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ICT Implementation in Education

Implementation in practice in Australia

The Australian school participating in the survey is the John Paul College, an independent ecumenical college located in Queensland and catering to grades K-1 to K-12. This college was selected not only because of its very successful ICT implementation policy, but also because it is fairly representative of the Australian independent school system. Several factors render this school particularly interesting. Firstly, ICT is critical to its educational vision: "[…] a commitment to developmental learning and teaching where the Student is at the centre of the learning process; learning must be contemporary and relevant; how to learn is more important that what to learn, learning is a life-long process and should be fun. Within this vision, the College focus is to provide a media rich learning environment, where the use of powerful technologies is embedded into student's everyday experiences… If a person is to participate fully in, contribute to, and influence the future of his or her world, he or she must be empowered with the capacity to develop and communicate ideas through the media of his or her time."
Hence ICT is explicitly and implicitly embedded across the curriculum from K1 through to K-12.
 
Technological infrastructure
The second aspect of particular interest is the college's ICT infrastructure. It has set up its own Intranet, and all resources are on-line. Video conferencing is integrated as part of current teaching practice. All staff, and students from Year 5 onwards, have their own Notebook1 with Radio access from school and home to personal web spaces, e-mail, work space, Internet, CD-ROM and applications on their Notebook. The college considers the use of radio as a key innovation that has completely changed the nature of teaching and learning. In 2001 current pedagogical dimensions will be considerably enriched through the installation of technology curriculum Knownet, an Australian version from Knowledge Network, a South African company. This will provide a creative framework for professional development and support for staff, allowing for increased sophistication in the application of skills and depth in the layered use of the software packages. A partnership with Microsoft provides both technological expertise and impetus for many innovations.
 
Although John Paul College sums up State and National-level integration strategies as a lot of hype and a little intermittent funding, its strategies do reflect national recommendations in several ways. Firstly, resources are planned and linked at the whole school level, centrally located and disseminated through the school via an intranet. Secondly, a teacher-training regime in which ICT skills are expected and rewarded is also prescribed in national policy. At John Paul College, as part of the salary award, all teachers are required to attend fortnightly professional development sessions in Technology, have a current notebook computer, participate in learning area professional development and whole school professional development. As an added incentive, staff receive full external certification such as the ICDL and MOUS. Staff members are expected to use their "higher" ICT skills in creating online content, assessing students' work and collaborating with students, parents and colleagues.
 
The college is quick to point out that working in an online environment provides dramatic changes to teaching, learning, pedagogy and assessment. Existential questions are posed as to the very role and responsibilities of a teacher. Parents often have difficulties in understanding the role of ICT and video conferencing as being pedagogically sound. For this reason, the tri-partisan role of the college, students and their families is strongly emphasised in the learning venture. In 2001, the college is launching its own information community web portal for students, teachers and families. This will provide an e-mail account and web-site for each family in addition to student and staff accounts, advertising for family businesses, a radio station run by students, web streaming of cultural and sporting activities, and professional development and training for staff, students, parents and other associates of the college.
 
Curriculum and assessment
The whole curriculum has technology embedded through it. Learning is active, student-centred. The curriculum is selected and sequenced to meet the needs and stage of development of individual students. Cross-curricular projects are encouraged, reflecting real life issues and tasks. Student web sites are used for presentation and teacher assessment. Web-enabled assessment automatically provides feedback to staff and the students. Teachers are expected to create on-line content, and a central repository of information allows them to search the college web base for content relevant to the lesson plan they are creating. The chat room is available for all classes/subjects. Learning content in Year 8 and 9 is now online, allowing for individualised learning anywhere, anytime. In Term 2, 2001, on-line assessments will be set up for all on-line content using Microsoft Encarta Class Server, a new product from Microsoft that is presently undergoing "trialing".
 
Teacher training A school wide approach is adopted towards teacher training, and policy is driven by the Headmaster, the Information and Learning Technology Director, pedagogical directors and Information and technology coordinators. Extensive programmes have been conducted in both pedagogical and technological training. These include widely diverse topics ranging from applications and internet links to creating online learning resources and pedagogical learning in a web-enabled world. Professional Development takes place before and after school once a fortnight for one or two hours, with both formative and summative assessments being carried out on training content. As students are to be certified with technology skills, teachers must be certified with appropriate skills to facilitate this process. In October 2000, the PD changed to engage in the Knownet Curriculum. For a more comprehensive view of this, see www.knowledgenetwork.co.za. Teachers seem ready to invest in training only if this is seen as an integral part of the salary award, is contextual, and is directly applicable to their own learning or their classroom practice. The latest training programs integrated through the KnowNet are systemised, credentialled and certified by both external agencies and internal assessment.
 
Outside of PD sessions and regular teacher meetings, staff collaboration is encouraged through access to the Intranet and workspaces from home. The college is currently working with Telstra, the major Australian telephone provider, to set up a new VPN service free to all staff and students. The technological infrastructure provides for constant feedback by staff and parents, and programmes being continually modified to take into account the input of both parties.
 
The younger staff appears to adapt more easily to ICT integration in teaching practice. The worst performers from this point of view are year 11/12 teachers and mathematics teachers who are constrained by time and flexibility due to System wide State external assessments and curriculum. John Paul College provides the following list of criteria as being inherent to a successful ICT integration:

• in terms of human resources and professional development, providing comprehensive training that includes
  • Certification
  • Contextual
  • Various methods of delivery - learning styles, online, hand-on, one on one, small groups etc
  • Compulsory
  • PD is an essential component of school policy and direction owned by all
  • PD learnt is directly transferable to teaching
• in terms of technology:
  • Connectivity, portability, battery life and technical support