Impact on Education

"One of the main findings of recent research into educational uses of ICT is that initiatives are most successful where schools identify curriculum and professional development objectives and seek technological solutions rather than introducing the technology and seeking problems to solve."

(BECTa, 1998)

Cranford Community School in West London has 1300 pupils, about 80% of which come from homes where English is not the first language. It is the type of school where pupils have not expected to achieve high results in public examinations. However, GCSE results of pupils who have received all their secondary education at the school are 2% above the national average.

The school has adopted a positive philosophy of valuing those aspects of its pupils’ lives which are traditionally seen as presenting obstacles, and it has used ICT to underpin this philosophy. It has valued the ability to speak another language and has acknowledged different ways of learning. ICT has been central to this development as "IT doesn’t care what language you speak". ( Brooks, 1999)

ICT has been used to enable students to study subjects where there is a minority interest. The Internet connection has been used to provide remote Japanese lessons by video-conferencing between schools and German A-level is currently being offered in this way. (Carew, 1998) Given the language difficulties of many pupils, extensive use has been made of Integrated Learning Systems, enabling pupils to go over material as often as they need to be able to properly understand it. This has also supported pupils with learning difficulties.

Cranford has a 2Mbps link to a central site in Wakefield provided through the Technology Colleges Trust. It has 400 desktop computers on its network. The school’s curriculum is available on its network and can be accessed by pupils from home using the Personal Information Connect software which RM is testing at the school. A loan scheme is being investigated for the 60% of pupils who do not have access to a computer at home.

All Key Stage 4 (Year 11) pupils take an IT GNVQ qualification, meaning that they leave school not only with GCSE qualifications, but with a vocational qualification.

Breaking down Barriers

Geographic barriers in learning are being broken down by ICT. Video conferencing is being used for language learning; pupils living in remote areas or wishing to take courses not available in their own school or college are able to utilise distance learning possibilities. "For these small, rural secondary schools, the opportunities to enhance and broaden the curriculum was a considerable incentive to participate in the scheme." EDSI Group A Project 6 para: 6.85.

The European Schoolnet has the key aim of building a European school network: "a multimedia communications platform within a framework of collaboration between schools in Europe, supporting the provision of high-quality pedagogical services and content and representing a substantial European cross-cultural added-value". (European Schoolnet).

Access to Curriculum Relevant Materials

Mention has been made in chapter two of the emergence of Curriculum Gateways. A keynote address at BETT’99 addressed this topic. (Esinet, 1999) Apart from the Government sponsored Virtual Teachers Centre, the Times Educational Supplement has a ‘staffroom’, the BBC has a curriculum search facility and various commercial companies have teachers areas on their sites.

The Internet provides potential access to extraordinary quantities of raw information, but for that information to be useful it needs to be accessible and relevant to curriculum needs. It has been said that in the coming Information Age it will become more important for pupils to be able to access and interpret information and develop the ability to synthesise a point of view than to know and remember facts.

Commercial Partnerships

Commercial partnership has been mentioned in chapter four. It is being encouraged by the Government’s NGfL Challenge (DfEE 1998) which challenges industry to lever change in three main areas:

In the development of high quality learning software
In the development of telecommunications, especially in increasing the availability of broadband connections for schools
In the development of managed services supplying, maintaining and renewing packaged ICT networks.

Commercial partnership is not new to schools. The Tesco Computers for Schools scheme is now in its eighth year. £34million worth of computer related equipment had been supplied to schools by end of 1998. As the scheme has developed, awareness of school needs has grown and training is now an integral part of the scheme. Each computer donated carries a training package, valued at £80 in 1997.

Though such partnership is generally beneficial, there can be a conflict of interests and understanding between commercial sponsors and schools. The EDSI project schools found sponsors knew surprisingly little about world of education and sponsors assumed more knowledge and sophistication in schools: "Commercial sponsors tended to assume that schools would be sufficiently knowledgeable to be able to select appropriate uses and therefore responded to the teachers’ requests somewhat uncritically. Schools, on the other hand tended to feel they must demonstrate an interest in as many applications as possible, irrespective of whether they wished to use them, in order to justify the sponsor’s investment." EDSI Group A Observations and Recommendations para:10.

Teacher Training

A survey conducted by the Technology Colleges Trust in 1998 found less than 20% of teachers at secondary level had sufficient confidence and competence in the use of ICT to develop skills in their pupils. (PC Week, 1998). It is now mandatory for trainee teachers to prove their ICT competence before being granted qualified teacher status (QTS). Beginning in April 1999, existing teachers are being trained in the use of ICT ineducation with a £230million lottery grant. Teachers’ skills and competency are fundamental to the extended use of ICT in schools.

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