Winter 2006

The ICT agenda

It's not just about the technology

Janice Youl considers how to ensure teachers and students are making the best use of technology and demonstrates how teachers in Victoria are being supported in doing so.

If we are to see all teachers and all students in all classrooms using information and communication technology (ICT) for powerful learning, we need to paint a picture of the potential to improve student learning. Teachers want to see how other teachers are using ICT in classroom practice. A recent contributor to the Times Education Supplement ICT blog site reflected on the use of technology such as interactive whiteboards. ‘It’s easy to say, “Let’s move on to the next big thing”. But there are lots of teachers who have not got as far as whiteboards—and we can’t afford to leave a single one of them behind. They need to see other people and get inspiration. When teachers are inspired, they will move heaven and earth to use technology.’

Between 1998 and 2001, in the first phase of Victoria’s notebook program for government schools, 36,960 notebooks were distributed to principals and teachers. While there was an obligation for teachers leasing the notebooks to complete 40 hours of professional development, more professional learning was needed to integrate ICT across the curriculum.

So what is happening to encourage and support teachers?

Leadership

Victoria’s Minster for Education and Training has recently approved a five-part strategy to increase teacher use of ICT for teaching, learning and student reporting, and to better equip teachers to use student learning data. One of the components focuses on school leadership.

Showcasing good practice

In schools such as Debney Park Secondary College and Maryborough Secondary College, students use digital portfolios to present evidence of learning and achievements. Learning goals are recorded, learning processes reflected upon and evidence of learning is collected and included.

Victoria has introduced Creating e-learning Leaders (CeLL) schools—28 schools exploring and sharing the use of ICT to create new ways of learning— to showcase real teachers in real classrooms sharing their practice. This initiative is a partnership between the Department of Education and Training (DE&T) and Microsoft.

Teacher support resources

Schools are being encouraged to develop e-learning plans. Victoria, like other states, has implemented the Intel® ‘Teach to the Future Essentials Program’ for integrating technology into lesson plans. Since its inception five years ago, the program has trained over 3 million teachers in 36 countries. The course includes material to assist teachers and web-based tools to engage students in activities that develop higher thinking skills.

Successful implementation of ICT depends mostly upon staff competence in the integration of ICT into instruction and learning (Venezky, 2002).

The Department of Education and Training will soon provide a teacher ICT capabilities online survey tool to assist teachers in identifying their needs. The survey will identify teacher attitudes and ICT skills. Teachers can then set ICT professional learning goals and schools can offer professional learning opportunities to support teachers in achieving those goals.

Exciting support resources, including examples of digital portfolios and a range of materials to assist authentic assessment, will also be available.

In some schools, long download times have made the use of online resources and multimedia very difficult. Broadband upgrade is being addressed in Victoria via a partnership between Telstra and the State government.

The curriculum

Jo McLeay, English teacher and founder of The Open Classroom http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com, says ‘we need to teach students not just how to use the nuts and bolts of technology, but how to use it for communication purposes, and how to read critically online.’

The Victorian Essential Standards for Learning has an ICT interdisciplinary learning strand that incorporates three dimensions. These are ICT for visualising thinking, ICT for creating and ICT for communicating.

The way forward

Finally a word of advice to teachers from ICT expert Marc Prensky, who says: ‘How, then, do we move forward? First, consult the students. They are far ahead of their educators in terms of taking advantage of digital technology and using it to their advantage. We cannot, no matter how hard we try or how smart we are (or think we are), invent the future education of our children for them. The only way to move forward effectively is to combine what they know about technology with what we know and require about education.’

References

Prensky, M (2005). ‘21st Century Schools Need 21st Century Technology’, Edutopia Magazine, available at http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com

Venezky, R & Davis, C (2002). Quo Vademus? The transformation of schooling in a networked world, OECD/CERI, Paris, France.

Janice Youl is senior project officer, e-learning, Innovations Branch, Department of Education and Training, Victoria.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au