ImpacT 2001: Learning With IT - The Issues
[ Last Updated 17 February 2006 ]
A Discussion Paper prepared by The New Zealand Futures Trust for The Information Technology Advisory Group and The Information Technology Association of New Zealand
Foreword by
Hon Maurice Williamson, Minister for Information Technology
Acknowledgements
This report has been written by Dr Graham Butler of the New Zealand Futures Trust and Laurence Zwimpfer for The Information Technology Advisory Group (ITAG) and the Information Technology Association of New Zealand (ITANZ).
Copyright Notice
Reproduction of this report is permitted in whole or in part on the understanding that the source is acknowledged.
Internet
A copy of this report is available on the Internet via http://www.moc.govt.nz/itag/
The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following people who provided helpful comments on various drafts of this report: Shona Butterfield and Penny Moore, The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand; Reg Hammond and Colin Jackson, Ministry of Commerce; John Hine and Mimi Recker, Victoria University of Wellington; Malcolm Menzies and Rosamond Averton, New Zealand Futures Trust; Apryll Parata-Blane, Gardiner and Parata; Keith Phillips, Terabyte Interactive; Tony Tait, ITANZ; and Alick Wilson, Xendra Limited.
Foreword
1. Introduction
2. The Issues
3. Information Technology and Schools
3.1 The Demands of the Information Age
3.2 Changing Views of Learning
3.3 Conflicting Roles of Schools
3.4 The New Zealand Education Environment
4. Key Issues for Schools
4.1 Learning Technologies
4.2 IT in Learning: Some Examples
4.3 Changing Curricula And Assessment
4.4 New Roles For Teachers
4.5 An Expanded View of the Learning Community
4.6 Roles for Government?
4.7 New Challenges for School Boards
4.8 How long before Promising Visions become a Reality?
5. Information Technology and Tertiary Education
6. Key Issues For Tertiary Education
6.1 Global Learning
6.2 Restructuring
6.3 Cost Containment And Information Management
6.4 Distance Learning and Telelearning
6.5 Student/Student and Student/Teacher Interactions
7. Towards a National Strategy
8. References
Foreword
My vision for New Zealand is for us to become the most highly skilled nation in the world.
All developed nations are progressing towards a knowledge society, in which most jobs will be based on information and knowledge. For New Zealand to become the most highly skilled nation, or even just to maintain our current position, we will need a wide variety of new skills to support the continuing growth and development of our economy.
The single most important investment that we can make as a country is in education.
The new communications and information technologies are already having a major impact on our lives. They are changing the way we do our shopping and our banking and how we spend our leisure time. They are changing, not only how we work, but what we work at. Increasingly they are changing the way we learn.
Education and training must become lifelong processes. We can expect our children to have many different jobs during their lifetimes. Each one will require new knowledge and new skills. We owe it to our children to provide them with an education system which gives them the skills they need.
The reforms in the New Zealand education system during the last decade have created a robust and adaptable platform for the future. To build on this platform we need a team approach, involving all of us - parents, educators, business people and government.
In the words of the saying: if you don't know where you want to go, it doesn't much matter how you get there. But we do know where we want to go, and this report tells us that we are not going there. To realise the vision, or even to maintain a good standard of living as a nation, we cannot afford to accept second best in our education system.
This report highlights the issues facing New Zealand's education system as it seeks to meet the challenge of preparing our children for the 21st century. I welcome it as a first step. I have asked my Information Technology Advisory Group to develop an agenda for action to address the issues in this report.
Education concerns all of us. I urge New Zealanders, within and outside the education sector, to consider how we must change our education system to meet our needs into the next millennium.
Maurice Williamson
Minister for Information Technology
December 1997
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In March 1996, the Information Technology Advisory Group (ITAG) and the Information Technology Association of New Zealand (ITANZ) published ImpacT 20011, a broad-ranging study of the impact of information technology (IT) over the next five years on key aspects of New Zealand society. The report was prepared by the New Zealand Futures Trust for ITAG and ITANZ. By far the largest amount of reaction and feedback to the report came with respect to:
educational changes which were perceived as a necessary and indeed vital component of New Zealand's progress towards becoming a "knowledge society"2 and
the role which information technology would play in these changes.
In December 1996, the new Coalition Government announced that it would be developing and implementing an "Information and Technology in Learning" strategy that would ensure all New Zealand children are equipped for the information age by an education system which is fully attuned to New Zealand in the 21st century.
In view of this, ITAG and ITANZ decided to commission the Futures Trust to conduct further research and identify the key issues relating to the use of IT in education. The results of this research are presented in this report: Impact 2001: Learning with IT - The Issues.
The overall objectives of this report are therefore to identify and examine the various issues - technological, pedagogical3, sociological, financial and legal _ which are involved in the wider use of IT in learning. The New Zealand education model, as defined in the Education Act 1989 and the National Education Guidelines 1990 involves a partnership between Government, business, local communities and individuals. The effective use of IT in learning has implications for all partners.
The Report summarises the potential for IT to support learning in schools, and in tertiary institutions. IT provides new tools for teachers and students, but the technology on its own is not enough. Teachers need new skills, schools require new infrastructure such as computer cabling and technical support, and students need access to new curriculum resources. At the tertiary level, providers face new choices in terms of investment in IT hardware and software and the extent to which this contributes to organisational goals; at the same time developments such as the Internet are shrinking distances and challenging traditional investments in physical infrastructure in the form of buildings and contact institutions.
1ImpacT 2001: How Information Technology will Change New Zealand, March 1996.
2 In ImpacT 2001, the "knowledge society" was defined as one where the workforce is largely composed of a wide variety of "knowledge" workers, i.e. workers using their minds and IT tools to convert information into useful products and services.
3 Pedagogy is defined as the art and/or science of teaching.
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Some of the key issues facing education in New Zealand with respect to the development and use of IT in learning were identified in ImpacT 2001. Two recent Government Green Papers have also recognised the significance of IT in learning. The Tertiary Education Review Green Paper (September 1997) identified the development of IT as one of three powerful trends shaping the tertiary sector and the demands likely to be made on it:
"the development of information technology will greatly extend the range of learning opportunities for all New Zealanders.This will break down the barriers of time and location which historically prevented people from learning. It will change how learning occurs as well as when it occurs." (Tertiary Education Green Paper, p.3)
The Teacher Education Green Paper (October 1997) highlighted the direct implications for teaching methods:
"advances in information and communications technologies will continue to affect the nature of learning and the organisation of schooling, requiring teachers to adapt their approaches accordingly."(Teacher Education Green Paper, p.5)
The purpose of this Report, ImpacT 2001: Learning with IT - The Issues, is to explore in more depth the key issues that are already emerging from the use of IT in learning at both the school and tertiary levels. These issues are summarised below; further discussion and background information is contained at the cross-referenced pages.
Issue 1 - Potential of IT to Enhance Learning In Schools
Much evidence has been presented about the potential of IT to enhance learning in schools. Stakeholders now need to agree amongst themselves to accept that this evidence is sufficient to permit strategic decisions to be made.
Issue 2 - Leadership in the Use of IT in Learning
Nations around the world are developing policies to shape their environments and prepare their citizens for new knowledge-based economies. To what extent should Government be setting goals for student IT literacy?1
Issue 3 - Teacher Training and Development
Students today have access to learning technologies that weren't even invented when most of their teachers were trained. How do teachers develop the skills and competencies to increase their IT literacy and make effective use of these new tools in the classroom?
Issue 4 - Equity of Access
The National Education Goals recognise the importance of equal educational opportunities for all New Zealanders. In the "knowledge society" equitable access to information is a critical element in realising this goal. How do we ensure that every student has access to these tools?
Issue 5 - School IT Infrastructure
The lack of IT expertise in schools, in particular the smaller schools, when coupled with rapidly changing technologies, makes it impossible for most schools to prepare effective IT plans or to make fully informed choices about IT purchases or to provide the necessary ongoing technical support. There is much duplication of effort. How can this be avoided? Who sets the standards and provides the guidelines? What support infrastructure is required?
Issue 6 - IT Learning Resources
Many excellent IT-based learning resources have been developed in New Zealand and overseas by teachers and by commercial organisations. The challenge facing both teachers and the resource "publishers" is how to avoid duplication of effort and bridge the information gap. How do teachers find out about available resources and how do providers communicate with teachers? What incentives are there for teachers to share resources?
Issue 7 - Internet Access
The Internet is rapidly becoming an essential tool for all schools and for all students, and in the future, an increasing amount of information is expected to be available in electronic form only. How will schools ensure all students have sufficient access for their learning?
Issue 8 - IT Funding in Schools
In recent years, OECD comparisons of expenditure on education indicate that New Zealand is on a par with many other developed countries. Yet other countries appear to be making much bigger investments in IT infrastructure in schools. This suggests that schools need to consider reallocating funds from existing areas of expenditure. How is this to be achieved? How can Boards assess the priority of IT expenditure relative to other operational expenses?
Issue 9 - Global Tertiary Qualifications
To compete in a global market, New Zealand tertiary institutions will increasingly be forced to consider the needs of potential off-shore students as well as those resident in New Zealand; an even greater challenge will be to co-operate with off-shore tertiary institutions to confer "global" degrees.
Issue 10 - Intellectual Property Law
The development of international and New Zealand law in relation to intellectual property will be a first-order matter in the "knowledge society". This will be of particular concern to all tertiary education institutions, although the issue has also been raised by school teachers.
Issue 11 - Funding Tertiary Education
The EFTS (Equivalent Full-Time Students) system for funding tertiary institutions may require modification or replacement, in order to acknowledge and encourage the changes which the use of IT in education permits. The opportunities for reducing the costs invested in the traditional campus by the provision of high quality distance learning requires careful evaluation.
Issue 12 - Linking Business with Education
The challenge facing both business and education is how best to establish useful and sustainable partnerships, where both parties value the relationship similarly.
Issue 13 - Linking Homes with Education
The challenge facing schools is how to leverage on the very rapid growth in home computer equipment and "capture" the use of this equipment (and the students' home time) for learning purposes.
Issue 14 - Lifelong Learning
Most schools are used less than 20% of the time, when evenings, weekends and holidays are taken into account. This creates a significant opportunity to expand the role of the school into a community learning centre, with learning programmes being offered to all ages. The issue facing the whole adult community, and school Boards in particular, is how to transform our schools into all-age learning communities.
Issue 15 - Taking Action
There are many ideas for advancing the use of IT in learning. The key questions are what specific action steps need to be taken and who is responsible for taking them, taking into account the specific New Zealand education environment.
1 The term "IT literacy" relates to literacy in an information age, i.e. the age of computers, telecommunications and television, when these media are just as readily available as print media (books) have been in the past.
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The relationship between IT and school reform can be seen in two sharply contrasting ways. One point of view is to regard IT merely as a means for making the educational system somewhat more efficient or productive _ for example, by simplifying and speeding up some administrative procedures or permitting the occasional course to be reproduced at a remote location.
This would be desirable but not of prime importance. IT in schools would then take its place alongside other programmes directed towards greater productivity and efficiency.
The other viewpoint is to regard IT as the means for encouraging and facilitating broader reforms in school structure, curriculum, teaching and learning. If this viewpoint is correct, the matter is of first-order importance and requires top priority in policy formulation and funding.
There are several converging forces which are influencing various countries to adopt this latter viewpoint as the one on which to base policy. These are discussed below.
3.1 The Demands of the Information Age
New Zealand is on the threshold of becoming a "knowledge society" based on an economy concerned with information creation and exchange. A high proportion of existing jobs have a significant "knowledge" and "information" component which they did not have in previous times and are performed much more expeditiously and effectively through the use of the tools of information technology. Most new jobs can be categorised as "knowledge" jobs.
Schools must not prepare students with yesterday's skills for tomorrow's world.
The advent of this "knowledge society" requires that these reforms take place in schools.
"Otherwise, schools will prepare students for a world that no longer exists, developing in students yesterday's skills for tomorrow's world." (US Congress OTA Report, 1995b)
3.2 Changing Views of Learning
Traditionally, teaching has been dominated by the instructional method, where the teacher expounds and the students absorb facts and concepts. No doubt, there will always be a place for this process to form a component of teaching in the future.
Students have also learnt by collaborative efforts in groups, co-operating on geography or history projects or science experiments etc, with the guidance of teachers.
In recent decades greater attention has been paid to a view of learningwhich calls upon schools to teach basic skills within authentic, and hence more complex contexts in order to model expert thought processes. This approach encourages collaboration and external support so that students are able to achieve intellectual accomplishments which they could not attain on their own. Information technologies facilitate this approach because of the ease of networking across cities, communities and indeed the globe.
The abilities which are developed using this approach to construct knowledge, value complexity and solve complex multifactorial problems are the skills which students will need to succeed in an information-based society. The role of teachers may have changed but they still have vital roles to play in the learning process. They guide learning, act as mentors and help students put their understanding in context. They are still the indispensable means of developing the cognitive skills of students.
The role of teachers may have changed but they are still the indispensable means of developing the cognitive skills of students
Perelman (1993) and others have taken the extreme view that education will occur at home with no requirement for schools. This neglects the opportunities that schools provide for students to learn and work together as a community, the roles of teachers as mentors and guides and the roles schools play in the social, cultural and moral development of students.
3.3 Conflicting Roles of Schools
Schools have the following important, but often conflicting roles:
Intellectual nourishment: producing people with well-rounded minds, a love of learning, and a sense of themselves as creative, lifelong learners
Certification and work preparation: preparing students to meet the requirements of higher education and employment
Cultural conservation: transmitting the values and shared traditions of the society
Custodianship: giving parents a safe place to send their children, a nurturing home away from home.
These multiple and sometimes conflicting roles create tensions among educators, who have trouble satisfying any of them fully. Also, schools have multiple "customers" - parents, students and employers. In accommodating the interactions of IT and education to the best advantage, schools must work out their own models for restructuring and changes will probably occur relatively slowly.
"There is a fundamental difference between businesses, in which the goal is to 'do' and the bottom line is profit, and schools in which the goal is to 'be' and the bottom lines are many (eg meeting the social mandate)." (Congress OTA Report, 1995b)
Because the management issues relating to IT and schooling are very different from those in a business setting, it is even more important that the issues are well thought through and a sober consensus is reached on the best way forward.
3.4 The New Zealand Education Environment
Most countries have similar goals for the education of their citizens; every nation accepts the importance of education in sustaining and growing their economies. However, the methods and processes used to achieve these goals differ from country to country. Towards the end of the nineteen eighties, and consistent with overall economic and structural reforms, New Zealand chose a partnership model for education, commonly referred to as Tomorrow's Schools. Under this model, the role of central Government is to set education standards (learning outcomes) and provide the resources for learning (schools and teachers). However, the day-to-day management of individual schools and the methods chosen for curriculum delivery are the responsibility of school principals and their management team, under the overall governance of a community appointed Board of Trustees. The model below summarises these respective accountabilities.
The pyramid shape of the above model reflects Government policy during the last decade to minimise its involvement in operational activities and wherever possible allow the marketplace and local communities to take responsibility for themselves. However, in the education sector, accountabilities are far from black and white. While there is general acceptance that Government has the main responsibility for "environment" issues and school Boards for "education delivery", responsibilities for "infrastructure" issues are much more debatable. While the above model suggests that IT is an infrastructure issue, this view is not shared by all policy makers. Most of the issues discussed in this report fall within this somewhat "grey" infrastructure area.
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4.1 Learning Technologies
There is no disputing the very rapid development of technology in the IT field, with continuing change in the capabilities and versatility of computers, with the breakneck expansion of the Internet, and the integration of these developments with other telecommunications media. The speed of these technological changes in themselves makes the integration of IT into learning in schools more difficult. Given that the adoption of this technology by schools is generally going to be slower than in industry or business, schools face difficult decisions in deciding how and where to invest in terms of both teacher resources and money.
Recker (1997) has used a layered approach in discussing the appropriate use of learning technologies and the following discussion is based on her approach. She identified five layers:
1. delivery of material
2. the types of media used for educational technology
3. the kinds of computational activities
4. the new modes of communication within education
5. the learning phase
This layered framework integrates a bottom-up view of the use of information technology in schools and a top-down view of the kind of educational opportunities they support. The bottom layers concern IT technologies and approaches, whereas the top layers involve educational issues.
Layer 5: The Learning Phase
This layer is the most important from an educational standpoint. Recker quotes work in which it is proposed that we view learning as a continuous, iterative cycle of conceptualisation and re-conceptualisation. Within that process of learning there are at least three identifiable stages: conceptualisation, construction and dialogue.
Conceptualisation occurs when students are exposed to the topic, and asked to take on new concepts.
In construction, students build ideas using these new concepts.
In dialogue, students talk about, debate, critique and reflect upon these new concepts.
These three components are very different, and therefore different IT tools will be appropriate to each. It is important that schools acquire and use IT tools in a realistic, pragmatic and cost-efficient way - for the right reasons. Gwen Gawith (1996) has expressed this very forcibly:
"It doesn't matter whether we are talking about audioconferencing, videoconferencing, computer conferencing, audiographics, netware, CDware, satellite, broadcast or online transmission of information, the medium is NOT the message.
"Learning irrespective of medium, is about questioning, shaping and sharing thoughts and views, relating facts, figures and experience. It is about understanding, sifting, interpreting, making judgements about the quality of the information. It is about constructing knowledge in the head.
"If we see the Internet as the saviour of learning and society as we know it, we will produce young minds with very little substance behind a series of slick home pages.
"Mindware is shaped by programming. Information skills, critical and creative thinking skills, communication skills and the development of the imagination are the authoring language, as they have been since time immemorial.
"Good teachers are expert in using these authoring languages, and technology adds the most amazing opportunity to enhance their efforts...we desperately need teachers who focus on helping students to respect and develop ideas and original thinking through technology-enhanced listening, viewing, reading, writing and thinking."
In order to convincingly demonstrate the educational benefits of the use of IT in education, research methodology suggests the need for longitudinal studies. Such studies require comparisons over several years and are difficult experimentally because of the problem of having valid control samples and because IT technology advances so rapidly. McKinnon (1995) has carried out a five-year longitudinal case-study of the use of IT for learning in Freyberg High School, Palmerston North. The study also incorporated elements of experiential learning and subject integration. On entry to the School, students either entered the Integrated Studies project or the traditional school programme. It was found that students in the Integrated Studies project did significantly better in English, mathematics and science in School Certificate examinations than the students in the traditional school programme. With regard to the use of computers, by the fifth form students saw computers as a normal part of their working environment and used it routinely as a writing, information processing and analysis tool. Interviews revealed that they would not willingly go back to using the more traditional methods and implements of school learning.
In the United Kingdom, the ImpacT Report (Watson, 1993) indicated significant contributions of IT to students' learning. In Australia, Shears (1995) has assembled similar information from Victorian schools.
The "non-academic" common-sense answer to this question lies with the increasing numbers of teachers in classrooms and parents who have experienced for themselves the positive results of IT literacy in facilitating student learning in all school subjects. There is a current problem in the availability of a full range of IT learning resources of high standard, but this will be steadily redressed.
"Increasingly, curriculum is going to become internationalised." (McQueen, 1997).
Issue: Much evidence has been presented about the potential of IT to enhance learning in schools. Stakeholders need to agree amongst themselves to accept that this evidence is sufficient to permit strategic decisions to be made.
Mark Brown (1997) has discussed the various motivations for the current emphasis on education technology in schools. He identifies a number of rationales - based on vocational, economic, commercial, marketing, cost-effectiveness and transformation standpoints - in addition to the pedagogical or "science of teaching" rationale.
"The pedagogical rationale is built on the assumption that the use of new educational technology in schools offers an unprecedented potential to enhance learning. There are distinct learning advantages from students having frequent access to computers and a range of associated educational technologies. The computer is a unique learning tool that affords new opportunities for social and cognitive development within and beyond the classroom."
Brown points out that although the pedagogical rationale is usually assumed to be the main justification behind the drive to equip schools with new educational technology, it is important to note that one rationale may be supported because it supports another.
Brown also discusses what support is required for teachers to realise the potential of the new learning technologies. "What must be done to encourage `good' teaching practice with the ever-increasing range and sophistication of new educational technologies?" He contrasts the ad hoc, fragmented and leader-less approach to teacher support and education in New Zealand with the corresponding situation in Australia, Singapore and Britain.
"In Britain, teachers are fortunate to have strong leadership from the National Council for Educational Technology (NCET). This organisation supports a range of professional development initiatives, produces high quality resource material for teachers, disseminates information about exemplary practice and actively promotes research on the application of educational technology in the classroom. A clear vision and coherent strategy appears to underpin the National Council's approach to Educational Technology."
Because he perceives little prospect of an ideological shift that might change the current situation, Brown considers that teachers will have to do it largely for themselves. He proposes that teachers should establish a strong professional association - The New Zealand Association for Learning with Educational Technology (LET) - which would aim to support teachers in their use of new learning technologies in the classroom, and attempt to promote the wider dissemination of theory and research findings to schools. LET would offer a range of services and have the following features:
Formal affiliation with the International Society for Technology in Education, which would give a number of direct benefits to teachers
A number of moderated Listserv discussion groups for teachers to share information on specific types of educational technology and problems on their classroom use
An extensive Home Page on the Internet for members, which would include up-to-date information on research, theory and good classroom practice, a host of useful sites and suggested activities for teachers
Would aim to attract a major sponsor. "A sponsorship deal would allow annual scholarships for teachers to undertake further study in the area, and would make possible a number of regional and national awards for schools engaged in innovative practice"
Would work closely with major hardware and software suppliers and work to develop sound advisory and consultation services for schools
Would hold regular national LET conferences
Members would subscribe to the journal Computers in New Zealand Schools.
This summarises well what is required. However, it is a very ambitious brief for a professional association to attempt, and would require co-operation and support from the other interested stakeholders. The mechanisms by which the necessary services are delivered will require further debate and subsequent swift action. The desirability of establishing a New Zealand equivalent of Britain's National Council for Educational Technology is discussed later in this report.
In the absence of such an organisation, learning initiatives using IT are being developed either by enthusiastic teachers or by corporate enterprises. A recent example is the British Council's InterLink project in which 12 New Zealand and 12 British schools have been paired up to do a series of projects using the Internet during the school yearhttp://www.interlink.org.nz.
Another example is the Web-based mathematics tutor for 5th Form students developed by Ro Bairstow from Kings College in Auckland http://www.scholarnet.com. Fifth formers preparing for School Certificate can also obtain help in a range of subject areas at http://www.form5.co.nz.
A paper prepared by David Harris from the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (1997) summarises other recent initiatives in New Zealand, supported by the Ministry of Education and some private sector businesses, to trial, evaluate and implement particular technologies to assist with learning. He concludes:
"There is much to consider when implementing an information and communication technology project, yet if the educational purpose is always uppermost, then learning is enhanced".
Harris also summarises eight lessons learned from these projects. It is imperative that these lessons be communicated to all schools, possibly in the form of a print publication as well as the existing web page. The combined cost of these projects would have been well over $5 million; the return on this investment will only come if others can learn from these experiences. Private sector organisations with an interest in learning technologies could assist with this task. EdCom (the Education Communications Network) was set up in 1996 as a division of Multi Serve Education Trust specifically to provide IT advice to schools, and in 1997, Victoria University of Wellington set up the New Zealand Internet Institute. Research will be a key focus for the Institute and there are indications that research into the use of the Internet as a learning tool will be high on the priority list.
Layer 4: Communication Modes
This layer is concerned with the various ways in which information technologies offer new modes for communication within education. They may be classified as follows:
Same time/same place: Occurs in classrooms, lectures and seminars.
Same time/different place: Students and teachers are in different locations, but engage in activities at the same time, eg in a distance learning course with audio-conference discussions.
Different time/different place: In this mode, `asynchronous' forms of communication between educational groups are used, such as e-mail, on-line bulletin boards, Internet Newsgroups etc. The communication and exchange of ideas is bound neither by time or place. Students in many schools around the world (or around New Zealand) will compare results in various projects. This approach is motivating and exposing students to a diversity of views outside their immediate environment.
Different time/same place: Recker proposes that "in terms of education, we should view digital documents as 'places' that can be visited at different times by students and teachers. Within education, we can think about documents as 'places' that bring teachers and students together to construct new social meaning."
By far the most common form of communication used in education today is the "same time/same place" model, ie the school classroom, the University lecture theatre, the seminar room. The Correspondence School delivers "different time/different place" education to some 10,000 students, but only a small percentage make any use of IT tools to enhance their learning. Less than 5% of schools take advantage of IT to deliver "same time/different place" courses.
Layer 3: Computational Activities
This layer represents the computational activities which can be engaged in using the various media. These include simulations, games, information literacy, design environments, etc.
"Simulations. Computer simulations provide environments where learners can act in a simulated world and engage in activities otherwise not possible in the real world. For example, a physics simulation might enable a student to manipulate force and acceleration (notoriously difficult concepts) to observe the resulting effects on bodies in motion. Or, in an astronomy situation the student can manipulate the gravitational attraction between planets and see the resulting effect on planets.
"Computer Games. Any video-game shop will have a roomful of kids pumping their money into different games. Kids seem to find these games very motivating and engaging. From a pedagogical standpoint, the challenge becomes embedding educational content within similar motivating environments." (Recker, 1997)
Kids are content to co-operate together in the solution of problems in such games and gain experience in real-life problem solving in such games as Sim City, or in "game-like" learning software such as The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis.
Information literacy
is an all-important skill for teachers and students to acquire. By this is meant:
the ability to learn new skills of finding, critically evaluating and filtering the vast amount of information and data which is accessible, and finally organising, restructuring and integrating information from a variety of sources for a particular purpose.
Uncritical "surfing" of the Internet by students and "copy and paste" approaches to completing assignments are of negligible educational value.
"If pupils cannot apply knowledge and judgement, launching them onto the Internet is like putting them into a car without teaching them how to drive." (Blair 1996a)
Teachers require on-going training in information literacy, given the new IT tools that are available and the speed with which they are continuing to develop. It should be a core skill in all colleges and schools of education.
Design environments are environments where students can design and build manipulable objects of all kinds. Through hands-on design activity they can engage in theory building and testing. The objects may be developed and studied from a purely artistic viewpoint at one extreme, or from a design engineer's viewpoint at the other extreme. The studies progress logically through to the "learning phase" (Layer 5).
Layer 2: Media
The second layer comprises the variety of types of IT media which can be used in education technology in order to facilitate learning. These applications may often require increasing degrees of sophistication of equipment, but as we contemplate developments in the next 5 to 10 years, it is very probable that technologies that seem too complicated or too expensive today will probably be in everyday use well within the next decade.
There are many types of media supported by IT:
text
spreadsheets
data bases
two-dimensional and three-dimensional graphics
capabilities to design, draw and paint
animations
digital audio and video
virtual reality.
Increasingly, the software is so user-friendly that these applications can be used with only a limited amount of training and familiarisation.
Recker also distinguishes computational forms which she refers to as "dynamic interactive representations." These are representations that can be manipulated by learners in ways which reflect and support a particular activity within a discipline. Examples are:
the use of Mathematica in mathematics education to enable students to manipulate mathematics representations in a way that reflects the activities and practice of mathematicians
the ways in design and art work in which images may be manipulated in a variety of ways (shape, colour, texture, position etc), enabling the artist or designer to achieve the desired end-result.
The real challenge facing teachers and students is in selecting the most appropriate media for the learning activity. Print media will continue to be important; however, the new electronic media give new choices in shaping learning programmes to the needs of students and their different learning styles.
Layer 1: Delivery
The delivery layer "involves how information technology is used to get educational material out to students and teachers." (Recker, 1997). The first requirement is of course to have appropriate computers and associated telecommunications systems within schools. Recent reports on this aspect have been made by the Telecom Education Foundation (1996), Owens (1996) and the Ministry of Commerce (1997).
The Telecom report states that:
"Including all computers, there was one computer per 16 students in primary schools and one computer per 8 students in secondary schools. Including only those computers used mainly by students, there was one computer per 19 students in primary schools and one computer per 10 students in secondary schools.
"Approximately half of school computers were more than three years old.
"Because of the increasing numbers of both primary and secondary schools where students own or lease their own computers for school learning activities, the trend in the numbers of "school" computers will become less meaningful over time".
The latter point is a key one to remember, especially when it comes to considerations of providing equity of access.
During 1996, all schools were offered the opportunity to have a Telecom telephone Learning Line installed at no charge, and at the time of the survey, 64% of primary schools and 52% of secondary schools had installed one of these lines. The next challenge is to ensure adequate networking within schools. The Telecom survey indicated that only 8% of primary schools and 14% of secondary schools have structured cabling systems, capable of transporting multimedia resources.
The NetDay 97 initiative promoted by the Wellington City Council and supported by the 2020 Communications Trust helped 36 Wellington schools establish a basic cabling infrastructure for linking computers with each other and for providing more widespread access within their schools to shared resources, such as CD-ROMs, printers and the Internet. The initiative relied heavily on community support to provide the labour for installing the cabling and local businesses to help fund the hardware. The Trust plans to progressively extend this initiative to all schools throughout New Zealand; the target for NetDay 98 is 600 schools.
The proportion of schools with modems in classrooms in 1996 was 40% for primary schools and 56% in secondary schools. Percentages of schools with a modem anywhere in the school were 65% for primary schools and 92% for secondary schools.
The Ministry of Education survey by Owens (1996) showed the same student/computer ratios. The proportion of Internet connections reported by Owens is lower, because of an earlier reporting time and the rapid rate of Internet connections taking place. Of schools reported as not connected to the Internet in the Owens study, 93% of secondary schools and 82% of primary schools intended to connect by January 1998.
The next requirement is to ensure the provision of good educational material for students and teachers. The provision of material on discs and CD-ROMs is one method. The production of high quality teaching material on disc and CD-ROMs is a job for specialists and is time-consuming. However, more good material is steadily accumulating. CDs enable an author to retain control of their intellectual property rights. They may be used in three main ways in education:
Direct teaching resource. These tend to be most useful at a young age. For example, both the Wendy Pye and "Grandma and Me" series can give exceptional results in teaching young people to read. However, CDs are being employed for distance learning courses also, eg by the Correspondence School (Japanese).
Teaching resource. There are a range of CDs which, while not directly focused on a particular subject, are invaluable as resources - for example, CDs containing art works for art history or science activities.
Research resource. Includes CD encyclopedias such as Microsoft'sEncarta and Collier's Encyclopedia and specialist CDs on New Zealand birds, whales etc. These CDs are rapidly becoming the first choice resource for school projects (largely because of their ease of access).
Computer networking technology provides a more flexible and interactive way of acquiring good educational material, through the use of both email and the World Wide Web on the Internet. Skill and experience are required in searching, since much material can be of poor quality, not useful or not relevant to New Zealand education.
Issue:Many excellent IT-based learning resources have been developed in New Zealand and overseas by teachers and by commercial organisations. The challenge facing both teachers and the resource "publishers" is how to avoid duplication of effort and bridge the information gap. How do teachers find out about available resources and how do providers communicate with teachers? What incentives are there for teachers to share resources?
A Special Report on the Internet in the March 1997 issue of Scientific American noted that:
"The World Wide Web and the rest of the Internet constitutes a gigantic storehouse of raw information and analysis, the database of all databases".
This Special Report has contributions from several technologists about how to organise knowledge on the Internet with the aim of making it more genuinely useful. Clifford Lynch (1997) states:
"As the Net matures, the decision to opt for a given information collection method will depend mostly on users. For which users will it then come to resemble a library, with a structured approach to building collections? And for whom will it remain anarchic, with access supplied by automated systems?
"Users willing to pay a fee to underwrite the work of authors, publishers, indexers and reviewers can sustain the tradition of a library. In cases where information is furnished without charge or is advertiser supported, low-cost computer-based indexing will most likely still dominate - the same unstructured environment that characterises much of the contemporary Internet. Thus, social and economic issues, rather than technological ones, will exert the greatest influence in shaping the future of information retrieval on the Internet."
A difficulty which education in New Zealand faces in regard to the Internet is that education resources are purchased by schools from competing suppliers. The Internet is a new medium which struggles to meet the demands of the users and recompense the supplier. Systems are available which can charge on a per item basis for material accessed, but for a school perhaps requiring dozens of items and wishing to use them over several years this system may prove expensive. On the other hand, information placed on the Internet without restriction will receive no recompense and some providers are not happy with this. Suitable mechanisms need to be developed.
Issue: The Internet is rapidly becoming an essential tool for all schools and for all students, and in the future, an increasing amount of information is expected to be available in electronic form only. How will schools ensure all students have sufficient access for their learning?
In the educational area, a number of sites are available to New Zealanders as guides to educational resources on the Web. For example, one New Zealand service provides reviews of over 1000 of the best Internet sites for educators, with monthly updating, produced for both teachers and students, so that they can be used throughout the school http://teachers.work.co.nz. Each site review has a content, presentation and age group rating, as well as a description of the site. Also, there are helpful suggestions on how the material can be used in the classroom.
Recker (1997) emphasises that access to information is not the most critical factor, although it is an important potential of the Internet.
"More pertinent to education, networking supports the formation of new learning communities that transcend traditional classroom boundaries. For example, distributed groups of students and teachers can engage in knowledge-building activities through communication and information exchange. In this way, we might think of information as bricks, and constructed buildings as the resulting knowledge."
The setting up of Intranets in schools - little Internets comprising single networks connected by Internet software - will allow students to train at much lower cost and also provide for the distribution of information about the running of the school, lists of suggested Web sites, and student work.
Usually IT information services will be set up in conjunction with school libraries, with electronic information complementing the printed information well. The saving of good Web sites known as "caching" on the school's server is a good way of cutting on-line time and stopping students from accessing inappropriate sites.
"One way to cache sites and monitor student use is using a Web proxy server - software which accesses sites on behalf of the computers on the network. The proxy server checks its cache to see if it has the requested site. Otherwise it goes to the World Wide Web to get it. You can set it to log all traffic in and out of the network, hence checking what sites students have visited and who is looking at your home page." (McCarthy, 1997)
Local mirroring of popular sites can lead to substantial savings.
There are potential harmful influences from opening the sheltered class to the outside world through the Internet (pornography etc). Education reformers share this concern.
"It's largely because we understand the dark side of technology that we feel such a responsibility to ensure the beneficial applications and to try to minimise the dark side." (OTA Review, 1995)
"Pornography firewalls" are almost impossible from a technical point of view without sacrificing the benefits of access to useful information. Guidance from teachers acting as mentors is the preferable alternative, with the use of proxy servers, caches and Intranets as described above.
4.2 IT in Learning: Some Examples
Healthy initiatives for the use of IT in learning are occurring in a wide range of schools in New Zealand. It is interesting to note that the schools which "stand out" as examples of best practice are drawn from:
all parts of the country - rural and urban
across the whole socioeconomic and ethnic spectrum
both public and private schools.
However, there are characteristics that are common to most of these schools:
an urgent issue driving the use of IT
leadership from the Principal and support from the Board
at least one staff IT enthusiast with a good understanding of the education benefits
IT technical skills on staff
applications involving some form of networking
financial support from the business community.
Increasing Students' Motivation to Learn
Ngata Memorial College in Ruatoria had difficulties with teacher recruitment and retention, as well as with student achievement. In 1993, the then Principal, Apryll Parata-Blane and resource person Arnold Reedy set up an audiographic telelearning system linking a cluster of East Coast schools, including Kura Kaupapa Maori. Te Puni Kokiri, Telecom New Zealand and IBM assisted with financial and technology resources. Ngata Memorial is now the top performing decile 1A school in the country.
Improving the Quality of Teaching and Learning
Oxford Area School faced difficulties with senior student retention as small numbers prevented recruitment of specialist teachers. Principal Carol Moffatt set up an IT Action Plan in co-operation with nine other schools in Canterbury to use audiographic telelearning to create a virtual classroom. Specialist teachers located in each of the participating schools now simultaneously teach students at four or five other schools. Use of the technology has not only provided new learning opportunities for students at these schools but has also created the opportunity for teachers to improve the quality of their programmes.
Ensuring the Commitment of all Teaching Staff
Many schools have struggled to integrate IT tools into learning programmes because there has only been one champion or enthusiast on staff. There is often only enough funding to send one staff member on an IT training programme, but without the understanding and support of fellow teachers, implementation can be very difficult. Mark Beach, Principal of Tahatai Coast School, a new school opened at the beginning of 1996 in Papamoa, was able to avoid this problem by ensuring all staff shared a similar vision from the very beginning. Since then he has also adopted an innovative staff development programme with all staff visiting leading Australian technology schools in 1996 and Canadian schools in 1997.
Accessing Global Learning Resources
Pakuranga College in Auckland has an excellent reputation for its information and media studies programmes. For many years the College has operated its own in-school radio and television station and under the leadership of Information Resource Manager, Liz Probert, was one of the first schools to re-position their library as an Information Resource Centre, with full access to online and electronic resources.
Making Efficient Use of Limited Information Resources
Porirua Primary School in Porirua,under Principal Jill Stanley, embarked on a carefully thought-out Action Plan for the provision of IT in learning, beginning with teacher development and carefully acquiring equipment according to what their modest budget would permit. The classrooms are extensively networked and IT trolleys with special equipment can be moved throughout the school on demand.
Bridging the Gap between School and the Community
Piopio College in the King Country, under Principal Brian Tegg and Deputy Principal, David Day, has established New Zealand's first telecommunity centre, providing access to the College's IT resources for the local business community on a commercial basis. Piopio College has also developed a successful Bio-Link programme for the 7th form biology students, who are able to access course resources on the College's web server from their homes.
Providing Personal Tools for Students and Teachers
In 1997, Wellington Girls' College,a traditional academic girls' school has, under new Principal Margaret McLeod and Head of Information Technology, Caroll Smyth leap frogged to the front edge in the use of IT. The first phase consisted of the establishment of two state-of-the-art multimedia laboratories for training staff and students. The second phase involved equipping staff with portable computers and establishing network connections from staff resource areas throughout the College. By the end of 1997 all staff will have access to the College's Intranet for school administration and staff e-mail. The third phase involves networking every classroom, establishing links with students' home computers and making provision for the use of laptops by students. Other schools have proceeded on similar paths in making provision for staff and student laptops, including King's College in Auckland, Tawa School in Wellington and Fergusson Intermediate School in Upper Hutt.
4.3 Changing Curricula And Assessment
For many of the ways in which IT tools can be used for teaching and learning, they can be accommodated within the existing curriculum; they are simply alternative and hopefully more effective means of learning. In these situations, performance assessment procedures are no different from those currently in use.
But as schools progress with the provision of more "authentic" instruction - as described earlier - there is the need to develop methods of "authentic" assessment of what the performance and contribution of individual students has been, especially when they are working in teams.
In the US Congress OTA Report (1995b), papers were commissioned from five specialists in this field of technology and education. They all envisage that a considerable segment of schooling will involve "project-based" learning, in which teams of students with different strengths will work together on real-life issues, collaborating with people in the working world on specific issues. There will still be a need for students to reach standards in key areas and there will be explicit habits of mind, competencies and core knowledge that all students are expected to master. The assessments of student progress in team projects will be based on new forms of documentation and products and by the judgements of teachers and other members of the community on the contributions of individual students. Conceptually, it will be very similar to gauging an individual's performance in a sports team.
4.4 New Roles For Teachers
The changing roles for teachers as IT tools become more widely adopted in education requires a clear appreciation by all involved, but especially by the Colleges and Faculties of Education.
"While technological advances may make it possible for students to progress at their own pace with materials geared to their individual learning style, interests, understanding and needs, teachers are the crucial link between students and technology. Without the teacher's guidance and enthusiasm for technology in the classroom, technology in schools is little and poorly used." (US Congress OTA Report, 1995b)
Making the connection between teachers and IT is examined in detail in a companion US Congress OTA Report (1995a). It is important to recognise that teachers will always be the indispensable means of developing the cognitive skills of pupils so that they can think for themselves logically and creatively. IT, like books, is an invaluable and enabling resource and tool, but teachers are the trainers of minds.
Issue: Students today have access to learning technologies that weren't even invented when most of their teachers were trained. How do teachers develop the skills and competencies to increase their IT literacy and make effective use of these new tools in the classroom?
Much custodial work and routine paper-work can be systematised using IT, leaving more time for the intellectually challenging functions that attracted people to teaching in the first place - inspiring, guiding, advising and coaching students and imparting expertise. The Education Centre for Research and Development at Massey University has developed an integrated IT-based management system for schools (the MUSAC system) which has now been installed by 2000 New Zealand schools (Nolan et al. 1996a, 1996b). Besides routine management operations, the system allows for higher levels of administration with planning, forecasting components etc.
Kozma and Grant (1995) state:
"To fulfil our vision, teachers would need to learn not only to use the various technologies described in our scenarios, but also to design, structure, guide and assess progress in learning centred around student projects. This kind of teaching, which most teachers have rarely experienced in their own education, requires wide-ranging subject matter expertise, creativity and intellectual confidence. Teachers need to be comfortable letting their students move into domains of knowledge where the teachers themselves lack expertise; teachers need to have the intellectual confidence to be willing to model their own reasoning process when they encounter phenomena they do not understand or questions they cannot answer. Teachers must be able to roam from group to group physically and electronically, providing stimulation and coaching without dominating the group process."
With regard to teaching patterns and structures, Riel (1995) suggests a model which is designed to allow instructors with different motives and capabilities to work at the level of their interest and to create opportunities for teachers to advance without giving up classroom instruction. A hierarchy of levels is proposed, as follows:
Learning guides(para-professionals)
Entry-level teachers
Mentor teachers
Master teachers.
Hunter and Goldberg (1995) predict a very high degree of involvement by community members in learning and teaching. In their scenario, the concept of lifelong learning is valued by all members of the community and almost every job involves a great deal of teaching and learning. They visualise teachers as being responsible for coordinating learning both inside and outside the traditional school environment, as a result of which they would gain greater respect from the community. Teacher roles would be richer and more vibrant than teachers now with greater diversification of roles, but with teachers not needing to be an expert in each role. There would have to be changed expectations for, and conditions within, the profession of teaching.
Teachers must receive significant and continuing support in such areas as project-based learning and assessment, community outreach and technology integration. This needs to become the norm in most teacher education programmes and should be provided as part of continued professional development.
As an example, in Denmark the Ministry of Education has developed an in-service programme ("Learn IT") which is available on CD-ROM with updates from a Web page and which is intended to support the new legislation in Denmark on the place of IT in primary and secondary education.
The goal should be to reduce to zero the numbers of teachers who are not confident using IT in the classroom. The examples of "best practice" in many schools should be studied by the colleges and faculties of education and also between schools so that the skills are effectively learned and disseminated.
The goal should be to reduce to zero the numbers of teachers who are not confident using IT in the classroom.
The Ministry of Education has spent about $6.8 million during three years to December 1995 to give IT training to 8500 teachers. On their own, these courses are not likely to result in changed practices in the use of IT in classrooms. Teachers need ongoing support in their schools by mentors, in the form of IT resource people (Jones, 1997) or library/media specialists. These people would continue to provide teacher training in the development and use of IT-based learning resources and assist teachers to develop their confidence and skills. In 1996/97 the Government committed approximately $61 million expenditure on in-service teacher professional development but none of this was tagged for IT programmes. During the next two years the Government expects to spend about $1 million each year on training in IT. Teachers face ongoing pressures to participate in professional development programmes within their own subject specialties or in school management. Consideration needs to be given to introducing incentive and reward structures for teachers using new and innovative IT methods in their teaching.
Like other occupations, teacher development is a continuous process and increasingly, teachers could be expected to undertake a certain number of hours of professional development every year in order to maintain their professional accreditation. Access to a Hub IT School would enable teachers to participate even if their own school is not fully equipped. Hub IT Schools would be specially equipped with computer laboratories and telelearning centres for use in teacher development programmes as well as for student learning. The Geelong Science and Technology Centre in Victoria, Australia provides a good model http://www.gsat.edu.au.
The introduction of IT into the working environment has led to the loss of jobs in many occupational groups and the creation of new jobs with a high "knowledge" content. The teaching profession may well be concerned about the potential loss of jobs as the use of IT in learning becomes more widespread. Although changes in job descriptions and infrastructural changes in schools will undoubtedly occur, the employment and career opportunities for teachers in the future must be very positive. The teaching profession holds the vital key to enabling our population to be internationally competitive as a "knowledge society."
The teaching profession holds the vital key to enabling our population to be internationally competitive as a "knowledge society".
In "ImpacT 2001" (1996), we stated that "gifted teachers must be given high financial and social recognition because in the internationally competitive knowledge society, they will be national treasures." We believe the borrowing of the Japanese "living treasure" concept is appropriate, because it emphasises the attitudinal change to the status of teaching as a career and a profession which must occur.
4.5 An Expanded View of the Learning Community
IT enables schools to have access to many more resources beyond the constraints of the traditional "closed" classroom. The possibilities might be visualised in the following ways:
"In our vision of communities of understanding, digital technologies are used to interweave schools, homes, workplaces, libraries, museums and social services to reintegrate education into the fabric of the community." (Kozma and Grant, 1995)
Reil (1995) sees the community in two ways:
1. virtual communities which bring together the educational community and offer additional resources
2. local community, connecting the school with the working world and supporting the teachers through a school/community council.
Networking also allows experts within schools and other learning institutions to be brought into the community.
An alternative way of expressing these visions is to think in terms of the development of a "knowledge society" where on-going learning is the norm. Networks which allow two-way interactions between schools and tertiary learning institutions and private and community-based organisations will have developed to permit the educational institutions to provide learning both within their portals and also on request to outside groups or individuals.
Issue: Most schools are used less than 20% of the time, when evenings, weekends and holidays are taken into account. This creates a significant opportunity to expand the role of the school into a community learning centre, with learning programmes being offered to all ages. The issue facing the whole adult community, and school Boards in particular, is how to transform our schools into all-age learning communities.
McQueen (1997) says:
"Learning centres will increasingly comprise multi-aged groups. The present lockstep artificial age cohort advancement will change. People will access learning at different ages and stages as their needs vary. Curriculum delivery will increasingly be a team effort. The qualifications framework will ease credit transfer and enable portability of qualifications. Some learning centres will be like universities with a wide range of offerings while others will tend to specialise. Kura Kaupapa schools are an illustration of this, a group creating its own structures within the system to meet its particular needs. I foresee a large growth in niche learning centres."
Te Kohanga Reo National Trust Board is developing plans for a nationwide satellite network to provide distance learning programmes to the many kohanga reo (early childhood) centres around the country. Although the initial emphasis is on child education, the broad objective is to provide an educational facility for the adult Maori community also. The system will allow interactivity in due course. (Himona, pers.comm., 1997)
At a conference of Maori secondary school teachers in July,1997, organised by the Post Primary Teachers' Association Maori Executive, teacher Eldon Potaka said that IT is as important as the Maori language in terms of the economic future of Maori and the conference voted that all schools should develop Maori IT strategies. (Gerritsen, 1997)
The Correspondence School is increasingly using alternative IT-based delivery systems in addition to its excellent print-based resources, particularly where students can collect in groups. The concept which is favoured is to have distributed learning centres where the learners get support close to where they live - in schools, marae, learning centres etc. Teachers are increasingly in direct contact with students by phone, e-mail etc.
There needs to be a clear policy on "open learning" at the school level. With the development of educational IT, the prospect of parents and students choosing distance learning as the "school or institution of first choice" becomes very practicable. The question has to be asked "Why shouldn't a parent in Miramar, Mt Roskill, St Kilda or Aromoho be able to choose the Correspondence School as the school of first choice?"
The prospect of parents and students choosing distance learning as the "school or institution of first choice" becomes very practicable.
There is also rapidly growing interest amongst senior citizens in obtaining computer skills. Most people over the age of 55 have had no opportunity to learn how to use a computer, even though they may have held very senior positions in major companies with highly developed IT infrastructures. A development called SeniorNet is providing this opportunity. Building on a US initiative, the first New Zealand SeniorNet Learning Centre was established in Wellington in 1992. There are now over 20 Centres throughout New Zealand with a total membership of over 3000. To make sure the courses are well matched to the students, all the trainers are over 55 as well.
4.6 Roles for Government?
Leadership
Political leaders can play an important role in articulating a national commitment towards achieving a high level of IT literacy for all students, as a matter of primary importance. An essential part of this commitment will be to encourage all schools to adapt their learning programmes to ensure that students are empowered through the use of IT, to assist their educational development and to equip them well for the "knowledge society" in which they will work and live as adults.
Issue: Nations around the world are developing policies to shape their environments and prepare their citizens for new knowledge-based economies. To what extent should Government be setting goals for student IT literacy?
This is an area where wise leadership at the political level will ensure large benefits to our society in terms of future employment, commercial development and quality of life.
In doing this, New Zealand will be following a parallel course to that adopted by many other countries. For example:
In the United Kingdom, the new Labour Government intends that: "every school will be hooked up, every child given the chance to forge ahead, every cost whether it be access charges or fees for software driven down so that access to education on the superhighway does become as easy as access to electricity through the National Grid". (Blair, 1996b)
In the USA, President Clinton and Vice-President Gore have promoted IT in schools strongly and individual States have taken many initiatives. President Clinton in his Inauguration Speech last January set a goal of all eight-year old children being connected to the Internet by 2000.
In Denmark, the Education Act has been amended to ensure that all school children are able to take advantage of contemporary information technology and several government initiatives have been taken to ensure that educational technology tools are a key part of education.
In Australia, initiatives have been taken at the Federal and State levels. The Federal Government initiated in February, 1996, the Education Network Australia (EdNA), which provides a comprehensive directory of educational technology services; facilitates access to on-line services; and provides collective tendering for the buying or leasing of computers.
The Carr Government in New South Wales has made successive allocations for computers in schools (A$68m this year), with the objective of having one computer for every eight students by 1998. All government schools in NSW are connected to the Internet, with access to specially trained teachers. The NSW Ministry of Education has established a Network for Education which offers a very extensive compilation of resources to improve classroom teaching.
The Victorian Government has taken similar initiatives with interactive satellite telecommunications to every school and with access to software and the Internet through School of the Future SOFWeb and SOFNet links http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/.
The Singaporeans and Malaysians have long valued education very highly and the governments of both countries are now showing decisive leadership in the application of educational technologies. In Singapore, "the government has taken recent initiatives to fully equip teachers with the tools to put the latest educational theory into practice" (Brown, 1997). In Malaysia, the Minister of Education has announced a "Smart School" initiative, aimed at creating "a new generation of Malaysians _ Malaysians who are more creative and innovative in their thinking, adept with new technologies, and able to access and manage completely the information explosion," (Smart Schools, 1997). This initiative is being implemented in phases with the objective of converting all primary and secondary schools to Smart Schools by 2010.
In New Zealand, similar policies need to be developed to ensure that all children have the opportunity to take advantage of contemporary information technology at all stages of schooling.
IT should be available for use in all subjects in the same way as books. By introduction of IT at an early age, education provisions can be individualised to cater for the abilities of the individual student. The desirability of giving this a legal basis by introducing an appropriate amendment to the Education Act should be considered.
An Education Amendment Act would give legal basis to the goal of children acquiring information literacy in the same way that they acquire reading literacy.
The National Education Guidelines, first established in 1990, and revised in 1993, (published in The New Zealand Gazette no. 58, 1993 pp 1086-88) are in three parts, namely:
National Education Goals
National Curriculum Statements
National Administration Guidelines.
The National Curriculum Statements cover the seven essential learning areas _ mathematics, science, language and languages, technology, social sciences, health and physical well-being and the arts. National Curriculum Statements for the latter two are still under development. The Curriculum Statements focus on outcomes and do not prescribe the methods or tools schools are expected to use in attaining these outcomes. Responsibility rests with school Boards of Trustees to select the most relevant tools to meet their school charters (and hence the National Education Guidelines). In many schools learning technologies are still being regarded as optional extras rather than indispensable tools and are being accorded low priority in policy planning.
The National Administration Guidelines are specifically addressed to Boards of Trustees and currently cover six areas of school operations: curriculum requirements, employer responsibilities, financial and property management, documentation and self-review, health and safety, administration. A seventh area of accountability could be added covering the deployment and use of information technology. This would ensure that Boards focus on giving all children the opportunity to learn skills in the use of information technology in the same way as they learn to use books.Pre-school, primary and secondary schooling should be geared to ensuring that IT is regarded as a natural element of learning in individual subjects. By the early introduction of IT, education delivery can be shaped to cater for the abilities of each individual student.
A Report of a Consultative Committee on Information Technology in the School Curriculum (1990) stated that a policy goal for New Zealand education should be:
"that all students will have the opportunity to increase the efficiency and the effectiveness of their learning at all levels and in all subjects through the appropriate use of information technology".
In 1997, the case for such a policy goal is even more pressing.
During the last decade, schools have put their best efforts into acquiring computers, initially for administrative use but more recently for learning programmes. Schools now face a new challenge with the development of networking technologies, enabling resource sharing both within schools and between schools. Networking, including access to the Internet, puts new pressures on School Boards, Principals and teachers. Not only are the technical issues much more complicated, but there are new demands on limited school funds. Schools face difficult choices about what to do, how to do it and how to provide ongoing support. Commercial providers are emerging to meet this need, but without a clear vision and direction, schools are frequently reluctant to make these decisions. The dilemma schools face is that they do not wish to give up their autonomy, but they desperately seek guidance from someone they can trust. Who provides this leadership? Clearly, Government has a role, but the IT industry could be expected to assist.
Training of Teachers in the Use of IT in Learning
On-going programmes should be instituted in all Colleges and Faculties of Education and in-service professional development should be readily available for all teachers. Leadership should come from these tertiary institutions, who have prime responsibility for training teachers; at least for today, these institutions are not giving sufficient priority to the use of IT tools in learning programmes. Other tertiary institutions, including the polytechnics and the universities have recognised this weakness and are starting to offer targeted programmes to fill the gap.
The recently released Ministry of Education consultation document on teacher education, Quality Teachers for Quality Learning: A Review of Teacher Education (October 1997), suggests that quality teachers should have:
"the ability to use information and communications technologies effectively as an aid to teaching".
This is just the sort of direction needed from Government.
Specialist IT resource people or library-media specialists should be available in schools to support teachers in developing and using learning resources. Boards of Trustees are able to make choices about employing people with these information skills today, but few understand the need and most don't have sufficient spare resources to fund an additional staff member. An alternative implemented at Kings' College in Auckland involves appointing IT tutors from existing staff; these staff are released from some teaching duties, allowing them time to attend special training programmes and in turn provide support for other staff. However, the bottom line is that there is still a cost in terms of additional staffing. Responsibility must come back to Government to help schools address this issue.
Replicating Models of Exemplary Practice in Schools
There is a clear role for central government in evaluating, promoting and disseminating the innovative and promising activities which are already being undertaken in schools. The Government's existing performance monitoring agency for schools, the Education Review Office (ERO), has no explicit charter to monitor and report on effective IT programmes, although this could become a factor in future reviews.
Many of the current practitioners of IT in the schooling system deplore the inefficiencies involved in "reinventing the wheel" (Gawith, 1996). Probert (1997) contrasts the New Zealand position with Canada, where there are school area boards with specialists giving help.
The increasing numbers of examples of models of effective practice in New Zealand is very encouraging. A national advisory group on IT in schools would facilitate the replication of these examples of best practice to other schools around the country serving differing socioeconomic and ethnic groups. There clearly is an opportunity for central government to make strategic allocations of funds and human resources to schools, based on the assessments and recommendations of such an advisory group.
For example, the development of interactive distance learning programmes by a small number of clusters of rural schools has enabled a pooling of specialist teaching resources and the offering of a much wider range of courses to rural students. If 18 - 20 rural clusters similar to the CANTATECH cluster centred on Oxford Area School were distributed throughout the country, the standards and scope of rural schooling would be assisted greatly. Replication of these clusters would require an allocation of funds and human resources which an advisory unit could assess and facilitate. (In Victoria, Australia, 84 schools in rural areas are organised into 18 clusters sharing curriculum and teacher expertise using videoconferencing, telematics and shared mobile technology resources).
The principle of pooling specialist teacher resources can be applied in urban areas also - for example in ensuring the wider availability of courses in various languages.
An IT advisory group would advise on appropriate computer installations etc, and ensure comparable professional standards in IT in schools throughout the country.
Issue:
The lack of IT expertise in schools, in particular the smaller schools, when coupled with rapidly changing technologies, makes it impossible for most schools to prepare effective IT plans or to make fully informed choices about IT purchases or to provide the necessary ongoing technical support. There is much duplication of effort. How can this be avoided? Who sets the standards and provides the guidelines? What support infrastructure is required?Following a Report by a Consultative Committee on Computers in Schools (1982), a "Computers in Education" Unit was set up within the Ministry Of Education and later disbanded in 1989, with the implementation of "Tomorrow's Schools". We suggest that at this stage a New Zealand equivalent of the National Council for Educational Technology in the United Kingdom - whose functions have been referred to earlier - should be established (see NCET, 1997) and that this would be the most appropriate structure for the advisory group we are envisaging. NCET is a government-funded registered charity which seeks to raise standards in teaching and learning across all sectors of education through the appropriate use of information and communication technologies. It has a core grant from the four UK Departments of Education of about £5 million a year and is also funded for additional projects. The turnover for 1995-96 was over £12 million.
Coordination of Learning Resources
There are many excellent learning resources available that assist teachers make sensible use of the various learning technologies. Furthermore, new resources are being created daily. The challenge for teachers is to know what is available, how it supports a particular curriculum objective and where to obtain the resource. There is clearly a role for central government or an agent of Government (possibly the Schools' Library Service in the National Library) to provide a national clearing house for resources relevant to the New Zealand Curriculum. Specifically this should include resources available on CD-ROM and the Internet, as well as real time online learning activities. We note one effort by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) to develop a national education index for New Zealand (EDINZ). This project was closely linked to the National Library's proposed NDIS (National Document and Information Service) system, and when NDIS was abandoned, EDINZ was redefined. NZCER has now developed a new set of concepts to carry on where EDINZ left off:
EdLib - a list server aimed initially at education librarians
EdLink - providing links to web pages for education librarians and education professionals http://www.nzcer.org.nz/library.htm.
EdMap - a guide to New Zealand education information resources
Another service is provided by Copeland Wilson and Associates, a Wellington based web design company. The CWA Education Web provides "an extensive collection of resource materials, information and links, all of which are targeted at teachers, educators and students involved in New Zealand education" http://www.cwa.co.nz/index.html.
Research and Development of Learning Technologies
Both the Ministry of Education and the New Zealand IT industry, notably Telecom New Zealand, have invested in a number of trials of learning technologies (Harris, 1997). Similar trials and pilot programmes are taking place throughout the world, typically with much larger investments than can be justified in New Zealand. Schools can learn a lot from these trials; some already do by arranging overseas visits to attend international conferences or study particular initiatives. However, the outcomes need to be carefully assessed in the light of the New Zealand situation and widely disseminated to all schools. One thing is certain - we do not need more trials. What is required are ongoing sustainable implementations of "world best" practice. Central government should contribute to research and development directed at making educational technologies more effective. There is a place for the private sector to also fund this area and in fact several corporates already do so. Close co-operation between Government and Industry will help avoid any duplication of effort.
There is also a role for in-depth research into the effectiveness of the new learning technologies as applied to the specific New Zealand situation and culture. The Public Good Science Fund could support research in this area as it affects the future knowledge society which in turn will have a direct effect on the overall New Zealand economy.
Promoting Equity
It is important that equity of access remains central to government policy in this area. Previous generations of New Zealanders have aimed at providing equal educational opportunities for all children. In the "knowledge societies" of the future, maximising our intellectual capital will be very important for the country's welfare.
"A modern nation cannot afford a 'winners and losers' education system. Every young person deserves quality learning opportunities. Marginalisation should not be perpetuated nor introduced through education. That means digital literacy is a must for every child, every teacher and every learner."(McQueen, 1997)
How can we ensure that our children are not divided into an A team and a B team? This is a complex issue; parent attitudes and the home environment clearly play an important part in how much priority a child puts on learning. Whether children have access to learning software or only computer games will be a matter of parental choice. However, schools can be important influencers and they do have a responsibility to make sure all students have access, at least during school hours. Government can also assist by targeting funding and human resources to support the implementation of "best practice" solutions in schools in low socio-economic areas, where fewer students are likely to have access to up to date computer equipment in their homes.
Issue:The National Education Goals recognise the importance of equal educational opportunities for all New Zealanders. In the "knowledge society" equitable access to information is a critical element in realising this goal. How do we ensure that every student has access to these tools?
Funding: The Macro-Economic Picture
Comparisons with the spending of other OECD countries on education are relevant. The following figures are taken from the OECD Web-site http://www.oecd.org/els/stats/eag_ind.htm.
In 1993, (the most recent international comparisons available), public expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP ranged from 3.5% to 9.0% for 22 OECD countries, with New Zealand spending 6.7%. Comparisons with some of these countries were:
| Finland | 7.9% |
| Sweden | 7.7% |
| Canada | 6.9% |
| New Zealand | 6.7% |
| Denmark | 6.6% |
| France | 5.7% |
| Australia | 5.6% |
| USA | 5.2% |
| UK | 5.1% |
| Germany | 4.8% |
| Japan | 3.6% |
Education expenditure plus public subsidies to the private sector as a percentage of total public expenditure was 17.0% in New Zealand in 1993, exceeded only by Korea and Hungary of 24 countries compared. This probably reflects a lower level of public expenditure in New Zealand as a result of the sale of previously owned Government enterprises such as telecommunications. Comparisons with some of these countries were:
| New Zealand | 17.0% |
| Australia | 14.3% |
| USA | 14.2% |
| Canada | 13.4% |
| Denmark | 13.0% |
| Finland | 12.8% |
| UK | 11.5% |
| Sweden | 10.6% |
| Japan | 10.5% |
| France | 10.4% |
| Germany | 9.5% |
Comparative figures for the annual expenditure per student relative to per capita GDP in public and private institutions for all levels of education combined were as follows (1993 figures):
| Sweden | 33.9 |
| Canada | 33.5 |
| Finland | 33.0 |
| Denmark | 30.8 |
| USA | 30.3 |
| Germany | 29.5 |
| Australia | 26.7 |
| Overall OECD Country mean | 26.3 |
| UK | 25.6 |
| New Zealand | 24.6 |
| France | 24.3 |
| Japan | 23.3 |
From these figures it can be concluded that public expenditure on education in New Zealand compares quite favourably with other OECD countries. This suggests that investment in IT in schools may require re-prioritising of existing expenditures within Vote: Education rather than additional funding. In other words, what is required is wise spending and not big spending. Standardised reporting of expenditures by Boards of Trustees would allow comparative data to be produced, which in turn would help Boards of Trustees identify possible areas where savings could be made to free up funds for IT resources.
Issue: In recent years, OECD comparisons of expenditure on education have consistently indicated that New Zealand is on a par with other developed countries yet other countries appear to be making much bigger investments in IT infrastructure in schools. This suggests that schools need to consider reallocating funds from existing areas of expenditure. How is this to be achieved? How can Boards assess the priority of IT expenditure relative to other operational expenses?
Perhaps the biggest financial hurdle will be the recruitment and funding of specialist IT staff in schools or IT resource people who could be available to schools on a part-time basis. Large schools will typically require two additional people, one to provide technical support and the other to provide "information" support (an enhanced librarian role); smaller schools could rely on shared personnel provided they are available for at least one day per week. This could involve up to 2000 additional staff and clearly, it would take some time to recruit and train sufficient numbers of suitable people.
The funding of IT facilities in schools should be a tripartite programme between central government, the private sector and communities, with greater central government support going to schools in lower socioeconomic areas.
The proposals for establishing an IT advisory group (or a National Council for Learning Technologies) and facilitating the establishment of an IT Learning Resource Centre will require modest amounts of funds. The replication of school clusters using IT will also require only small additional funding and should lead to savings in other parts of the Education Budget. The research and development activities described above would also require modest funding.
Addressing the equity issues will require a major allocation of funds. The allocation of these funds could be made on a similar basis to the existing Financial Assistance Scheme with all schools being entitled to a 50% subsidy, but schools in lower socioeconomic areas qualifying for additional subsidies up to 90%. These schools will also typically require assistance in preparing IT Action Plans. An organisation such as EdCom could be contracted to work progressively with schools to prepare these plans. Member schools of EdCom already receive assistance in carrying out an IT audit as the first step in preparing an Action Plan as part of their membership subscription.
These one-off costs to equip schools with the plans, the people, the technology and the learning resources will require additional funding from Government. However, for the most part, ongoing IT operation costs should be met by reallocating existing school funds. Two particular areas of focus where savings could possibly be made are:
1. School professional and administrative services.
There could be considerable scope for reductions of costs if schools were to use more centralised IT-based services, rather than each school operating totally independently (which the "Tomorrow's Schools" initiative encouraged), often using inefficient paper-based procedures. The Report of the Taskforce to Review Education Administration(1988) - the Picot Report - envisaged schools requiring some professional and administrative services which - if they were not to be purchased from the private sector - could be more efficiently provided to a local cluster of institutions (Paragraph 5.6.1). A need was seen for "education service centres" which would provide such services as the learning institutions in the particular area want. "Services could include: administrative support; arranging maintenance; assisting with budgets and pricing; accountancy services; arranging school or other transport; providing management advice" (Paragraph 5.7.1). Although clustering to provide such services has occurred to a limited extent, we believe additional savings could be made by greater use of this administrative model. The key will be to develop appropriate incentives for school Boards to consider this option. A good example of this is the discount scheme on toll calls negotiated by EdCom, with Telecom New Zealand. Approximately 1/3rd of all schools now benefit from this scheme.
2. The property and building asset.
The use of school property in a "knowledge society" will require schools to address the need for a more efficient use of available space for a greater proportion of each weekday, the design of more flexible multi-use space and the recognition that for much of the time a "virtual" classroom will be as valid as the real classroom. Also, telelearning developments will reduce some of the need for relocation of teaching facilities. We are at present locked in to an anachronistic formulae for the provision of minimum areas of administration blocks and other facilities, when the rationale for their provision is increasingly open to question. The recent Government policy initiative to encourage Boards of Trustees to dispose of surplus property and retain 50% of the proceeds is a good example of an incentive scheme to encourage schools to review unused or under-performing property assets.
4.7 New Challenges for School Boards
IT Action Plans
A priority for every School Board must be the preparation of an IT Action Plan, clearly linking the use of learning technologies to the school's Strategic Plan and learning objectives. The preparation of such a Plan is an important process for the whole school community in developing a good understanding of how the technologies can best be applied and in making sure that once the technologies are in place, they are put to good use. The National Library's Focus programme is an excellent model, whereby advisers work with schools over the course of a year to assist with the development of a three to five year school library development plan. A similar process and network of advisers is required to help schools prepare IT Action Plans.
Budgeting
The proportion of a school's total income (other than teachers' salaries) which is spent on IT varies greatly between schools. In some secondary schools in high socioeconomic areas, IT expenditure is of the order of 25% of total income. Typically, this expenditure is derived from fee-paying students, parent technology grants, business and community partners and the operating grant.
Other schools with on-going IT Action Plans will be spending approximately 10% per year and will be working to more modest goals. Many schools, particularly in low socioeconomic areas will have very modest IT Action Plans and will be able to allocate only of the order of 5% of total income to IT.
Nevertheless, these represent substantial expenditures on goals that do not even rate a mention in the National Education Guidelines.
It is clearly not practicable for all schools to be supported to the `top dollar'. But it will be necessary to fund substantially through the operating grant those disadvantaged schools with well-thought-out IT Action Plans to an extent which will depend on their socioeconomic status and their chances of obtaining funds elsewhere.
Linking Business with Education
In "knowledge societies", the businesses which succeed will be those whose staff are trained best to access relevant information critically and to use it wisely. To do this, businesses require well-educated staff and also to have a continuing relationship through IT networking with secondary and tertiary education staff and with information resources located in the country's education system. A number of New Zealand corporate enterprises are already actively involved in schools; one school has even changed its name to include its corporate sponsor. But probably the best example of a totally integrated programme is the Telecom Education Foundation, supported by Telecom New Zealand. In this programme there are tangible benefits for both schools and Telecom. Schools receive over $1 million every month from Telecom's School Connection programme; in exchange, Telecom maintains a loyal residential customer base.
Issue:The challenge facing both business and schools is how best to establish useful and sustainable partnerships, where both parties value the relationship similarly.
Linking Homes with Schools
It is very likely that an increasing amount of learning will be done at home. Laszlo and Castro (1995) suggest that since computerised learning technologies can be used at home, at school, or by oneself, children may eventually spend more time learning than they do watching television.
"In the UK, £2.2 billion is spent each year on computer games. If only a small percentage of this were spent on buying some of the exciting and attractive educational products which are now coming onto the market, it would make a huge impact on standards." (Blair, 1996)
The challenge will be to make learning as much fun as a computer game or The Simpsons.
The infrastructure for learning at home is being installed. The fastest growing sector of the personal computer market is now the home. It is not uncommon to find some schools where over 70% of students have access to modern computer equipment at home (and often this equipment is more up-to-date than the computer equipment at school). Increasingly, computer-literate parents and guardians are able to assist their children at home with IT-assisted school education.
Issue:
The challenge facing schools is how to leverage on the very rapid growth in home computer equipment and "capture" the use of this equipment (and the students' home time) for learning purposes. However, for the foreseeable future, most students will still attend school in the normal way, although others for various reasons will have a larger component of home schooling. The proportion of schoolwork done at home may increase considerably, but the need for students to meet and talk will remain. Humankind has an inherent need for social interaction, lest we end up with a socially inept population. The challenge facing schools is how to leverage on the very rapid growth in home computer equipment and "capture" the use of this equipment (and the students' home time) for educational purposes.
4.8 How long before Promising Visions become a Reality?
The participants in a workshop held as part of the OTA Review (1995b) concurred that change usually comes slowly to schools. They agreed that businesses and industry are technologically far ahead of schools and that schools are struggling to keep up despite the benefits that technology offers them. A paper within the OTA review by Larry Cuban offers three scenarios for possible educational change involving IT:
1. the technophile's vision, where electronic schools of the future become widespread rather quickly.
2. the preservationist's scenario, where schools maintain their current features but add technology as an important yet peripheral component.
3. the cautious optimist's scenario, where schools move slowly towards fundamental changes in teaching and learning technologies.
Cuban argues that the time and rate of technology-based school reforms will vary by grade and level of school. In the New Zealand setting, he would probably argue that primary schools would be more likely to follow the "cautious optimist's" scenario, while secondary schools would follow the "preservationist's scenario".
However, the data on student/computer ratios and Internet connections quoted earlier and the considerable number of commendable initiatives which are occurring in New Zealand all suggest that - given encouragement - primary and secondary schools will follow the "cautious optimist" scenario at similar rates.
New Zealanders become very concerned if our students do not compare favourably with others in international comparisons of literacy, maths, science etc - as has happened recently with maths and science. In future, IT literacy will be a key subject for international comparison.
The OTA Review (1995b) concludes:
"The modest changes in the nature and conduct of schooling in recent decades stands amidst monumental changes in how, when, where and what learning occurs in our society. As information learning opportunities become increasingly ubiquitous and efficacious, schooling, teaching and learning will take on a new character and...a new balance between school and non-school learning will be established."
Harvey McQueen (1997) states:
"As a result of their education, young New Zealand people should leave the school system capable of economic, social and personal independence, able to meet whatever challenges they face, able to undertake further study and ready to make a contribution to New Zealand's future. This means they should be literate and (does the word exist) numerate, digitally as well as with the traditional meaning.
"Basically, we must do more to utilise the possibilities of the information age to empower students, their teachers, their parents and the centres from which they learn. The force is out there."
McMahon (1996) states:
"When we fully grasp that IT actually extends the mind's capabilities - that thinking and learning are fundamentally changed by these technologies, then the educational paradigm will start to shift."
These are high points upon which to end this section of the Report. They state very clearly the paradigm shift which has occurred in information learning in societies at large. The need for extending this paradigm into the schooling system in a pragmatic but innovative way which suits our New Zealand needs is clearly of prime importance. We neglect it at our peril.
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In ImpacT 2001, we stated that "the quality of tertiary education and effective delivery systems will be of prime importance to the knowledge society" and that "in the knowledge society, education is central to personal, organisational and national well-being".
The importance of IT as a factor in meeting this challenge is recognised in the recently released Government Green Paper on Tertiary Education (September 1997). This consultation document identifies IT as one of three powerful trends affecting tertiary education in the future:
"the development of information technology will greatly extend the range of learning opportunities for all New Zealanders. This will break down the barriers of time and location which historically prevented people from learning. It will change how learning occurs as well as when it occurs". (Tertiary Education Green Paper, p.3)
It can be expected that a higher proportion of our population will avail themselves of tertiary educational opportunities on a lifelong basis, principally for vocational purposes, but also for individual self-improvement, hobby interests etc. The pivotal role which tertiary institutions will play - in a working and social environment which will differ greatly from the working and social environment in which our tertiary institutions developed in the '60s, '70s and '80s - will necessitate considerable change.
Tertiary institutions of the future will need to adjust to a consumer-driven global system of teaching and learning
Information technology is a crucial ingredient in the achievement of such a knowledge society. Wholesale adoption of the learning technologies will be essential for tertiary learning institutions to be able to meet the needs of clients both on and off campus at reasonable costs. Wulf (1995) expresses it as follows for universities - the sentiments apply equally to all tertiary institutions:
"Universities are in the information business, and technologies are transforming that industry.
"Higher education is not in danger. But we would be wise to ask whether the particularly quaint way in which universities now do their work will survive the transformation of information technology. It may, but I don't think so. I expect to see major changes - changes not only in the execution of the mission of universities but in our perception of the mission itself."
The renowned management consultant and author Peter Drucker has said recently (1997):
"Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won't survive. It's as large a change as when we first got the printed book. Do you realise that the cost of higher education has risen as fast as the cost of health care?...Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any visible improvement in either the content or the quality of education, means that the system is rapidly becoming untenable. Higher education is in deep crisis...Already we are beginning to deliver more lectures and classes off campus via satellite or two-way video at a fraction of the cost. The college won't survive as a residential institution."
In some ways the challenges for tertiary institutions are simpler than those of schools. There is not the requirement for a custodial role. Neither is there the same need for aiding the social development of students during childhood and adolescent years _ although the need for student counselling services has increased in recent years. But the requirements of the "knowledge society" will impinge heavily on tertiary institutions.
In ImpacT 2001, two papers by Dunn (1994) and Twigg (1994) were discussed, in which profound changes in curricula, teaching infrastructure and the general organisation of tertiary teaching institutions were predicted. Dunn summarised the general curricula changes which are envisaged as follows:
"First, general education programmes will devote some time to teaching students about the use of technologies in learning. Students will learn about information highways, information utilities, and how to use the equipment available on campus, in homes and in business establishments.
"Second, there will be less specialisation by discipline as real-life approaches to the uses of knowledge impact the way education is delivered.
"Third, there will be a greater focus on methodologies and access to information in the various fields of study rather than on content. As concepts of just-in-time learning come into play, students will spend more time learning how to learn in their various fields of study and less time studying content that may rapidly become outdated.
"High-tech delivery of instruction will range from main-line courses which will become available through television, computer and multimedia delivery. In the more advanced courses, teachers will be able to spend more time in evaluation and analysis of student learning."
Twigg visualises a changed learning infrastructure:
"Institutions of higher education will continue to assist students in organising their learning experiences and in linking them to appropriate international resources. The provision of high-quality student services will move to the top of the list in a learner-centred environment. Institutions will retain their degree-granting authority, determining the learning outcomes required for the degree and verifying that students have achieved them. But an institution's role of providing instruction for its "own" students will be radically different. The role of the physical plant will diminish as networked learning resources become more available. Faculties will continue to be important, but not as teachers, rather as mentors, group project leaders, and designers of instructional experiences. Because of the wide-spread availability of self-paced learning materials, direct faculty intervention throughout the learning process will lessen."
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6.1 Global Learning
The facility with which educational material can now be transmitted worldwide on the Web and by CD-ROM raises several challenges and opportunities for tertiary education.
It is already possible for students to enrol with overseas tertiary institutions for courses which are delivered over the Internet. This is the beginning of an important future trend. New Zealand tertiary institutions will be competing on the "global educational stage" with overseas institutions (including prestigious places like Oxford University and Harvard). It may make financial and academic sense for a New Zealand student to enrol for a particular course from an overseas institution rather than a New Zealand one.
This is particularly likely to be attractive to students who are continuing their tertiary education by studying for further qualifications on a part-time basis which will benefit their careers - for example, for an MBA. Such students are already well-trained in learning skills, are strongly motivated and thus better able to cope with "remote" learning.
It can be expected that superlative "international" courses using IT will be developed by the most skilled and authoritative communicators for a large number of subjects which might be studied at a tertiary level. Many of these subjects will have a content which is universally appreciated and understood - for example, general courses in mathematics and many of the sciences and technologies. Other subjects will have a regional or more specialised significance - they will be appreciated and sought by subgroups either because they are advanced courses in particular subjects or because, at all levels of instruction, they will be of interest to a smaller number of students.
Issue: To compete in a global market, New Zealand tertiary institutions will increasingly be forced to consider the needs of potential off-shore students as well as those resident in New Zealand; an even greater challenge will be to co-operate with off-shore tertiary institutions to confer "global" degrees.
Obviously, this globalisation of learning will challenge the viability of many of the courses offered by New Zealand's tertiary institutions. They may choose to incorporate some of these courses generated overseas within their own educational frameworks, supplementing or amending them with content developed "in-house" as appropriate.
The New Zealand Qualifications Authority will need to "globalise" its terms of reference also - for many courses, but not all. It will be important that the Authority does not become over-prescriptive in its curricula prescriptions, to the detriment of initiatives which may be advantageous or necessary.
Globalisation of learning will also present opportunities for New Zealand's tertiary institutions and indeed this is already the case. Tertiary courses developed here and delivered using IT are being used overseas. Also our institutions will develop niche areas of excellence, based on things like our South Pacific environment and culture, on our environmental singularities, and also on various scholastic and technical niches where we have achieved a status of excellence.
With the globalisation of education, there are risks that diversity and sovereignty could be lost. Other media - newspapers, television, radio - are dominated worldwide by a small number of large corporate empires. Now we see corporations like Microsoft and Disney positioning themselves to "corner" a potentially large "education" market. Diversity and freedom of expression and thought are fundamental to a complete education and they must never be subordinated for commercial or financial reasons.
Also the dominance of American culture and the English language is apparent in other branches of the telecommunications industry which are developing so rapidly. This is undesirable on a global basis - particularly in the field of education - and will need to be counter-balanced by the vigorous expression of other cultures. In New Zealand, it will be very important for us to produce to high standards our own local inputs in the various educational fields. (For example, interactive Maori language courses are being developed at University level). Michael L. Dertouzos (1997) states :
"This technology simultaneously strengthens tribalism and diversity. Tribal forces are powerful, but each of us belongs to multiple tribes. So we'll develop only a thin veneer of universal culture."
New Zealand's tertiary academic staff have always had to achieve excellence in a "David and Goliath" situation vis-a-vis the rest of the developed world. In a "knowledge society" the situation will be no different - except hopefully that our community will recognise the worth of "academic tall poppies" more widely than in the past. While there will be risks and challenges arising from globalisation of education through IT, there are also tremendous opportunities.
6.2 Restructuring
There is already extensive restructuring and diversification of tertiary education in New Zealand, with the catering for the spectrum of requirements. The availability of the educational technologies is a vital component in facilitating and enabling these changes.
Although tertiary education as a whole must surely flourish because of the expanding and continuing demand, there will be a diversity of new structures and mechanisms developed for its delivery. Competition will be keen and will be driven by comparative costs as well as academic considerations. Private organisations will provide a proportion of the expanded services.
Wulf (1995) makes some interesting comments relating to the future of universities which apply to tertiary institutions generally:
"In his influential 19th-century essays on the university, Cardinal John Newman wrote: 'If I were asked to describe...what a university was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of a Stadium Generale. This description implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot.' Newman then goes on at some length to emphasise that books are an inadequate source of true education and must be buttressed with discourse, which is obviously only feasible if the discussants are collocated."
Wulf, however, considers that IT obviates the need for the tertiary institutions to be a place.
"With powerful ubiquitous computing and networking, I believe that each of the university's functions can be distributed in space and possibly in time."
In the main, however, they will still exist as places. As Wulf puts it :
"The reduced importance of place does not imply no place. The everyday life of both faculty and students will be very different"
It probably will not make sense for every institution to support a wide complement of disciplines with much duplication. They probably will specialise and share courses in cyberspace. Wulf asks:
"Might professors affiliate with several institutions or become freelance tutors to telepresent students? Indeed, might `tele-itinerant' scholars and tutors give life to an ancient practice?"
Considerable cooperative developments in courses are occurring already between Faculties and Departments in New Zealand tertiary institutions and also with Faculties in overseas institutions. It can be expected that initiatives for course-sharing and course-provision will most often be initiated at the Faculty to Faculty level rather than at the administration level.
Tertiary institutions could conceivably merge into one or a few large units, which certify the competence of the faculty, programmes and graduates. But it seems more likely that a range of smaller organisations will be:
"empowered to provide a broad curriculum through telelocation while retaining the intimacy so valued in our small liberal arts institutions. I don't know anyone that really wants the impersonal ambience of a mega-university. The current size of these universities seems optimised for the physical infrastructure, not for either education or scholarship." (Wulf, 1995)
This vision would seem to suit the New Zealand scene better, providing for variety without waste - and for "human" institutions with good "proximate interactions".
If we integrate our tertiary education nationally in the way envisaged above, we should be able to withstand domination from the global educational scene and also contribute positively to global education.
The tertiary educational institutions themselves will make most of the decisions required. At present, probably few academics outside of the IT-related and the educational disciplines are seriously considering the picture of tertiary education which is being suggested here. This is because they get rewarded for the teaching and research they do within their own specialties, not for thinking about the future of tertiary education. Because substantial change appears likely to occur over a short period of time, it is important that academic staff are fully informed of the issues and able to assist in arriving at the best solutions.
6.3 Cost Containment And Information Management
Prior to the Second World War, tertiary education was still available to and required by relatively few of the population. The costs of its provision were relatively small and were predominantly met by central government.
In a "knowledge society", a much higher proportion of the community will be making demands on tertiary institutions for education on a life-time basis and the costs of its provision will be high. The costs will be apportioned between central government, industry and business and individual students. All stakeholders will be concerned to ensure that they are receiving "value for money". The comments by Peter Drucker (1997) quoted earlier are made in this context.
Drucker (1994) stated that we will have to define more analytically the quality and productivity of education and find ways to measure both. One aspect of this which requires close attention by tertiary institutions, as their use of information technology increases, is to ensure that their information management processes are of a high standard, are well understood and are carried out by all staff members and students. As with schools, information caching and minimisation of wasteful time spent on the Internet will be crucial. Efficient information management will be a key attribute in attaining and retaining high standards of learning and in being cost competitive. The risk of serious budget "blow-outs" if slack information management occurs is very great - as several institutions, both public and private, have already learned to their cost.
As with schools, tertiary institutions should adopt a pragmatic stance. They must evaluate the skills of their staff in this area and institute on-going training programmes. They should also steer clear of "leading edge" technologies which have not been adequately tested.
Issue: The development of international and New Zealand law in relation to intellectual property will be a first-order matter in the "knowledge society". This will be of particular concern to all tertiary education institutions, although the issue has also been raised by school teachers.
Tertiary institutions will also have to be skilled in the legal and financial aspects of intellectual property transactions in relation to the rapid developments occurring in the information technologies. With the globalisation of education using IT, this will be a key administrative area.
The Tertiary Education Review Green Paper (1997) recognises the need to review the current "equivalent full-time student" (EFTS) system for funding tertiary institutions. We support such a review because EFTS funding does not create the right incentives for tertiary institutions to explore the more flexible delivery options that IT makes possible. For example, while there are a few examples, the present basis of funding does not generally encourage the development of collaborative courses which pool the learning resources of different tertiary institutions in New Zealand or overseas. Even where co-operative developments have occurred, the tertiary institutions involved have been slow to make good use of IT in integrating their course offerings. The potential for a greater component of interactive distance learning at lower cost and greater convenience to both provider and student needs a thorough and on-going examination.
Issue: The EFTS (Equivalent Full-Time Students) system for funding tertiary institutions may require modification or replacement, in order to acknowledge and encourage the changes which the use of IT in education permits. The opportunities for reducing the costs invested in the traditional campus by the provision of high quality distance learning requires careful evaluation.
6.4 Distance Learning and Telelearning
New Zealand has a long record in education over distances, in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Initially, the emphasis was on rural education, but the demand has broadened steadily to cater for clients who, for various reasons, wish to learn at home or on-the-job, rather than in an educational institution.
Many of our tertiary institutions - and also the Correspondence School - have a fine record of achievement in distance education. In recent years they have steadily incorporated IT technologies to improve delivery of course material and to improve two-way interaction with students at remote locations (telelearning).
The work of John Tiffin and Lalita Rajasingham in the Communications Studies Department at Victoria University in experimenting with the use of multimedia telelearning technologies is now recognised internationally. Their book In Search of the Virtual Class (1995) documents the results of a major three year research effort into the use of both synchronous and asynchronous telelearning technologies in the delivery of tertiary courses. More recently, Tiffin has been exploring issues relating to the establishment of a global virtual university (Tiffin, 1997).
For the future, each institution will have to examine the range of possibilities in a pragmatic and consultative way and choose the most appropriate solution which best meets the needs of their students. Campbell (1997) has summed the situation up as follows:
"A university that adheres rigidly to a face-to-face mode of course delivery loses its stature as the learners move selectively toward the Information Age and the twenty-first century.
"Considerable debate relating to the status of distance education has occurred amongst educators but the final answer may well be provided by the consumers. Learners will vote with their dollars and choose a place of learning that meets their needs in terms of programme content, delivery mode, teaching styles and cost. Thus distance education will no longer be an alternative to on-campus course delivery, but a vital partner."
Campbell discusses experiences with an on-line course for pre-service teachers and Gill (1997) describes the situations of two students taking this course at home. Campbell concludes:
"The universities of the future who listen to their students will be able to adjust to a consumer-driven global system of teaching and learning."
With on-the-job education, tertiary education institutions will be networked to clients throughout the country. Staff will provide courses and expert knowledge and advice, and libraries will be available on-line for specialised information. This is already happening, but the scale and sophistication of the services being provided will increase greatly. Like schools, the tertiary institutions will be networked with the communities they serve in very sophisticated ways.
A tertiary institution that adheres rigidly to a face-to-face mode of course delivery loses its stature as the learners move selectively from the Information Age to the twenty-first century
The Correspondence School, The Open Polytechnic and to a lesser extent Massey University all have core organisational skills in producing educational material tailored to distance learning. They are able to publish large numbers of texts, service large numbers of students at a distance with library materials, take phone calls and e-mail from students at all times of the day. One of the great triumphs of the Open University in the UK was that professional editors, BBC film producers, graphic artists etc were brought in to turn the academic texts into readable or easily understood forms.
However, many of our tertiary institutions are following similar initiatives. As Wendy Bussen (1997) from the Auckland Institute of Technology points out:
"The motivation for tertiary institutes to put courses on the Internet is being driven by external forces. These forces include reduced government funding, opportunities in new markets such as Asia, competition from overseas universities as they flood into our markets, and to provide flexible learning options for students as they struggle with commitments such as work, family and study.
"The Internet is promising to be an ideal technology for alternate delivery of education. It is available, is reliable, is accessible from anywhere in the world, has a low operating cost and requires minimal training to use. The only remaining barrier now for change is the human 'reluctance' factor."
However, there are dangers. When videoconferencing technologies first became available for distance learning almost a decade ago, many tertiary institutions made major investments in the technology (typically at a cost of some hundreds of thousands of dollars). Videoconferencing promised to solve the problems associated with remote campuses and reduce the time and travel costs incurred with lecturers moving between campuses. The pioneers quickly discovered that quality courses required a lot more than just the technology, in particular when it came to modifying teaching practices. A video-connected virtual classroom was not just a bigger lecture theatre. Experiences at the University of Technology Sydney in 1996 suggest that there is still a lot of learning required to make effective use of these technologies (Freeman, 1996). The use of Internet web technologies is even more recent, but the need to ensure the quality of learning is not compromised in any way by the technology remains the same (Freeman, 1997).
6.5 Student/Student and Student/Teacher Interactions
Student learning at tertiary institutions is greatly facilitated of course by the direct contacts they have with academic staff and with fellow students. Wulf (1995) agrees that we don't really know at the present time whether teaching can be done as well remotely. He believes that:
"although teachers need feedback to teach well, there is a threshold of fidelity beyond which one does not need to go; student and teacher probably don't need to smell one another, for example. Thus there is some finite amount of information required to produce an adequate representation of the parties. If true, when the threshold of fidelity is reached electronically, high-quality teaching will be distributed. The fallacy in Newman's reasoning was only that he could not imagine quality discourse at a distance, but that is precisely what technology will enable."
Mark Chambers (1997) emphasises this need for "proximate interactions", particularly with fellow-students and with university staff in a holistic sense. The question of the intellectual and social benefits which arise from student/student interactions still remains a consideration to be considered in the various changes to the tertiary educational system which might occur.
"What seems to be generally lacking in the analysis of the benefits of the new communications technologies is consideration of the implications of the technology for the constitution of the subjective self of an individual adapting to the electronically mediated realities of the emerging electronic age.
"We must never forget that when we use electronically mediated communications in education, in lieu of face to face contact, we are filtering and limiting the interactions of people. There are often good economic, social and pedagogic reasons for using IT in education, but such uses are never the same as the direct interpersonal interactions of a learner and his or her mentor." (Chambers, 1997)
Where continuing education is taking place in the work-place, the student will often benefit from discussions with work-mates and colleagues. Also, the average age of students is increasing, and off-campus students are likely to seek out colleagues and friends with whom to discuss their subjects and assignments.
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In this Report, we have identified what we believe to be the most critical issues that need addressing if New Zealand and its citizens are to benefit from the use of IT in learning.
The next step is to develop some specific strategies and actions in response to each issue. Together, these can then become the "Information and Technology in Learning" strategy called for in the Government's Coalition Agreement.
It will be important that all the interested parties, with their different skills and viewpoints, participate in sharing information and choosing the optimal strategies. The educational professionals, the people who understand what the technologies can (and cannot) do well and the people who are accountable for the delivery of effective education programmes must all participate.
Some of the issues we have identified need to be addressed with some urgency and a co-ordinated Task Force approach might be the most efficient. The Task Force model recently adopted for the review of Maths and Science would be a good approach to address specific issues. This involved a relatively large number of people (21) meeting for three full days over a six week period. Other experts were invited to address the group as appropriate.
Specific aspects that should be addressed by such "IT in Education" Task Forces include:
consideration of information literacy, including setting national goals
development of strategies to ensure equity of access to IT learning in all schools
identification of savings that could be made in school administration and in the more efficient use of the school property asset (together these savings could fund on-going initiatives in IT learning)
the best mechanism for creating a National IT Learning Resource for schools
drawing up a Terms of Reference for a New Zealand Council for Learning Technologies
strategies for developing global tertiary qualifications and courses
intellectual property law in relation to the globalised learning environment
Other issues that we have identified could be addressed by an ongoing mechanism. We find the solution adopted in the United Kingdom, a National Council of Educational Technology, very attractive.
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