1 Why use ICT in education

This paper introduces the topic of using ICTs in education from an Australian context by posing the question of ‘Why?’ It then goes on to briefly examine the introduction of computers and the World Wide Web, cites a seminal report entitled Australia’s Future Using Education Technology, and finally, refers to a paper about the evolution of methods of communication that humans have developed for common use and which are fundamental to education.

1.1 Introduction

Education in Australia began to examine the uses and benefits of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the early 1990s.

Education authorities in Australia considered that there could be real cost benefits and possibilities for improved learning outcomes and improved services through collaboration and cooperation between the eight states and the national government.

A number of collaborative efforts were initiated by the national government, until in 1997, a national ICT agency in education and training, education.au limited was formed. This new national agency was charged with developing and managing national online services to support education policy and to develop strategic alliances nationally and internationally, to benefit all Australian sectors of education.

Australia has a population of approximately 20 million people, most of whom live on the Eastern fertile seaboard. Australia has 9,615 schools, 3.343 million students, over 311,000 teachers and 60,187 students engaged in initial teacher education. Public education managed by State Governments accounts for 67.6% of Australian schools, whilst 19.9% are Catholic and 12.5% Independent schools (MCEETYA, 2004). All schools in Australia benefit from both national and state government funding. In 2006-07, nearly $9.3 billion will be provided in funding for both State government and non-government schools (DEST, 2006).

Nearly all Australian schools use Australian English as their first language, even though approximately 25% of the Australian population do not have Australian English as their first language.

1.2 Personal computers and the world wide web

The use of personal ICTs has developed since the early 1980s. Originally the Macintosh personal computer and the IBM PC were used for personal information purposes such as writing, book-keeping, managing lists of information and electronic games. When they were networked in the late 1980s, businesses and governments began to collectively store and share files. Schools took advantage of the administrative capability of stand-alone computers some time later, in the early 1990s.

In 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau co-jointly invented the World Wide Web (WWW) at CERN in Switzerland. Placement of text-based brochure style information on websites began as a substitute for printed documents, shifting the cost of distributing printed material to the user, in this case to schools. Gradually online services, such as portals, emerged to overtake text-based online documents, which although still available, were often recessed or buried beneath the front pages of online website services. This period also saw the emergence of search engines and national education portals like the Australian cross-sectoral EdNA (www.edna.edu.au) which provided access to quality educational resources in the form of online digital libraries.

Today the advent of interactive personalised networking (IPN), sometimes called ‘social networking’ or ‘relational networking’ on the web, has rapidly expanded, as exemplified by the rise of blogs for self-publishing online. IPN has developed a culture which services the user through its ability to enable micro-publishing, online sharing and interactivity. There are some very valuable services available for learning. One such example is Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) , arguably one of the best encyclopaedias in the world. It is free and available in many languages.

Both early text-based World Wide Web services and more recently interactive personalised networking have become very powerful and useful online services but as yet they are not integrated tools that can be easily deployed in education for the benefit of teachers and learners. IPN focusses on the user, who in education is a learner and therefore ICTs provide very useful services for teachers and learners.

1.3 Use in education

In 2004, Mr Geoff Spring, one of Australia’s most eminent educators, completed a seminal Australian report for the national government, titled Australia’s Future Using education Technology. In that report, Spring argued that ‘ICT could be a major force for improving education while enabling choice for learners’. He went further to say:

It is at the point where the promise of better outcomes for students and real cost benefits are now achievable with minimal costs. We are on the cusp of the first major shift in teaching and learning methodology for hundreds of years where it could be available to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Providing accessibility and flexibility for students and teachers for their own teaching and learning needs remain key challenges. (Commonwealth of Australia, 2000, p17)

Spring was arguing that given accessibility and flexibility of access to the WWW, that learners could make choices about where and when they learn. Learners , in this sense, could be considered to be both teachers involved in professional development and students at a variety of levels. As the services of the WWW become more prolific, the availability of high quality educational material and services for teachers and learners has become realistic.

1.4 Communication in education

Education uses communication as a fundamental tool for conveying concepts, information and ideas which can be processed by learners. ICT is about information and communication, giving teachers new ways for teaching concepts, information and ideas.

In his paper for the Global Summit 2006[1], (http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/pid/305) entitled Tools, culture, and education: past - present – future (http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/pid/318), Professor Jim Bosco outlines methods that humans have used to transmit information throughout history.

Education and learning, Bosco argues, have been based around transmitting information for social, cultural, vocational and personal development. Verbal and written communication has been a basic tool for transmitting information for centuries. Educators have developed and used sophisticated methods for constructing and measuring learning environments for centuries, as well as supporting students to create knowledge and judge learning outcomes, using verbal and written forms of communication.

Today, ICT offers borderless global access to unlimited information for use by educators, in a connected world. Knowledge can be created in different ways that are unfamiliar to many teachers. These new methods of teaching and learning have been neither tested nor researched by comparison with more traditional pedagogies. Neither the use of information technologies nor communications technologies bear the imprint of long standing and sound research into effective teaching and learning.

However, we do know that effective use of ICTs does improve learning outcomes. For example, the research that BECTa[2] has undertaken demonstrates a clear correlation between the uses of ICTs and improved learning outcomes, even though intuitively educators know that improved discussion capabilities and unlimited access to quality information are clearly assets that can be used for educational advantage.

For further expansion of this correlation between the use of ICTs and improved learning outcomes, readers are referred to the excellent work of BECTa as a highly regarded starting point, which can be accessed at: http://partners.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh.

Readers need be mindful of issues associated with research that utilises methods unfamiliar to digital environments. Instead, considering the use of ICTs as part of developing and trialling new learning environments and new learning activities, in order to reflect on their educational potency and effectiveness for learners, may be more worthwhile.

2 Conditions

In order to use ICTs effectively for education, there are a number of conditions that have to be skilfully managed. These include accessibility, flexibility, a shared vision and collaboration.

2.1 Accessibility

Access to computers and connected network services, such as the WWW, need to be readily available without major barriers, for the use of ICTs in education to be effective for anyone, anytime and anywhere.

Accessibility to ICTs in education requires adequate bandwidth, unrestricted copyright, the use of agreed technical standards, and products such as computers, middleware and software.

Bandwidth for education, especially in schools, is a major issue because the numbers of learners who may access online services at any one time does require generous broadband provision. In Australia, education authorities have made considerable inroads in the provision of bandwidth to schools and networking within schools. However, public provision of suitably priced broadband for education by telecommunications utilities in Australia is sadly lacking..

Currently, Australia ranks 17^th in the OECD countries with about 14% broadband access according to recent OECD statistics[3]. Such low provision bodes poorly for Australia where 81% of the workforce is occupied in the service industries which rely on access to information. If education is to flourish in a knowledge economy with high levels of literacy and numeracy as goals, then education must be better provisioned in regard to accessibility especially broadband provision.

2.2 Flexibility

In the report, Australia’s Future Using Education Technology, Spring categorises five modes of e-learning. There are, he states:

… five different modes in which elearning can provide substantial gains in effectiveness, quality and cost benefits

Classroom interactive learning between students and teachers and among students.

Independent learning where students or teachers are learning and studying alone in a variety of environments and modes including aspects of self directed lifelong learning.

Networked learning through contact with groups, individuals and sources where quite different influences and experiences are creating a qualitative difference to both standard and blended learning.

Organisational learning including learning communities, learning precincts and learning cities.

Managed learning where education technology is creating, through computer managed communication and learning management systems, capability to enable teachers to negotiate and provide individualised curricula and learning experiences for students. (DEST, 2004, p29)

This is a good categorisation of the different modes of e-learning and indicates the degree of flexibility that may be required for teachers and learners to apply for effective learning.

Although there will be different costs for each mode of e-learning depending on the scale of implementation, and the levels of access and services made available, the different modes of e-learning do provide a challenge to traditional teaching and learning.

One of the challenges for teachers, in an age when quality global information is available, may be to re-examine the most effective role for a teacher in supporting learning. One of the inescapable conclusions will doubtless be that teachers need to become experts in the processes of learning which varies from learner to learner and is contextually bound.

2.3 Shared vision

The high cost of implementing large scale WWW services for educational use in schools and the requirement for the application of consistent technical standards to ensure that seamless connections and effective information transfers occur, does require careful planning and collaboration among education authorities.

Collaboration can only be effective where a vision for improvement and a better future for education are shared. A shared vision requires leadership for an idea that focusses minds towards agreed targets. The agreed targets need to be both be measurable and a celebration of success.

The vision and targets for the implementation of ICTs need to be considered following an examination and reflection of what is happening globally in education and what is feasible at the national, regional and local levels.

One useful document that examines this issue is the Australian Contemporary Learning: Learning in an Online World published by the Australian Ministers of Education. This document can be accessed at: http://icttaskforce.edna.edu.au/icttaskforce/Jahia/home/pid/18.

2.4 Collaboration

In discussing accessibility, flexibility and a shared vision in the above sections, there has been an assumption, both implicit and explicit, of collaboration and cooperation at national, regional and local levels.

Although decisions at a national level in Australia have focussed on policy, infrastructure and standards, these decisions have been made using regional collaboration. Collaboration can assist to ensure that resources are used wisely and that regional educational leaders understand what shared resources are being made available nationally that can be further enhanced at the local level.

Collaboration occurs when groups come together to share a vision, agree targets, resources and timelines and share commitment to a project. For a brief and succinct summary about collaboration, the document Collaboration Principles and Practices (education.au limited , 2004) is a useful starting point. It can be accessed at: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/pid/167.

This document identifies a number of needs including policy leadership at national level, educational leadership to inspire professional educators and management leadership to assist Principals and local education authorities.

Arguably, educational leadership and inspiration, to improve learning outcomes and improve teaching capability without increasing teacher workload, is the most important aspect of the change process that will be initiated with the implementation of the use of ICTs in education. Leaders will need to be open minded about educational improvement and change because the use of ICTs in education will challenge many of the existing educational assumptions about learning. These assumptions arose in the industrial, factory based manufacturing era and although they remain applicable to education today, they are not sufficient by themselves to engage learners.

For example, educators have known for many years that students learn in a variety of ways which vary depending on the topic, the people involved, the local context and many other factors. ICTs can enable different learning styles or modes to take place concurrently. This challenges some teachers’ ideas of control, learning measurement and care of educational resources. Therefore trail and error approaches to teaching, facilitated by reflection by educational leaders to find effective practices in local contexts are essential for the implementation of ICTs to be successful.

In 2002, educators in Australia met at the first education.au limited Global Summit to consider major questions of policy, leadership and management for successful implementation of the use of ICTs in education and training. The key themes to emerge were needs to:

Establish and extend online knowledge networks
Re-conceive the role of teachers and teaching
Leverage resources to enhance online knowledge networks
Demystify online education
Maintain pressure on issues of technology access
Develop ICT skills for education and training personnel across geographical and organisational boundaries
Establish a seamless global learning/research framework, and
Create greater public awareness of the benefits of online knowledge networks. (education.au limited , 2002)

These themes have helped to drive policy considerations over the past four years, in Australia.

3 Outcomes

In discussing many of the benefits and conditions for implementing ICTs in education above, one could be forgiven for thinking that there is a big job to be done which will take a long time, use scarce resources and require extensive professional effort. Perhaps it is time in this paper to again reflect on the benefits of using ICTs in education, as the world moves towards becoming a multitude of differently focussed knowledge based societies.

The outcomes of effectively using ICTs in education can lead to:

· More engaged students

· Improved learning outcomes

· More effective teaching and learning without significant increases in teacher workload

· Reduced costs,

· Improved educational services, and

· Economic benefits.

These benefits are worth every effort. Apart from the obvious personal and social benefits of improved education, there would also appear to be economic benefits. In a recent report from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework entitled Strategic Conversations: the future of e-learning (DEST, 2006), the following statement is important:

It is estimated that every 1% increase in the stock of skilled workers will lead to a 0.65% increase in gross domestic product. (GDP). (DEST, 2006, p3)

ICTs underpin skill development in today’s world and so this may be a very significant statement to consider when thinking about the benefits of implementing ICTs in education.

4 National online educational services

There are many examples of excellent national educational online services. In this paper, only a few have been mentioned. However for a comprehensive review of national education online services resulting from a global scan, the reader is referred to the research report on global gateways entitled Global Gateways: Transforming Global Gateways through Online Knowledge Networks. (education.au limited , 2004) This research is reviewed and updated every two years to keep abreast of the provision of national education online services around the globe.

This paper focusses on four such examples of innovative services only.

4.1 EdNA (www.edna.edu.au)

Education Network Australia or EdNA (www.edna.edu.au) is a free Australian repository of quality global and Australian education digital resources for schools, vocational and technical education, adult and community education, and higher education. EdNA has the capacity to locate the best digital resources in the first few search items unlike Google which may have several pages of resources unchecked for quality. Using EdNA to find resources is much quicker and more reliable, in locating quality educational resources, than using Google. EdNA is a dedicated educational resource that is federated globally and utilises quality educational materials.

In addition, EdNA provides collaborative working spaces for educators throughout Australia where documents can be stored, IPN networking services are available, and tools and services for communication and information sharing are provided. Communities using EdNA’s collaborative services are managed by themselves. Managers of collaborative communities can elect to manage a public service that is an open service, or a private or closed service.

In a recent review of the value of EdNA, the reviewers stated