In 2009, Jan Figel, EU Commissioner for Education,Training, Culture, and Youth noted, “Twenty-first-century skills – particularly in the area of information and communications technologies (ICT) – are essential to equip all of our citizens, regardless of gender or ethnicity, to contribute actively to the … knowledge society.”

How can ICT in education help?

Enhance and enrich learningSupport the motivation and acquisition of higher order thinking skillsHelp societies meet the challenges of global competition, information growth, and service economy growthEnable students to become skilled workers in the global information society and knowledge economiesSupport greater access to jobs and equity of opportunity 

We invite our Virtual Roundtable panel and all of our GETideas.org members to participate in this timely discussion around ICT in Education.

ICT holds both great promises and great risks for education and development. The promisses I see are rooted in the disruptive potential of ICT. Consider the recent uprisings in the Arab world. Although it is still early to say how they erupted, and where they will lead, it is clear that one of the driving forces was the growing weight of young, connected and self educated activists. These people have used technology to access and adapt innovative ideas, aquire skills, connect with like-mined people and put their ideas into action.

Yet here also lies one of the risks of ICT: this is all very nice when we agree with the ideas being promoted, but what if we don’t? The answer is that social and mobile technologies are equlisers – they give the same power to all, thus facilitating a diversity of opinions and actions. This diversity is our best protection against extreemism of any kind.

The greater risk I see is in the tendency of institutional players to use ICT as a preservative power, promoting standards and through them – enforcing and entrenching existing established practices, beliefs and socio-political systems. While promoting standards in itself is not a bad thing, the use of ICT as a perservative power stems innovation and renders society static, less capable of change and less open for debate and critique. 

As a community, we need always remember: technology’s role is to empower human agents. It is the human agents – their desires, needs, aspirations – that should always remain the focus of our efforts. Our role is to provide them with the best tools to acheive these.

Our students are changing the world from their ICT experiences.

I really like the socio-political contextualization that Yishay provides.  I think too often we find discussions regarding ICT literacy and impact focusing on very proximal impacts such as optimizing business transactions by being able to use a spreadsheet.  Of course we need that too.

However, because current ICT technologies transform some of our most fundamental activities of expression and communication, they lead to a re-examination of the nature of activities including art (static or dynamic?), communication (local or global, private or public?), production (capital intensive or capital flexible), and political communication (controllable or viral?).  ICT-enabled students that have created new electronic products collaboratively (e.g. open source software) with individuals from other political societies have reason to question previous articulations of the nature of collaboration and production and the function of geographically based societies. 

All these spheres are being transformed and re-examined because of the new analogies and tools of computing technology and networks.  Whether we make the connections or not, our students see the world through new ICT lenses that we may not.

At the risk of over-simplifying matters, I would like to suggest that there are usually two broad perspectives on ICT and education.

The first views ICT as an important learning outcome. ‘Application of ICT’ is commonly cited by employers around the world as one of the key ’21st Century Skills’. In addition, there is the belief that in developing ICT skills, so-called higher-order thinking skills are also developed as bi-products. The corresponding expectation is that education systems and institutions should set ‘Application of ICT’ as an explicit learning objective and shape learning experiences accordingly.

The second view is that ICT is a powerful tool in the delivery of education – complementing, enhancing or even replacing more traditional learning environments and experiences. Supporters of this view cite improvements in access, engagement, personalisation, collaboration, reliability, transparency, etc. The application of ICT in this regard is often aimed at boosting personal achievement in traditional academic subjects and / or increasing the learner’s chances of employment.

While both of these perspectives can undoubtedly result in real progress, it seems to me that greatest value of ICT in education will emerge only when we take a slightly different view. Specifically, I think we need to answer the questions, ‘What are we aiming for?’, ‘How can we get there? and ‘How can ICT help?’

To make the biggest impact, I believe we need an approach in which we define a collective aspiration for humanity (personal, social, economic, environmental); then work to understand what knowledge, skills and other qualities of mind humans need in order to move us towards this aspiration; and from there determine how best to develop this knowledge, these skills and qualities in humans everywhere.

The opportunities for ICT to support this approach at every stage and at all levels are tremendous and the possible impact on global quality of life is, I believe, unprecedented.

Ross,

I think the distinction you make is very important. I’ve seen too many initiatives aimed at providing “ICT skills”, without asking “skills for what”? Technology is made to be used for a purpose, and when it becomes a purpose in itself – it stops making sense. Good technology is designed to be self-tutoring: no one teaches you how to use a mobile phone, but any child (and I believe this is independent of geographical or socio-economic backgroud) can pick up a phone and learn how to use it. However, what do we use it for? How do we use technology to better our lives or enhance our communities? I think such questions should shape our educational agendas. In a way, this fits under the headline of ‘application of ICT’, except that it shifts the focus from ‘ICT’ to ‘application’, asking ‘how does an individual or a group identify a concern, charecterise it, select the right tools to address it, and apply them effectively’. I doubt if any existing ICT curriculum deals with this question.

The second important issue you raise is the purpose of education. We often discuss the role of ICT in teaching and learning, making implicit assumptions about the primary goals of education. Your questions reposition this discussion as a design enquiry, which I strongly identify with. Howeer, in this context, we should consider ICT not just in the last phase – when we ask ‘what are we aiming for’, we should include both timeless qualities and contemporary issues. We live in a technology saturated world, and this saturation has changed our nature – as human beings and as societies. We need to understand these changes when we set our goals.

Inter alia, you might find the purpos/ed debate interesting in this context.

John,

I remember Cisco’s moto used to be “changing the way we work, live, play and learn”. I don’t know if it still is, but I’m certain that ICT in general does that and more – it changes the way we think, for good and for bad. Clearly, our students are adopting new ways to see the world and act upon it using ICT. But are they aware of these changes? Can they critique and control the impact ICT has on their lives? (for that matter, can we?)

We should guide them in this process of using ICT to transform their lives – not only in providing them with the technical skills and tools, but also in enabling them to take a step back and reflect.

Hi, everyone.  Glad to be here with you to share some thoughts.

Catherine, in a few short sentences had laid out a series of fairly intractable and wide-ranging issues surrounding the impact of ICT which will take several books to address properly J.  I will attempt to make some bite-size responses, which could well be long and incoherently bundled together, so please bear with me.

I think it is important to first tease out the main characteristics of using ICT for teaching and learning (T&L) at each ‘jump’ in their evolution.  These can be simple-mindedly grouped to coincide with web 1.0, 2.0 and now 3.0 environments.  As we know, web1.0 essentially allows for information exchange largely characterized by ‘one-way’ downloads of information with some basic interactivity (emails, etc) built in.  Web2.0 brought out the social-networking nature of human society, throwing interactivity and the ability to collect, collate and summarized ideas/information into the mix through ICT.  This builds a platform that mimics human interactions and is currently hugely successful.  Web3.0 is gradually emerging as the tools themselves begin to learn about the users and hence be better able to provide what is deemed to be ‘needed’ to the user.

Yishay is right in pointing out the possible risks in using ICT, and I reckon we also need to be cognizant of what we are potentially losing while we gain from using ICT.  In this vein, perhaps allow me to reframe Ross’s take in the following way when it comes to using ICT for T&L in each of the environments I mentioned above.

Under the web1.0, the use of ICT for T&L is primarily for efficiency purposes, where we use presentation tools (such as powerpoint) instead of transparencies.  This way of using ICT does not impact the pedagogies very much, as it is still a relatively straightforward ‘replacement’ of T&L tools, and we ended up extolling the virtues of ICT assuming that it has ‘transformed’ learning.  The early gains tended to be due to the greater engagement brought through the novelty effect, which faded gradually.  In danger of sounding too dismissive, I have to add that truly transformational use of ICT, where the use of ICT is such that the T&L approaches would not be possible without the ICT (whether to good effect or not), has begun to emerge even during web 1.0 days.  These are, however, limited by the scale of use, capability of ICT and the generally cautious attitude of educators towards ICT.

The web2.0 environment throws up every exciting possibilities, and yet has the overall effect of widening the engagement and learning approaches gaps between the formal (ie. classroom) and informal (social media etc) learning platforms.  I think the disconnect between how students learn in the formal environment and how they interact & co-create/develop/generate knowledge in the informal space is something that educators are aware but haven’t quite make sufficient inroads into bridging.  Perhaps we are too enamoured by our current educational structures such that we are not quite prepared to re-think and create a new, more flexible structure?

These enhanced interactivities can also bring with it potential dangers.  Here are some that I can think of, and the associated challenges faced by educators.

(a)    Being disconnected in a very connected world.  While we can gain access to a whole host of info and expertise, there is a tendency to want to stick with groups who more or less share the same views (for a variety of reasons, including lack of time to explore beyond our comfort zones).  This results in the individual knowing to a great depth the issues/ideas being discussed/shared within this group, but not necessarily sufficient breath or alternative views.  My favourite example is to compare the outlooks of the New York Times readers with those who exclusively follow Fox News.  The challenge to educator in this context is to design and expose the learners to a good balance of perspectives.

(b)   ‘Loss’ of control of learning outcomes.  A corollary to (a) is that educators will no longer have good control of the learning outcomes within the formal environment given that the learners are very connected within the informal environments.  Imagine teaching the Darwin’s theory of evolution in the classroom, while the students are exposed to political, artistic and religious interpretations outside the classroom.  The learning outcomes can be quite unpredictable, and it is a challenge to the educator to equip students with the tools and the open-mindedness to discern issues etc for themselves, ie. 21st Century skills, more or less.

(c)    Losing our cognitive abilities to think deeply?  We are essentially browsing, and not really ‘reading’ these days.  As such, we become good at evaluating and synthesizing info/knowledge into convenient small-size packages for mutual consumption, which is a good thing.  What is not too great is that we increasingly lack the patience and the mental ability to navigate through a complex argument that necessarily requires a lengthy discourse.  We simply want such arguments to be put down in bullet point form for easy consumption.    This can result in us being increasing good at collating information/ideas and repeating the collated results to each other without sufficient critical analysis.  If so, original ideas could be few and far between while not denying that innovative variations of the same ideas can proliferate.  Group-think can easily become the norm.  This is potentially a very serious issue, as such reflective thinking would need the right set of circumstances to develop, and my take is that being able to read ‘deeply’ is a crucial aspect.  The challenge to the educator is to scaffold the T&L interactions such as to encompass a good range of learning engagements.

Thus, while I am really excited by web2.0 environments and the learning potentials it can bring, I am also concern about the effects of such environments, and that if our educational approaches do not take such changes sufficiently into account and evolve/adapt a new set of responses to T&L, we can be in for a really rough ride.  Unlike the early introduction of technologies, such as radio & TV, the interactivity made possible by ICT is such that the educators cannot afford to carry on with business as usual.

The web3.0 environment brings more exciting and also potential dangers.  I am excited about the possibilities that the tools we use for learning can learn about the learner, and thus able to make explicit the thinking/learning process to both the learner and the teacher.  For the learner, this can be most helpful in identifying learning blind spots, misconceptions and so on.  For the teacher, it becomes a powerful tool to help design appropriate intervention to enhance the learning experience of the student.  This will be one major step towards personalized learning.  As for potential danger, I would just speculate that the biggest could be a compromise to our ability to think as such web 3.0 tools start to take over cognitive functions.  I recall an experiment by a Dutch research team which found that the group of experimental subjects being given the most help in solving puzzles turn out to be less able to develop strategies to solve the puzzle and became stagnant in their progress; compared to the group with little help, which while performing badly at the start, gradually evolved to become better and surpass the group with help.

Sorry that this turns out to be a long-winded essay.  I will comment on the economic links later

Some further thoughts following my earlier posting.

We often assume that ICT skills are essential for an individual to participate gainfully in today’s economic environment.  While this seems to be increasingly the case, there is potentially a tendency to confuse ICT skills as an end in itself rather than a means to acquire expertise.  In the early days of ICT integration and the advent of the Internet some 12-15 years ago, a lot of focus was on ensuring that students pick up ICT skills.  This has gradually shifted towards using ICT for learning in schools in recent years, but a primary focus on acquiring ICT skills in formal education seems to be still strong.

A discussion on the link between ICT and economic development needs to go beyond use of ICT for teaching & learning (T&L) in both the formal and informal spaces, beyond the effective use of ICT-based pedagogies, beyond the development of digital resources for T&L, and certainly beyond providing the necessary physical infrastructure to support ICT use in T&L.  I think it requires a more fundamental look at both the nature of learning in the context of the 21st Century, and how we can establish the structure to bring about this renewed understanding.

Although I don’t have a comprehensive view on how to redefine learning, I do think that the current systems across many countries do not necessarily serve the needs of the learner adequately.  The definition of educational success is currently too narrowly manifested in cognitive terms within our systems, and that is despite most educators recognising that individual talents is far more than academic abilities.  Thus, I would imagine that one of the first item on an education reform agenda to be to re-look at how we define ‘talent’.  These definitions can then help to shape the structures that would be most appropriate for developing these talents within the formal learning environment.

Regardless of how we choose to define and develop talents, there is a possible way to think about the kind of structures that would be appropriate for educational systems.  I would broadly divide this out into 3 layers, within each of which can be built a myriad of structures to bring about the intended outcomes of each layer.  The 3 layers I have in mind can be broadly classified as (a) Core/fundamental learning; (b) Career-forming learning; and (c) Career-restructuring learning.

The first layer is essentially to build up the necessary skills to enable the learner to fully engage in continual learning thereafter.  This is likely to fall into cognitive, language and ‘digital navigational’ skills.  As such, the areas to cover would be essentially Maths, a business language (English in most systems), and digital literacies.  These can be built up through a largely formal system, such as our current primary to early secondary education structure.

The successful acquisition of these skills would then allow the learner to branch into a period of learning that focuses on developing the skills, knowledge and dispositions needed for chosen career pathways.  The career-forming layer will necessarily need to take into account definition of talents (success), national manpower policies/plans, local/regional/international availability of jobs and so on.  This layer will probably need to focus on ‘learning to be’ rather than ‘learning about’ the specific career choice, and could well be delivered through a balance of formal and informal structures.  For instance, learning to be an architect would mean having to work as an architect during the learning period, requiring such firms to work with a formal structure to bring about the learning.

Given the context of globalisation and the fast-paced obsolescence of skills/knowledge, it is important for the learning system to provide for continual learning, or what I briefly term the career-restructuring layer.  I would imagine this to be largely provided through an informal structure, such as ‘learning-on-the-job’ kind of training.  This then allows for relatively easy career changes and the associated skills/knowledge development.

Throughout these 3 layers, I would also imagine ICT to play a crucial facilitating and enabling role.  On top of this, the coming-to-age of web3.0 environments can potentially allow for the development of tools that take over a large amount of layer (b) & (c) learning.

To end off, I don’t expect radical changes in educational philosophy and structures to emanate from within the formal structures, especially from currently ‘successful’ systems.  This is because these systems are unlikely to radically change the ‘success’ formula.  As such, I would imagine the change coming from outside the formal structures, and there are signs of these emerging, eg. through social networks, which can potentially consolidated into a community-based learning environment, and hopefully achieve a reasonably good balance with formal structures.  Both formal and informal structures will need to evolve to remain relevant.

You raise some very interesting points Cheah.

The two main thoughts that come to mind when I consider these points is how unhelpfully we measure educational success and how narrowly we define employment when we educate for it.

In regard to measuring success, our fixation on measuring success in terms of knowledge remembered or knowledge applied, misses a significant set of qualities of mind which we can be sure are very important to personal and collective wellbeing. And it seems that our failure to measure these wider (and probably deeper) qualities of mind could be addressed if we took a step back to consider what we want to achieve through education; what, therefore, we need to measure and how we need us use these measures; and finally how can we use technology to make the measurement of these qualities reliable, systematic, cost-effective etc. I think technology has the power to transform education by transforming the problem of educational measurement.

On the second point, it seems to me that when we overtly set out to educate people for employment we usually think of employment as working for a corporation. Preparing people to work for small employers is rarely the target of education systems and working for oneself is rarer still. When we do target working for oneself, we tend to rely on entrepreneurship programmes that are often grounded more in theory than in practice and usually do not consider the potential of collective enterprise. It will be difficult for large scale employers to provide sufficient jobs in many countries and economies the world over will need significant volumes of entrepreneurial activity to sustain themselves. Again, I can imagine technology being used to address these challenges – giving employers, educators and learners opportunities to work and learn together in new and powerful learning settings that are relevant to the needs of individuals and economies.