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Ms. Paula Christophersen, Manager
of the VCE Information Technology, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment
Authority, presented a paper outlining the country’s implementation
of ICT in education.
Policy On The Use Of ICT In Education
At the federal level, the Commonwealth Government seeks to achieve
two overarching school education goals for the information economy:
1. All students will leave school as ‘confident, creative and productive
users of new technologies, particularly information and communications
technologies, and understand the impact of those technologies on society’
2. All schools will seek to integrate ICT into their operations, to
improve student learning, to offer flexible learning opportunities
and to improve the efficiency of their business applications
At the state level, specifically Victoria,
schools implementing a Learning Technologies Plan should result in
schools’:
• Having access to ICT and curriculum products as part of the
school’s educational programme
• Being routine, competent and discriminate
users of ICT in the daily programmes of the school,
• Developing skills in
the use of ICT, and
• Showing leadership and innovation in the use of
ICT.
Financial Resources And
Partners
The capital expenditure by State governments and the
Federal government for ICT in government schools, 1999 to 2000, was:
1.
The Queensland government committed A$ 59.4 millions to ICT in
education for 2003 to 2004, and an additional A$ 35 million to improving ICT
access and the ICT skills of students and teachers.
2.
Victoria implemented initiatives to support schools in
achieving the governments objectives, which include:
• A$ 20 million
being made available through 1:3 subsidies
• State-wide licensing of products
and software
• SOFNet, a satellite television network to meet the needs of
students and school communities
• VicOne (wide area network) so schools will
have access to a minimum of 64 kbps ISDN line at no cost to schools
• An
e-mail account for every principal and school council president (up to 3 million
messages sent each month at no cost to schools)
• The establishment of seven
navigator schools to provide accessible working models of educational
environment incorporating ICT, and
• Net Day, which uses corporate
sponsorship to network classrooms so that students can obtain enhanced access to
the Internet
Scope Of ICT Use In
Education
Education systems must comply with the National Goals
of Schooling for the Twenty-First Century and the National Profiles and
Statements, and organise their curriculum around these eight key learning
areas:
• English
• Mathematics
• Science
•
Technology
• The Arts
• Health and
Physical Education
• Languages other than English
• Studies of Society and
the Environment
Manner Of Introducing ICT In Schools
And Non-Formal Education
At
the national level, the EdNA website http://www.edna.edu.au provides an electronic
community for sharing information and resources in the area of ICT in
education.
The Department of Education and Training in Education and
Training in Victoria supports the successful use of ICT in education through a
range of initiatives, including:
• The IdeaBank, a database of teaching
and learning strategies to help students achieve CSF (Curriculum Standards
Framework) learning outcomes. Teachers submit ideas, which are vetted. This
project is similar to the Global Classroom project in that it encourages the
culture of collegial sharing and support.
The Victoria government has a
Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF), developed by the Victorian
Curriculum and Assessment Authority (www.vcaa.vic.edu.au)
which identifies what students should know and be able to do in the eight key
learning areas from Preparatory Year to Year 10. Within these key learning
areas, the major knowledge and skills are arranged into strands: within the
Technology Key Learning Area are three strands: Information, Materials, and
Systems.
At each level for each strand, the major content is identified
in the curriculum focus, and the standards that students are expected to
demonstrate are identified in the learning outcomes, for which indicators are
provided to inform teachers of the evidence they should look for in student
performance.
Professional
Development
The Federal
Government of Australia has a tradition of supporting the professional
development of its educators, and provides continuous training through a range
of programmes.
The local government of Victoria conducts professional
development opportunities for teachers through which to develop confidence and
competence in the use of ICT in education. These teacher-training programmes
span three key areas: computer software skills, curriculum development, and
classroom management (curriculum delivery, assessment, and
reporting).
State-wide programmes include: Computers Across the
Primary Curriculum (a train-the-trainer programme, 18 hours), Computer
Across the Secondary Curriculum (a train-the-trainer programme, 18 hours),
and Learning with the Internet (a train-the-trainer programme, 12
hours).
Schools conduct their own programmes, which include: Navigator
School Programmes and Leading Practice Programmes.
Teachers avail of
self-paced learning materials in the CD-ROM format.
There are programmes
for school leaders: Using Basic Computer Applications, Learning Technology
Planning for School Leaders, and Computer and Technology Skills for
Leaders.
The various education department agencies provide their on-line
activities for teachers. The Victorian Information Technology Teachers
Association (www.vitta.org.au)
and the Information and Communication Technology in Education (www.ictev.vic.edu.au)
are among these agencies.
Connectivity
In 1998,
Victoria started a programme to encourage teachers integrate the use ICT into
teaching and administrative tasks. The programme, the Notebooks for Teachers and
Principals, provided notebook computers to these educators through an affordable
lease scheme (A$ 150 year for three years) and on the condition that they take
courses in professional development (40 hours in the first year) and to use the
notebook in their teaching.
By November 1998, 29% of Australia’s teachers
had a notebook computer. By November 2000, the number had grown to 80%, and by
July 2001, to 91.7% of teachers. Evaluations eventually showed that the number
of teachers using a computer at home and at school had grown (from 52% to 77% of
teachers). Classroom use of computers by teachers grew by half, from 36% to 50%
of the programme participants. Also, teachers with notebooks routinely used
computers 20% more than their counterparts who had none. A year 2000 report
showed that 37% of school computers were in laboratories and 31% were in
classrooms. Laptops comprised 16% of all school computers, and secondary schools
had lower student/computer ratios than primary schools.
A February 2002
study shows that in Victoria, the average computer: student ratio was 1:3.9 (the
highest in Australia). This study also indicated that 88% of schools had a
computer/student ratio of 1:5. Presently, Australia’s schools have a total of
136,000 computer units.
The bandwidth available to schools carries from
state to state, and the type of connections to the Internet ranges from ISDN
(the most common) to ADSL: some schools even have cable and satellite Internet.
Majority of schools have either a 64 kbps or a 128 kbps ISDN line. In Western
Australia, the majority of schools have 64kbps dial on-demand connections, and
in the Northern Territories, schools have 400 kbps satellite connections. Some
states, specifically Western Australia, will soon implement a rollout programme
to provide 10 Mbps bandwidth connections to metropolitan schools, 2 Mbps to
regional high schools, and 512 kbps to regional primary schools.
Evaluations and
Indicators
The Ministerial Council of Education,
Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) is looking into the
use of performance measures for student achievement relating to new
technologies. MCEETYA also conducted a survey on students’ IT skills in
information processing and computing.
The University of Sydney conducted
research investigating the changes in student performances after integrating ICT
into education. Key findings include:
• ICT increased student engagement,
enthusiasm and motivation,
• More student-centred learning took place
•
Students’ higher-order thinking skills improved
• Changes occurred in the
teaching practice
• Ability to use emerging technologies improved
Problems And
Issues
Some of the problems encountered by schools in the
implementation of ICT in education were: the cost of infrastructure,
unreliability of hardware, lack of management support, teacher reluctance to
embrace change, lack of graded professional development, lack of strategies and
criteria for assessment of non-cognitive outcomes (such as social and affective
development, workplace competencies)
One problem area faced by schools is
connectivity and broadband connection, specifically relating to price,
availability, management issues and technical support problems.
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