at using ICTs for learning?

http://education.qld.gov.au/itt/learning/html/programs.html

Investigating policy

You may already be familiar with the ICT related policies that apply to your own educational setting based on local, regional or national considerations. If you are not, then begin by locating and scanning the relevant policies.

Once you are familiar with the policies that should inform your educational use of ICT, there are some questions you should consider:

In what ways do the policies that apply to your work with ICT in education reflect what is happening with similar policies elsewhere? What, if any, are the significant differences?
In what ways do the policies that apply to your work with ICT in education reflect what is known from research on the use of ICT in education? What, if any, are the significant discrepancies?
In what ways do the policies that apply to your work with ICT in education reflect the thinking of the techno-optimists and/or the techno-pessimists?

Share your responses with the class in the discussion area.

References

Kearns, P. (2002). Towards the connected learning society: an international overview of trends in policy for Information and Communication Technology in education. Retrieved 30 May, 2004, from http://ictpolicy.edna.edu.au/Publications/Towards_the_Connected_Learning_Society.pdf

Kearns, P., & Grant, J. (2002). Learning, technology, community, partnership: a report on Australian policies for Information and Communication Technologies in education and training. Retrieved 30 May, 2004, from http://ictpolicy.edna.edu.au/Publications/The_Enabling_Pillars.pdf

Learning in an online world: school education action plan for the information economy. (2000). Adelaide: Education Network Australia. Retrieved 30 May, 2004, from http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/file12665

Toomey, R. (2001). Information and Communication Technology for Teaching and Learning. Schooling Issues Digest 2. Canberra: Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Retrieved 30 May 2004, from http://www.detya.gov.au/schools/publications/2001/digest/technology.pdf