Activity theory: A framework for design and reporting on research projects based on ICT

We propose using activity theory as a basis for designing and reporting on research projects that focus on information and communication technology (ICT) as a means to support educational processes. Adopting the theory, we describe teaching/learning activities mediated by ICT using a three level analysis: epistemological, methodological, social assistance. The analysis has been applied to the design and reporting of projects in both mathematics education at primary school level and training in technical innovation in commercial enterprises.     

Developing and managing school human capital for information and communication technology integration: a case study of a school-based e-learning project in Hong Kong

The application of information and communication technology (ICT) in education has been gaining attention worldwide. Educators and school administrators are interested in the myriad possibilities offered by new technologies to enrich teaching materials and to provide ubiquitous learning environments to enhance students’ learning. This case study examined the implementation of a school-based e-learning initiative in a primary school in Hong Kong by focusing on the development and management of forms of school human capital. The findings drew from interviews with 25 staff members in the case school and elucidated how school reform and transformation were effected through the development and management of intellectual, social, and organisational capitals. The interplay between these three forms of school human capitals highlighted the significance of shared vision, differentiated leadership as well as a culture of learning community in advancing towards ICT integration. Suggestions are made for establishing practices of distributed leadership and professional learning communities in the case school and other settings undertaking ICT integration.     

The role of the ‘technical fix’ in UK lifelong education policy

The integral place of information and communications technology (ICT) in UK lifelong education has been established by a series of technology-based initiatives introduced by the New Labour government since 1997. Initiatives such as the University for Industry, learndirect, People's Network and National Grid for Learning are being implemented as part of a coherent lifelong education policy-agenda fundamentally based upon the use of ICT. Yet, beneath the political enthusiasm for technology-based education, the role of ICT in lifelong learning remains largely unexamined and unproblematized, with many policy-makers and educationalists content to view technology as providing a ‘technical fix’ for many of education's problems. From this background, the present paper provides a critical perspective on the technological foundations of the UK government's lifelong education agenda. In particular, it examines the nature and form of the policies that have been introduced and then contrasts them with the rhetorical claims that are being made by government and other official actors. In this way the paper discusses how such policies continue to be shaped within a restrictive technocratic and determinist discourse of the ‘technical fix’, thus conforming to traditional narratives of society and technology. The paper then goes on to explore how such construction juxtaposes social and economic elements of the policy-drive and threatens, ultimately, to restrict the eventual educational effectiveness of these ‘new’ lifelong learning initiatives.     

从“技术导向”到“学习导向”--信息技术支持的学与教变革国际发展新动向

信息技术支持的学与教变革是教育信息化系统改革中的关键。我国信息技术支持的学与教,在理论层面已开始由“要素观”逐步转向“生态观”,但实践层面的变革思路上存在着“技术导向”的倾向,这导致研究者热衷技术应用而忽视学与教本身。通过对比中外教育信息化政策以及分析新加坡的典型案例,发现国际上学与教变革的新措施均体现出“学习导向”的特征,并有四个主要动向：关注信息时代学习者的能力结构、挖掘教育“大数据”以分析学习者行为、构建个性化网络学习空间以培育新型学习方式、倡导“以学习者为中心”的新型教学模式。我国应将信息技术支持的学与教变革思路逐渐由“技术导向”转到“学习导向”。     

Education with ICT in South Korea and Chile

This article presents a linear-analytical case study on the development of ICT within the educational systems of Chile and South Korea. Through a comprehensive meta-data analysis and bibliographic review, we collected information on both educational systems and their ICT adoption policies. Key differences necessary to understand how both countries have developed their educational systems by integrating ICT were analyzed, including the educational system structure, the organization of state entities responsible for educational ICT, cultural characteristics, the creation of policies regarding ICT in education, and the effectiveness of such policies for the expansion of infrastructure and the ICT curriculum integration. We analyze these key differences in order to understand two cases of ICT integration initiatives on a national level, so that we might better understand the primary factors that influence successful ICT integration, as well as those that may hinder progress in this area.     

Integrating Information and Communication Technologies Into the Early Childhood Curriculum: Chinese Principals' Views of the Challenges and Opportunities

This study investigated the challenges and opportunities associated with the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) into the early childhood curriculum in Hong Kong kindergartens. Thirty-one principals completed questionnaires before they implemented a new curriculum initiative plan that involved the integrating of ICT into children's learning activities. They completed the same questionnaire and were interviewed within 1 month after they had implemented the curriculum. Findings indicated that the main problems were as follows: the low level of teachers' ICT competence, hardware and software problems, the lack of resources and technical support, and parental level of ICT competence. In-service training was regarded as the pivotal solution to these problems. The 5 levels of ICT transformation of the educational and learning processes (Mooij & Smeets, 2001) were evident in the participating schools. Most of the principals admitted that they were just “technology learners” (Yee, 1999), with regard to their information technology leadership. Sociocontextual accounts and implications of these findings are discussed.     

Integrating Information and Communication Technologies Into the Early Childhood Curriculum: Chinese Principals' Views of the Challenges and Opportunities

This study investigated the challenges and opportunities associated with the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICT) into the early childhood curriculum in Hong Kong kindergartens. Thirty-one principals completed questionnaires before they implemented a new curriculum initiative plan that involved the integrating of ICT into children's learning activities. They completed the same questionnaire and were interviewed within 1 month after they had implemented the curriculum. Findings indicated that the main problems were as follows: the low level of teachers' ICT competence, hardware and software problems, the lack of resources and technical support, and parental level of ICT competence. In-service training was regarded as the pivotal solution to these problems. The 5 levels of ICT transformation of the educational and learning processes (Mooij & Smeets, 2001) were evident in the participating schools. Most of the principals admitted that they were just "technology learners" (Yee, 1999), with regard to their information technology leadership. Sociocontextual accounts and implications of these findings are discussed.     

ICT reform initiatives in Singapore schools: a complexity theory perspective

The past two decades have witnessed an exponential growth in the use of technology in our daily life. Notwithstanding its phenomenal influence, the use of technology in education remains sporadic and disjointed. The promise that technology will bring deep-seated changes in the way that educators teach and students learn remains, disappointedly, elusive. This paper argues that the lack of systemic frame of reference may have explanatory power over such less than impressive performance of ICT in education. Tracing the trajectory of Singapore’s ICT-related policies in the educational sector, this paper adopts the complexity lens to study the systemic policy changes that are imbued in the different stages of Singapore’s ICT-based reforms. In particular, the paper delves into the three constructs of complexity theory: self-organisation, coevolution and fitness landscape. By juxtaposing the interdependencies of these three concepts against the backdrop of Singapore’s educational landscape, the paper contends that the complexity theory perspective has the potential to help policymakers understand the dynamic and complex nature of reforms so as to devise multi-faceted solutions that will address the concerns of all key stakeholders in the learning ecology. Implications for policymaking are also discussed.     

Communal constructivist theory: information and communications technology pedagogy and internationalisation of the curriculum

Abstract

This article explores communal constructivism as a unifying theory that encapsulates the ways in which information and communications technology (ICT) enables learners to collaboratively create knowledge. The authors review the research outcomes from several international ICT projects in the light of communal constructivist learning theory, which provides a rationale and explanations for some of their findings exploring the effectiveness of new pedagogical practices emerging in ICT-rich innovative learning environments. They argue that the term ‘communal constructivism’ conveys a meaning that captures specific elements of the additional value that various forms of ICT bring to learning environments, specifically the different forms of virtual and real community building, as well as the different ways in which knowledge is constructed, shared and reconstructed, published and republished by both teachers and learners alike. The aim of the article is to start the debate about communal constructivism as a unifying theory for aspects of ICT pedagogy, and to identify some of the characteristics of ICTrich learning environments where the authors suggest communal constructivist pedagogy is in operation.     

Post-Modernizing Education on the Periphery and in the Core

The political economics of educational change are central to understanding reform in developing countries because of the role that education plays in relationship to economic and social policies. Given the uncertain association between the expansion of education and economic development, this paper explores the role which modernization policies of the State play in promoting contemporary conflicts between private and public interests in education. By first introducing Best's concept of the "New Competition" this paper examines the economic consequences for education in the larger context of the global market. Through case examples of Mexico and the US state of Oregon the effects of modernization policies are examined to understand how modernization policies are inappropriate to meet the social, political, and economic needs of both the periphery and core countries. The paper concludes by addressing the potential consequences for the public good of modernization efforts that promote the privatization of education on the basis of human capital theory rather than on that of a more comprehensive and humanistic approach to the development of social capital.     

Evaluating the potential of teacher-designed technology-based tasks for meaningful learning: Identifying needs for professional development

With technology increasingly being introduced into classrooms worldwide, stakeholders are asking whether ICT provides educational value. It is not simply having access to technology but how teachers use it that will determine its worth to education. Thirty-three teacher-designed technology-based tasks from eight subject areas were analysed for their effective use of ICT, and their potential to involve students in constructivist learning. Few of the tasks made effective use of ICT for meaningful learning, for reasons associated with teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and missing TPACK components or competencies. These factors provide the basis for a model of areas to target when structuring professional development courses to help teachers better utilize educational ICT to design meaningful learning tasks.     

Reality bytes: examining the rhetoric of widening educational participation via ICT

Information and communications technology (ICT) has fast become the rhetorical foundation of the UK government's attempts to transform adult education radically and to establish a ‘learning society’. Central to this rhetoric are a series of largely untested assumptions about the potential of ICT to increase and widen levels of educational participation to include those groups of learners who have previously been excluded. With this in mind, the present paper contrasts recent government rhetoric concerning post-compulsory ‘e-learning’ with an analysis of data from the 2002 National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) survey of 5,885 households. With these data suggesting that access to ICT does not, in itself, make people any more likely to participate in education and (re)engage with learning, the paper concludes by considering how ICT might be more realistically re-approached by the educational and political communities.     

A design model for lifelong learning networks

The provision of lifelong learning facilities is considered to be a major new direction for higher and distance teaching educational institutes catering for the demands of industry and society. ICT networks will in future support seamless, ubiquitous access to lifelong learning facilities at home, at work, in schools and universities. This implies the development of new ways of organizing learning delivery that goes beyond course and programme-centric models. It envisions a learner-centred, learner-controlled model of distributed lifelong learning. We present a conceptual model for the support of lifelong learning which is based on notions from self-organization theory, learning communities, agent technologies and learning technology specifications such as IMS Learning Design. An exploratory implementation has been developed and used in practice. We reflect on the findings and future directions.     

Teacher professional development and ICT: an investigation of teachers studying a postgraduate award in ICT in education

The Schools IT2000 initiative, launched in 1997, was the first large-scale attempt to integrate information and communications technology (ICT) into teaching and learning in the Irish education system. As part of this initiative a training continuum was developed with the objective of enabling teachers to progress from novice to expert users of ICT. Short-term in-service courses were offered to all post-primary teachers in the state. Third-level institutions were invited to develop professional development programmes in the area of ICT in education to advance the training continuum. This article reports on the findings of a survey of teachers who had progressed along this training continuum and had opted to study for a postgraduate award in ICT in Education. The research aimed to determine the general profile of teachers electing to study on the programme, their current use of ICT and the types of in-service education and training in ICT they had previously been exposed to.     

Introducing ICT in schools in England: Rationale and consequences

This paper provides a critical perspective on the attempts to promote the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in teaching and learning in England. It describes the rationale given for the introduction of ICT in terms of its potential to impact on educational standards to contribute to developing a curriculum which has more vocational/social significance and, more generally, to provide a catalyst for curriculum reform. The introduction of ICT is underpinned by the argument that schools should show a higher degree of correspondence with a wider world where the use of technology is pervasive. However, the claims made for ICT display excessive optimism and a sense of “inevitability.” ICT has had only a modest impact on schools, though impact has to be considered in the context of what can realistically be expected: the contribution of ICT has not been negligible. Future development in the use of ICT should be more measured and adaptive, taking account of the multidimensional nature of technology.     

New theoretical approach integrated education and technology

The paper focus on exploring new theoretical approach in education with development of online learning technology, from e-learning to u-learning and virtual reality technology, and points out possibilities such as constructing a new teaching ecological system, ubiquitous educational awareness with ubiquitous technology, and changing the cognitive mode in learning process with virtual reality technology. Finally, the paper concerns effective approach to promote school-based teachers professional development through integrated ICT and classroom teaching.     

Why use information and communications technology? Some theoretical and practical issues

Abstract

This article is concerned with theoretical issues of pedagogy and how they relate to the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in teaching. The article reviews the context of recent developments in ICT pedagogy. It also draws upon thinking about pedagogy which derives from learning theories. These provide a theoretical framework for research by the authors into the Smart Schoolinitiative in Malaysian schools. This initiative is attempting to change the pedagogy of Malaysian schools in a radical way. This involves the use of ICT alongside other innovations and a refocusing of the learning agenda for school-aged pupils. Some early impressions of the initiative are presented     

The evolution of ICT‐based learning environments: which perspectives for the school of the future?

This paper briefly outlines the evolution of ICT‐based learning environments discussing some of the main aspects that have characterised such evolution (eg, technological evolution, changed cognitive and pedagogical frameworks, changed role assigned to ICT‐based systems in education). The objective is to point out how the implementation of innovative learning environments, based on advanced technology, is the result of the strict interrelation between educational and cognitive theories, technological opportunities and teaching and learning needs. In this paper some indications for current and future evolution are evidenced. Reference is made to an ICT‐based multi‐environment system that supports teaching and learning activities in the domain of arithmetic problem solving at compulsory school level.