annual report on emerging technologies: planning for change

annual report on emerging technologies: planning for change strategic ICT advisory service

Acknowledgements

Education.au acknowledges the contributions of the participants in each of the SICTAS Tankettes, the ICT in Learning Symposium participants, the organisations that provided written submissions, and the contributions of many, many others who in their conversations, blog posts, Twitters, academic articles, videos, presentations, and online networks, discussion lists and groups and reports have helped shaped the content of this document.

The main authors who compiled this report are Jenny Millea, Helen Galatis and Alison McAllister of Education.au.

Publishing details

This report is part of the Strategic ICT Advisory Service, funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government.

© 2009 Education.au Limited

978-0-9758070-6-4 (electronic copy)

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SICTAS: Planning for Change Education.au i

Foreword

The Annual Report on Emerging Technologies: Planning for Change draws on the investigations undertaken for the Strategic ICT Advisory Service (SICTAS) that Education.au is providing to the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR).

The SICTAS reports into collaborative learning, workforce capability, and national software infrastructure provide evidence to support a role for Australian Government to ensure the best return on investments in ICT for education and training. The role recommended is one of cross-jurisdictional and cross sectoral coordination, collaboration and cooperation between and amongst education and training stakeholders led by the Australian Government.

Technology innovations will continue to occur. This report focuses on providing advice on creating an education and training sector that is a ‘change maker’ – that is, it has the people, policies and processes in place to normalise change and to take advantage of emerging ICT.

This will enable the timely introduction of new and emerging ICT and enable the education and training sector to respond to the need for new skills, knowledge and abilities, to adjustments to assessment, pedagogy and curricula as research and practice, and our teachers, leaders and learners, show the way.

We know that education and training is the cornerstone of Australia’s future productivity, innovation and wealth. Effective use of appropriate ICT for teaching and learning, along with skilled and committed teachers and leaders, can improve access to education and training opportunities and enhance the possibilities for individual success.

This report provides recommendations where the Australian Government can provide a national focus and strategic direction for ICT in education while acknowledging and encouraging the contributions of jurisdictions and sectors.

Greg Black CEO Education.au

SICTAS: Planning for Change Education.au ii

SICTAS: Planning for Change Education.au iii

Table of contents

1 Executive summary ...................................................................................................................... 7

2 Recommendations ...................................................................................................................... 12

3 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 27

4 Risk management ....................................................................................................................... 30

5 Change making and actions ...................................................................................................... 34

6 Methodology ................................................................................................................................ 39

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 40

Appendix 1: ICT in Learning Symposium Communiqué ................................................................. 44

Appendix 2: ICT in Learning Symposium Summary ....................................................................... 48

Appendix 3: ICT in Learning Symposium Participant List .............................................................. 51

Appendix 3: Submissions to the Annual Report on Emerging Technologies .............................. 54

Appendix 5 Comparison of Horizon reports .................................................................................... 57

Appendix 6: Decision Making Matrix ................................................................................................ 66

Appendix 7: Shifts in the philosophical, theoretical and professional dimensions of learning . 68

Appendix 8: The change makers ....................................................................................................... 72

Endnotes .............................................................................................................................................. 87

SICTAS: Planning for Change Education.au iv

SICTAS: Planning for Change Education.au v

Glossary

AAF Australian Access Federation AARNET Australian Academic and Research Network ACE Adult Community Education ACT Australian Capital Territory ACER Australian Council for Educational Research AICTEC Australian ICT in Education Committee ALTC Australian Learning and Teaching Council ATPM Access Technological Protection Methods AUQA Australian Universities Quality Agency CAL Copyright Agency Limited CC Creative Commons COAG Council of Australian Governments CRC Cooperative Research Centre CTL Collaboration in teaching and learning DEEWR Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations DER Digital Education Revolution DRM Digital Rights Management edna Education Network Australia Framework Australian Flexible Learning Framework HE Higher Education ICT Information and communications technology IP Intellectual Property IPPAG AICTEC Intellectual Property and Privacy Advisory Group IT Information technology LORN Learning Object Repository Network MCEETYA Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs OER Open Education Resources NCVER National Centre for Vocational Education Research NSW New South Wales NT Northern Territory QLD Queensland RPL Recognition of Prior Learning RTO Registered Training Organisation SA South Australia SICTAS Strategic ICT Advisory Service TAS Tasmania TLF The Learning Federation VET Vocational Education and Training

SICTAS: Planning for Change Education.au 6


1 Executive summary

The aim of this report is to investigate the impact of emerging technologies on education and training in Australia and to consider the implications for:

• learning and the learner

• professional learning and educators

• infrastructure and policy

Many definitions of what constitutes an 'emerging technology' exist.

In a 2005 paper by Education.au for the ACT Department of Education and Training, entitled ‘Emerging Technologies: A Framework for Thinking’1, the following definition of an emerging technology was accepted and has been used for the purposes of this report:

A technology is still emerging if it is not yet a ‘must-have’. For example, a few years ago email was an optional technology. In fact, it was limited in its effectiveness as a communication tool when only some people in an organization had regular access to it. Today, it is a must-have, must-use technology for most people in most organisations.2

The Horizon Project3 Report teams, both international and Australian, annually review a ‘wide range of articles, published and unpublished research, papers, scholarly blogs, and websites’4 to identify the trends in information and communication technologies (ICT) that will have an impact on education and creative expression. At the time of their assessment of these artefacts, the Horizon Report publishers say:

When the cycle starts, little is known, or even can be known, about the appropriateness or efficacy of many of the emerging technologies for these purposes, as the Horizon Project expressly focuses on technologies not currently in widespread use in academe.5

A summary of the key information from the Horizon Reports from the last five years is at Appendix 5. The Horizon Project identifies a number of meta-trends in ICT in education:

• the evolving approaches to communication between humans and machines

• the collective sharing and generation of knowledge

• computing in three dimensions

• connecting people via the network

• games as pedagogical platforms

• the shifting of content production to users

• the evolution of an ubiquitous platform.

In considering the impact of emerging technologies, discussion in this report is focussed on planning for the changes, rather than on individual technologies - as managing changing and evolving technologies in a way that benefits teaching and learning is, and will continue to be, an ongoing challenge for the education sector.

This report identifies strategies to enable the education sector to be a ‘change maker’, both nationally and at a local level, rather than describing individual technologies that have been identified and discussed in detail in the Horizon Reports, and in other fora6.


The body of this report does not list the challenges ICT in education presents. These have been well described and articulated in the Horizon Reports ‘Critical Challenges’ which are included in Appendix 5, and in other SICTAS reports.

The findings and recommendations of this report are outcomes of desktop research7, open conversations using asynchronous collaborative tools, synchronous 'Tankettes'8, a national Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Learning Symposium, and views expressed by those in the education and training sector in a range of public forums such as blogs, email lists and social networks.

The Communiqué from the ICT in Learning Symposium, which summarises the views of the participants, is at Appendix 1.

The recommendations are consistent with high level policy directions of the Australian Government for education and training including the Digital Education Revolution9, the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians10, the MCEETYA Joint Ministerial Statement on Information and Communication Technologies in Australian Education and Training: 2008-201111, and Skilling Australia; and with the National Curriculum12, the National Broadband Network13, and the VET Education Broadband Network14 initiatives.

They are consistent with the relevant parts of the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education15, the report on the national innovation system, Venturous Australia16, and the collaborative and cooperative nature of existing national ICT in education-focused projects of the Australian Government(s) such as edna (Education Network Australia)17, The Le@rning Federation18, and the Australian Flexible Learning Framework19.

By definition emerging technologies are unproven for education purposes, but they may already be mainstreamed in other areas of the economy.

The consistency of the recommendations with high level policy of the Australian Governments does not necessarily assist in the day-to-day practical decision making and positioning of the education sector for the 21st century and beyond that must be done by leaders in education and training across the sectors.

The implementation of emerging ICTs to support teaching and learning is not compatible with a policy paradigm based on hierarchical and centralised control, nor with a risk averse approach to the implementation of technology.

The challenges for policy makers20 listed below are summarised from the discussions at the ICT in Learning Symposium and, along with the other references used, have helped shape this report’s recommendations. The challenges are:

• to provide a flexible framework that supports information sharing and reduces duplication through fragmentation of effort

• to choose where to invest in research, tools and systems that support integration

• to address the barriers to scaling innovative and transformative practice

• to monitor performance of the system against key outcomes that are learner focussed

• the development of a flexible national curriculum for schools and assessment so it is responsive to the potential of technologies to engage, enhance and improve learning outcomes for a 21st century economy

• the provision of tools, mechanisms and systems that encourage the development and sharing of content and of good teaching practice

• the development of policy frameworks that encourage widespread use of new technologies through a shared risk management approach


• the instigation and support of transformational professional learning programs across all sectors that effectively engage educators in incorporating the use of ICT to improve learner outcomes

• the provision of spaces and mechanisms for trial and evaluation of new ICTs and for sharing of good practice across sectors, between organisations, and across jurisdictions

• the development of a management, maintenance and governance model for managing a complex distributed and connected environment for all stakeholders

• the development of decision making frameworks that describe minimum standards for interoperability to encourage national integration of tools and services while allowing for local flexibility

• the provision of sandpit spaces for trial and evaluation of new technologies

• the promotion of frameworks and systems to encourage sharing of content and best practice in teaching and learning.

While the Australian federation makes taking a national approach to education policy challenging, the Australian Government can take on the important role of establishing national approaches in key areas and provide incentives and programs.

The view that a national approach can provide advantages in particular areas of technology innovation and implementation is supported in companion SICTAS reports including the Collaboration in Teaching and Learning report, the Towards a 21st Century National Software Infrastructure for Education and Training report, and the Workforce Capability report (draft), as well as the general thrust of Australian Government policy.

The actions below could be led by the Australian Government as part of a coordinated programme of activities and/or be combined with cross-sectoral collaborations with funding tied to specific outcomes and managed or mandated through existing projects or initiatives such as the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, Skills Australia, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, the Australian Research Council, Teaching Australia, The Le@rning Federation, edna, myfuture, appropriate Collaborative Research Centres and so on.

While working through existing organisations and groups has its positive aspects, the tasking of a national body with overall responsibility for and visibility of strategic coordination of ICT in education would ensure that all sectors, jurisdictions and educational institutions would be party to Australia’s overall advancement and innovation in this area.

Because Australia is both a federal system and has sectoral and institutional silos it is important that national leadership breaks down these separations to ensure the best returns from the investment in ICT in education.

We need to recast the management of ICT in education to reflect learners’ experiences: that is, their learning and their ICT in education experience is a continuum from early childhood through to lifelong learning and there are advantages in taking a ‘topic’ rather than a sectoral, jurisdictional or institutional perspective – that is develop national strategies that address, for example: professional learning, immersive learning environments in education, collaborative learning approaches, rather than starting with ‘schools’, ‘higher education’ or ‘VET’. Starting with the broad topic area enables collaborative networked learning to be aggregated and then subsequently customised for many possible learner groups.

This report makes eight recommendations, each accompanied by suggested strategies to support the achievement of those recommendations. The recommendations are listed here, but should be read in concert with the strategies.

The recommendations are:


• Implement an ICT in teaching and learning continuum so that learners’ new media literacy skills and abilities are augmented as they move through the education sectors.

• Task a national body to support national collaborative partnerships to reduce fragmentation of effort, and make best use of the existing and future investments made in ICT.

• Research and establish mechanisms to enable the more rapid adoption of innovative practice in the use of ICT across the teaching and learning workforce.

• Commit to providing ongoing resourcing and funding to maintain, sustain and enhance a technology rich environment for the education and training sector.

• Develop and implement a national approach to software infrastructure that minimises the barriers to effective use and sharing of resources, and maximises access.

• Address the complications of Australian copyright law in a way that encourages sharing and exchange of resources in the education and training sector, including the implementation of Creative Commons across Australian education and training.

• That the Australian Government takes a leadership role in collaboration with jurisdictions, sectors and educational institutions to develop a national professional learning strategy based on sound research into good practice.

• The Australian Government takes a leadership role, in partnership with other education authorities and entities, in implementing and maintaining the ICT competency framework for teachers as described in the ‘Raising the Standards’ report, but look to apply this to teachers in each of the education sectors. A key component of the described framework is teacher standards. The Government should undertake to task AICTEC, through its advisory bodies to develop teacher ICT standards for:

o Pre-service teachers

o Practicing teachers

o School leaders

o Teacher educators

o VET teachers

o University teachers

The report also provides a set of possible actions that could be taken to help position Australia to manage constant change in ICT in the education and training sector. A primary issue is delegation of responsibility: who will take responsibility for managing and implementing the range of actions, strategies and recommendations?

The current system of dispersed responsibility and fragmentation of effort does not enable strategic implementation ensuring equitable access to quality ICT in education for learners across jurisdictions and sectors regardless of where a learner or teacher is in the system.

These suggested actions are organised around work published by Jan Herrington and Anthony Herrington from the University of Wollongong21 which, in table form, depicts the impact the shift to collaborative learning approaches is having on the philosophical, theoretical and professional dimensions of learning.

From the basis of the Herrington and Herrington table, the SICTAS CTL report identified the implications for collaboration in teaching and learning.

In this report we go a step further and, using the findings of the companion SICTAS reports and the ICT in Learning Symposium, identify actions that can be taken, firstly, to take advantage of the shifts in these dimensions of learning and, secondly, to support 'change making' - that is, to put in place an


infrastructure that will enable Australian education to take advantage of innovations in ICT in a beneficial and timely way, rather than having to react to it as a disruptive influence and a risk management issue.


2 Recommendations

2.1 About the Recommendations

The focus is on recommending actions that will support an environment that normalises change.

They provide for the ongoing resourcing and support for the policy, people and process development and implementation needed to manage continuous change.


The recommendations have emerged from the investigations undertaken for the Strategic ICT Advisory Service (SICTAS) project and draw on the wide body of literature referenced in the bibliographies of these reports.

They draw on the input received from educators, leaders, policy makers through the SICTAS Tankettes, the ICT in Learning Symposium and expressed by those in the education and training sector in a range of public forums such as blogs, email lists and social networks.

The recommendations are consistent with high level policy directions of the Australian Government for education and training including the Digital Education Revolution22, the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians23, the MCEETYA Joint Ministerial Statement on Information and Communication Technologies in Australian Education and Training: 2008-201124, and Skilling Australia; and with the National Curriculum25, the National Broadband Network26, and the VET Education Broadband Network27 initiatives.

They are consistent with the relevant parts of the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education28, the report on the national innovation system, Venturous Australia29, and the collaborative and cooperative nature of existing national ICT-focused projects of the Australian Government(s) such as edna (Education Network Australia)30, The Le@rning Federation31, and the Australian Flexible Learning Framework32.

2.2 Summary of recommendations

NOTE: although the recommendations are organised according to the three key themes of the ICT in Learning Symposium, some recommendations are relevant to more than one area.

2.2.1 Learners and learning

Recommendation 1

Implement an ICT in teaching and learning continuum so that learners’ new media literacy skills and abilities are augmented as they move through the education sectors.

This recommendation extends the concept of the ICT in teaching and learning continuum recommendation from the CTL report so that it is applied throughout all Australia’s sectors of education – commencing in early childhood, to school education, and through to VET and Universities. This would ensure a consistency in learners’ experiences of ICT for teaching and learning and ensure that skills and abilities are both reinforced and augmented.


2.2.2 Infrastructure and policy makers

Recommendation 2

Task a national body to support national collaborative partnerships to reduce fragmentation of effort, and make best use of the existing and future investments made in ICT.

The focus of the CTL report’s recommendation was on this national body taking on a coordinating role for existing initiatives.

• inter-jurisdictional collaborative arrangements

• national partnerships

• coordinating role for existing initiatives

• initiating role for new projects and programs

• evaluating existing activities and evaluate how these can be mainstreamed, as appropriate, for all education in Australia.

Recommendation 3

Research and establish mechanisms to enable the more rapid adoption of innovative practice in the use of ICT across the teaching and learning workforce.

A planned program of research around the use of ICT, including longitudinal studies, would provide an evidence base for future policies initiatives33. Existing research organisations that specialise in education-focused research, such as NCVER34 and ACER35 could be utilised, in conjunction with a planned program of funded action-based research activity in the education and training sector. This research could then be shared and used as an evidence base for future planning and technology innovation in education and training.

Recommendation 4

Commit to providing ongoing resourcing and funding to maintain, sustain and enhance a technology rich environment for the education and training sector.

This recommendation refers to the need for Australian governments and educational institutions to provide ongoing permanent funding commitments to the maintenance and enhancement of the policies, people, processes and infrastructures for ICT in education that have already been committed to, and will need to be committed to in the future.

Many past and current national projects are projects so it has often been the case that innovative work is not mainstreamed or continued because project funding ends. That is, there needs to be a conceptual shift from project funding to an ongoing and secured commitment of resources36.

Recommendation 5

Develop and implement a national approach to software infrastructure that minimises the barriers to effective use and sharing of resources, and maximises access.

While resources may have sectoral specificity in relation to learner age and academic level, in a time when informal Web 2.0 contextualisation through tagging, rating and commenting is available, and able to be combined with formal metadata and resource information, there is significant value in making teaching and learning resources available to teacher and learners, regardless of sector. This ‘connecting’ of existing resource repositories with a layer that enables content contextualisation would enable further use and reuse of existing resources and thus provide a better return on the investment in creating the resources.


Recommendation 6

Address the complications of Australian copyright law in a way that encourages sharing and exchange of resources in the education and training sector, including the implementation of Creative Commons across Australian education and training.

The copyright regime in Australia, like those elsewhere in the world, is not able to deal effectively with the complexity around use, reuse, sharing, mashups typical of currently used Web 2.0 technologies and the tension between ownership and sharing. It may be that the Copyright Act in relation to education and training needs to be completely rethought in a 21st century digital economy framework.

2.2.3 Professional learning and educators

Recommendation 7

That the Australian Government take a leadership role in collaboration with jurisdictions, sectors and educational institutions to develop a national professional learning strategy based on sound research into good practice.

While there are formal commitments to education workforce development in the school education sector through the Digital Education Revolution37, there is no coordinated approach to professional learning for VET teachers or academics in relation to ICT in education. The sessional and part-time nature of many of these teachers means that a national strategy is likely to provide them with a non-institution-specific mechanism to maintain their professional ICT in education skills, keep up-to-date with new and emerging technologies, and develop and maintain professional learning networks. Further, in relation to emerging technologies, much of the information required by teachers is not sector-specific but is around broad questions of ‘what is it?’, ‘what can it do?’, ‘how can I use it for teaching and learning?’ and so on.

Recommendation 8

The Australian Government take a leadership role, in partnership with other education authorities and entities, in implementing and maintaining the ICT competency framework for teachers as described in the ‘Raising the Standards’ report, but look to apply this to teachers in each of the education sectors. A key component of the described framework is teacher standards. The Government should undertake to task AICTEC, through its advisory bodies to develop teacher ICT standards for:

• Pre-service teachers • Practicing teachers • School leaders • Teacher educators • VET teachers • University teachers.


2.3 Discussion

2.3.1 Learning and Learners

Recommendation 1

Implement an ICT in teaching and learning continuum so that learners’ new media literacy skills and abilities are augmented as they move through the education sectors.

Strategy 1: Establish a cross-sectoral group of curricula, ICT, collaborative learning and subject area experts to undertake ongoing review of assessment and curricula design to ensure relevance to technology tools and pedagogy used.

The Collaboration in Teaching and Learning (CTL) Report Recommendation 4 was to:

Embed new media literacy skills into Australia’s national curriculum in a consistent way independent of specific technologies. 38

The CTL report’s recommendation was specific to the school sector, with the development of the National Curriculum an opportunity to ensure that ICT becomes part of students’ daily learning experiences.

This recommendation extends the concept of the ICT in teaching and learning continuum recommendation so that it is applied throughout all Australia’s sectors of education – commencing in early childhood, to school education, and through to VET and Universities. This would ensure a consistency in learners’ experiences of ICT for teaching and learning and ensure that their skills and abilities are both reinforced and augmented as they move through the education system.

2.3.2 Infrastructure and policy makers

Recommendation 2

Task a national body to support national collaborations to reduce fragmentation of effort, and make best use of the existing and future investments made in ICT

Recommendation 2 is taken from the Collaboration in Teaching and Learning (CTL) Report. The CTL report recommendation suggests the following:

We recommend the tasking of a body to implement the strategic directions for ICT in education developed through AICTEC (Australian ICT in Education Committee) and the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). It would work through developing national partnerships and collaborations with jurisdictions and sectors. This body should establish an initial 5-year program and target areas of greatest priority for implementation in the first two years, commencing mid-200939.

The focus of the CTL recommendation was on this national body taking on a coordinating role for existing initiatives.

• inter-jurisdictional collaborative arrangements

• national partnerships

• coordinating role for existing initiatives

• initiating role for new projects and programs

• evaluating existing activities and evaluate how these can be mainstreamed, as appropriate, for all education in Australia.


The Towards a 21st Century National Software Infrastructure for Education and Training report also sees an important coordinating and collaborative role for a national body. Three recommendations from this report have a role for a national body:

Recommendation 4: Shared Infrastructure

Task a national body to operate those elements of the national software infrastructure that are best implemented as central shared services on behalf of all stakeholders

Recommendation 5: support for smaller stakeholders

Task a national body to provide ICT interoperability services for stakeholders that lack the resources and technical expertise to put into national software infrastructure. This body would provide services to independent and Catholic schools and the ACE and early childhood education sectors as well as smaller RTOs in the VET sector and smaller higher education institutions

Recommendation 6: Pilots, trials, knowledge transfer and best practice

Task a national body to fund and manage pilots and trials to showcase interoperability in areas in which no well-established mature interoperability standards exist. Key examples include:

Interoperability between social networking/collaborative systems

Interoperability between identity/trust systems such as Shibboleth and OpenID

Policy and interoperability implications of using commercial internet cloud computing services.

The role of the national body is to coordinate the many initiatives, programs and projects in the ICT in education and training space to reduce duplication, leverage excellence, and ensure equity of service provision to students.

Other countries have organisations that coordinate national activities into ICT in education. Becta in the United Kingdom is an example.

Becta is the government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning.40

It has a number of roles including policy direction and strategic advice41, providing research grants and supporting a program of managed research42, and supports an ICT research network.

Recommendation 3

Research and establish mechanisms to enable the more rapid adoption of innovative practice in the use of ICT across the teaching and learning workforce.

Strategy 1: Establish a place (education cloud) for the provision of ICT for all sectors of education and training including a national technology sandpit for the trialling, prototyping and evaluation of new technologies and develop processes for scaling innovative uses into mainstream adoption.

Many of the emerging technologies being used in the education and training sector – virtual worlds, blogs, wikis, video and photos sharing sites, social networking services for example – can be problematic for use in education because of the prospect that students will be exposed to inappropriate content or approached by inappropriate people43.

The implementation of a software cloud for the education sector that includes these emerging technologies, and which can then be extended to incorporate new technologies as they become relevant, provides a safe, controlled environment that enables 21st century collaborative learning, addresses duty of care concerns, and enables cross-sectoral contact points.


It could be operated using existing infrastructure such as AARNET44 and the proposed VET Education Broadband Network and existing jurisdictional networks, and managed using an appropriate identity management framework. It would also be used to enable trialling of emerging technologies.

Futurelab in the United Kingdom provides an example of an organisation that provides a mechanism for trialling innovation in ICT:

Futurelab is passionate about transforming the way people learn. Tapping into the huge potential offered by digital and other technologies, we develop innovative resources and practices that support new approaches to learning for the 21st century. A not-for-profit organisation, we work in partnership with others to:

incubate new ideas, taking them from the lab to the classroom

share hard evidence and practical advice to support the design and use of innovative learning tools

communicate the latest thinking and practice in educational ICT

provide the space for experimentation and the exchange of ideas between the creative, technology and education sectors.45

This concept could be expanded to also provide the technical infrastructure for both the trialling, mainstreaming and ongoing hosting of services in an education cloud.

Strategy 2: Establish a research program into ICT for education to develop an evidence base for the effective use of ICT including pedagogy, assessment, curricula, and emerging developments in learning theory and design.

The efficacy of ICT for education and training purposes needs to be constantly proved and improved. A planned program of research around the use of ICT, including longitudinal studies, would provide an evidence base for future policies initiatives. Existing research organisations that specialise in education-focused research, such as NCVER46 and ACER47 could be utilised, in conjunction with a planned program of funded action-based research activity in the education and training sector. This research could then be shared and used as an evidence base for future planning and technology innovation in education and training. A clearinghouse for ICT research48 could be established to provide a central point for access to research – including metadata and/or abstracts as well as the full resource where available.

Recommendation 4

Commitment to providing ongoing resourcing and funding to maintain, sustain and enhance a technology rich environment for the education and training sector.

This recommendation refers to the need for Australian governments and educational institutions to provide ongoing permanent funding commitments to the maintenance and enhancement of the policies, people, processes and infrastructures for ICT in education that have already been committed to, and will need to be committed to in the future.

Many past and current national projects are projects so it has often been the case that innovative work is not mainstreamed or continued because project funding ends. That is, there needs to be a conceptual shift from project funding to strategic management of an ongoing and secured commitment of resources49.

To support sustainability of a cross-sectoral education revolution, new ways of funding individuals to ensure that they have access to technology may need to be considered: for example, individual and company tax concessions for the purchase of access devices being used for education and training purposes50, a review of the charging model (ie download based) for the use of broadband as this usage model cannot be sustained by the education and training sector as rich media and immersive learning tools become widely used. The Australian Government’s development of the National Broadband Network as a utility service provides an opportunity to review current charging regimes.


Recommendation 5

Develop and implement a national approach to software infrastructure that minimises the barriers to effective use and sharing of resources, and maximises access.

Strategy 1: Develop and implement a nationally agreed identity management approach for education and training, building on the work of the Australian Access Federation (AAF)51 and the Open ID initiative52.

In the absence of an open education resources regime, or in combination with one, the implementation of a nationally agreed identity management system has the potential to open up teaching and learning resources across the education and training sector and improve equity of access for all learners. This enables higher levels of usage of teaching and learning resources that have been developed from public funding, and enables cross-institutional, cross-sectoral and cross-jurisdictional resource sharing for education and training-specific purposes.

Strategy 2: Develop and implement nationally agreed frameworks and guidelines to support the use of third party cloud applications53 to address issues such as knowledge management, information management, privacy, persistence and archiving.

The increasing use of third party cloud applications provides challenges to institutional information and knowledge management, interoperability, privacy, and data integrity amongst others54. The development and implementation of frameworks and guidelines will ensure institutions and individuals can manage the risks of the use of open cloud computing services.

Strategy 3: Build on existing services like edna (Education Network Australia)55, the ALTC Exchange56, the Learning Object Repository Network (LORN)57, and Scootle58 to provide a nationally 'connected' cross-sectoral system for the lodging, peer reviewing59, sharing and discovery of teaching and learning resources.

Many national initiatives have developed and/or provided access to resources. These are, apart from the cross-sectoral project, edna, sector-specific. While resources may have sectoral specificity in relation to learner age and academic level, in a time when informal Web 2.0 contextualisation through tagging, rating and commenting is available, and is able to be combined with formal metadata and resource information60, there is significant value in making teaching and learning resources available to teacher and learners, regardless of sector. This ‘connecting’ of existing resource repositories with a layer that enables content contextualisation would enable further use and reuse of existing resources and thus provide a better return on the investment in creating the resources.

Recommendation 6

Address the complications of Australian copyright law in a way that encourages sharing and exchange of resources in the education and training sector, including the implementation of Creative Commons across Australian education and training.

The complexity of Australian copyright law continues to be a barrier to sharing of resources in the education and training community. A range of initiatives has been undertaken in Australia over the last decade including a 1999 review of the Copyright Act ‘Simplification of the Australian Copyright Act 196861, ‘ Creative Commons (CC) Australia62, ccLearn63, a higher education consultation on copyright in relation to sharing teaching and learning resources64 and the establishment of the AICTEC Intellectual Property and Privacy Advisory Group (IPPAG)65 which is made up of representatives from each education sector, amongst others.

Simplification of the Australian Copyright Act 1968

The 1999 Simplification of the Australian Copyright Act 1968 reports made numerous recommendations. The Part 2 report identifies technological specificity as a problem.

Technological developments have produced new means of creating copyright subject matter, and new means of exploiting that subject matter. The majority of the Committee is of


the view that those new means are being utilised now, and are likely to be utilised with increasing frequency in the future, to produce subject matter of a type, and to exploit subject matter in a way, that does not easily or at all come within the existing categories. The majority of the Committee is concerned that without a significant change in approach to categorisation of subject matter and rights, there will be increasing uncertainty in the application of the Act in the digital environment, and an increasing pressure on the legislature to make ad hoc amendments to deal with these uncertainties. Both of these outcomes are undesirable.

The committee’s concerns were well founded: new technologies such as mashups and lifestreaming which utilise multiple sources of data to create new content demonstrate problems in identifying copyright and providing suitable licensing approaches, particularly where content is being used for educational purposes.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons Australia provides a number of licenses for particular needs.66 Creative Commons licensing is being used by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and is becoming more widely accepted in the government and education sectors. Creative Commons licensing is used in more than 50 countries.

The Government Information Licensing Framework67, an initiative of the Queensland Government and now being trialled by other Australian governments, aims to encourage use and reuse of public sector information through the application of Creative Commons licensing.

The report from the Review of Australia’s Innovation System, Venturous Australia, recommended that:

Recommendation 7.8: Australian governments should adopt international standards of open publishing as far as possible. Material released for public information by Australian governments should be released under a creative commons license68.

ccLearn provides information to educators about how to license their work and provides frequently asked questions about CC licensing.

ccLearn is a division of Creative Commons dedicated to realizing the full potential of the internet to support open learning and open educational resources.

Our mission is to minimize legal, technical, and social barriers to sharing and reuse of educational materials.

Higher Education

The higher education consultation about copyright in teaching and learning resources was undertaken as part of the development of ALTC Exchange69 (formerly the Carrick Exchange) project. Specifically the consultation aimed to identify barriers to sharing teaching and learning resources that would need to be addressed if the ALTC Exchange was to become a significant hub for sharing, reuse and repurposing.

Key findings emerging from this consultation, largely comprised of copyright officers in the university sector, found the following:

Sector-wide agreement for sharing difficult

Intellectual Property (IP) policies in Australian universities vary considerably.70 Moreover, because some universities commercialise their research outputs their IP policies and practice can be complex. This means it could be difficult to negotiate a sector-wide agreement enabling the sharing of teaching and learning materials through the Exchange.

Need for educational outreach about copyright

Despite a number of high profile initiatives in recent years focused on the management of IP in Australian higher education a need remains for educational outreach activities concerning copyright. Monotti and Ricketson (2003) present an argument that IP has traditionally been neglected and has only begun to be a hot topic within the last decade.


The need for such outreach activities is underscored by the ongoing impact of the networked, digital environment upon teaching, learning, and research. Organisations such as the Commonwealth of Learning are already progressing down this path.

Synergies and differences between e-research and e-learning to be noted

The e-research and e-learning communities share many common requirements of ICT infrastructure. This is particularly so where tools for knowledge sharing and collaborative activity are concerned (Croger Associates, 2007). The DART (Data Acquisition, Accessibility and Annotation e-research Technologies)71 project provides an excellent example of this basic synergy through its emphasis of three key words: acquire, access, and annotate. … it is also important to note that universities manage the IP related to teaching and learning resources produced by employees differently to research outputs produced by the same employees.

DRM software systems and the open content agenda

There is a reticence within the sector to support the development of services which involve the implementation of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software systems. Such an approach is perceived as counter to the open culture enabled by the Web. Despite the fact that the Discussion Paper and others have pointed out that DRM software systems also enable knowledge sharing (Collier, et al, 2004; Duncan, et al, 2003;Iannella, 2006; Sun (2006), the perception remains and can be summarised by the phrase digital restrictions management.

Support for Creative Commons, but not a total solution for CE

There is a strong groundswell of support among stakeholders for copyright licensing options provided by the Creative Commons project. However, the current suite of license options do not provide a complete solution for the CE given that IP will often reside with institutions and not individual academics. In particular, without prior institutional agreement, most individual academics would not be able to provide access to materials via the CE.

Need for institutional signoff

The Carrick Exchange will need to address the management of copyright through some mechanism that involves institutional signoff.

Sector-wide projects need to be monitored for implications

A number of sector wide projects currently underway may have an impact upon the ongoing development of the Carrick Exchange. Examples include the OAK Law Project and the Australian Access Federation.

Copyright and social networking contributions

The issues surrounding the copyright and other legal issues of social networking contributions placed on the CE are best dealt with by a Terms and Conditions of Use approach. This emerged strongly from the Reference Group. While exemplars exist for such terms and conditions, the CI would need to draw these up with legal advice so they reflect the philosophy of the Exchange.72

IPPAG

IPPAG is reviewing the implications for the Digital Education Revolution. It is tasked with:

A project to identify or produce a suite of open content licences that can be endorsed by AICTEC that the Australian education sectors can access and adopt where appropriate to promulgate curriculum and resources to their sectors that can be copied freely by the sectors without the concern of the monetary copyright licenses.73

Education Copyright Matrix of Open Access Licences

DEEWR has contracted the Education Copyright Matrix of Open Access Licences project for the school education sector74 which will:


describe current copyright practices relating to the development of curriculum materials for the school sector. The project report will provide:

a detailed description of current copyright practices relating to the development of curriculum materials for the school sector;

an education copyright matrix, to assist teachers to make an informed choice about both what they use and also how they license their own material education materials for their classes from appropriately licensed material for their situation, including the ability to adapt or modify material according to local needs; and

recommendations for implementation of the copyright matrix across government and non-government school sectors.75

While these have their place they do not address the underlying issue of complexity which is increasing with the educational use of cloud computing services and Web 2.0 social networking services, and materials created in and financial investments made in commercial online environments such as the virtual world, Second Life76.

Delia Browne, National Copyright Director National Copyright Unit, MCEETYA77, provides the following list of some of the issues surrounding copyright in education and training:

A lot that educators can do - some uses are governed by a compulsory license and are paid for. The Statutory Licence costs are increasing to an unsustainable rate.

Some uses are covered by free exceptions. In some cases the amount you can use is limited and in most instances you cannot modify or share

Printing, downloading, saving, emailing, putting up on a network or telling a student to print, download or save material that is made freely available from a publicly available website is not free - education sector must pay for such uses under the statutory licenses.

It is not free for educational institutions to download programs/podcasts from free to air broadcasters but it is free for the general public to do so.

New educational exception 200AB impeded by anti-circumvention provisions - cannot circumvent Access Technological Protection Measures – most DVDs protected by ATPMS, therefore cannot format shift DVDs formats into MP4s.

Section 28 allows educational institution to display project or communicate material into a classroom or virtual classroom (interactive whiteboards) – the Copyright Agency Limited78 arguing about extent of this in Copyright Tribunal action against schools.

No clear rules on how owners of learning object repositories are or should be dealing with other people’s copyright material.

Lack of labelling own material and others’ materials (can end up paying for using their own material under Statutory Licences).

Future is sharing materials with each other and across repositories - no agreed business rules and standards).

Nervousness about using Open Education Resources (OER) and Creative Commons.

Legal, economic and social obstacles to making materials available as OER79.

The strategies below would assist to some degree in managing copyright in situations where the copyright issues are relatively simple. However, complex copyright issues where multiple copyright holders are involved, or institutions do not hold copyright in items that they manage or use, will not necessarily be simplified by these strategies.

Strategy 1: Continue to support Creative Commons Australia and ccLearn and undertake mapping of other licensing regimes, such as AEShareNet80, to Creative Commons.

A commitment to Creative Commons licensing across all education and training could reduce complexity. This, when combined with an Open Education Resources regime, could have a


significant positive impact at least where new resources are developed. Pre-existing copyright issues would not necessarily be solved.

Strategy 2: Through Creative Commons Australia, undertake an ongoing awareness campaign in the education and training sector to encourage resource sharing and provide education about the licensing issues81.

An issue raised in all consultations has been the need for education of teachers about what they can and can’t do with copyright material. While the education is necessary, the complexity, exceptions and issues involved still make understanding legal usage of copyright materials challenging. The education needs to be constant and ongoing as teachers move in and out of the workforce and use new content types from a wide variety of sources.

Strategy 3: Work internationally with the Open CourseWare82 and Open Education Resources communities to develop an open strategy for the Australian education and training sector. Sign up to the Cape Town Open Education Declaration83.

Creating resources with the assumption that they will be provided as open education resources for use and reuse immediately simplifies compliance.

While each of these strategies will have a positive effect they will not solve the complexity of copyright in Australia in relation to sharing teaching and learning resources in a Web 2.0, collaborative digital environment. It is out of scope of this investigation to provide detailed advice in relation to copyright and education, however, it is clear from this investigation that the existing copyright regime in Australia, like those elsewhere in the world, is not able to deal effectively and simply with the complexity around use, reuse, sharing, and mashups typical of currently used Web 2.0 technologies as they will be applied in education, nor the tension between ownership and openness. It may be that the Australian Copyright Act 196884 needs to be rethought and rewritten for a 21st century digital economy context.


2.3.3 Professional learning and educators

Recommendation 7

That the Australian Government take a leadership role in collaboration with jurisdictions, sectors and educational institutions to develop a national professional learning strategy for ICT in education based on sound research into good practice.

The investigations have identified that professional learning for educators in all sectors of education is key to successful integration of ICT into daily teaching and learning practice. Various models and approaches have been suggested in the course of the SICTAS investigations including mentoring, teacher teams, online professional networking, and good practice clearinghouses. While professional learning is currently either a jurisdictional or institutional responsibility, many emerging technologies and their implications for teaching, learning, assessment, and curriculum are, to a large extent, sector-independent. A national approach to the provision of some core aspects supporting professional learning could be of significant benefit. For example:

• Support of cross-sectoral professional learning networks around emerging technologies

• Provision of a technology sandpit to enable educators to trial and experiment with new technologies in a safe and supported environment

• Support for informal and formal mentoring of educators within and between institutions and sectors

• Development and support for teacher team mentoring

• A clearinghouse for good practice examples and case studies85

The teacher professional learning report recommendations are specific to school education, as that was the scope of that SICTAS project. However, the recommendations include a number of strategies for implementation that could be generalised to apply to all education and training:

Strategy: Establish mechanisms to ensure that professional learning is integral to overall school improvements and readiness for 21st century education.

Strategy: Establish mechanisms to encourage and foster the development of ‘teacher learning teams’ where classroom practices are shared and professional learning takes place.

A survey of professional learning programs indicates that there are many options available for teachers to acquire skills and knowledge to enable them to incorporate ICT in their classrooms yet we find that 20% of teachers use ICT effectively in their classroom. The Workforce capability investigation has concluded that a multi-faceted approach to professional learning is required where external and internal (school based) programs are available to teachers. It acknowledges that school based collaborative teacher teams are most effective in meeting teacher needs and providing just in time skills and knowledge that is contextualised to local environments.

The investigation also discovered that professional learning is an integral part of transforming schools to the digital age. The other key elements include strong leadership, strategic planning, infrastructure and a supporting community. The strategies identified above address professional learning in a holistic way by considering all aspects that impact on professional learning and the incorporation of ICT in learning.

Galatis, H and Williams, A Teacher professional learning: planning for change report


Strategy: Establish mechanisms to ensure that strong system and school level leadership is present to facilitate effective change management and ensure that the professional learning is integral to strategies in transforming education into the 21st century.

Strategy: Establish a process for the creation and aggregation of professional learning resources and exemplars of work in a national repository supported by social networking services to enable sharing and knowledge exchange.

Strategy: Encourage schools to develop strategic plans that make ICT central to professional learning and embedded in the curriculum, through the provision of additional funding which enables schools to increase the amount of time allocated to school-based professional learning.

Strategy: Provide professional learning which focus on assessment of new skills acquired through the embedding of ICT in the curriculum. That is assessment that focuses on the how and why.

While there is a formal national commitment to education workforce development in the school education sector through the Digital Education Revolution86 in relation to ICT in education, there is no similar strategically coordinated approach to professional learning for VET teachers87 or university academics at a national level, although individual short term projects funded through the Australian Flexible Learning Framework and the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) do provide some professional learning opportunities in relation to emerging technologies88. The strategies provided in the Workforce Capability report are likely to have relevance to teachers in other sectors and there is significant benefit in being able to apply the same principals and approaches cross-sectorally.

The sessional and part-time nature of many teachers in VET and higher education means that a national strategy is likely to provide them with a non-institution-specific mechanism to maintain their professional ICT in education skills, keep up-to-date with new and emerging technologies, and develop and maintain professional learning networks.

Further, in relation to emerging technologies, much of the information required by teachers is not sector-specific but is around broad questions of ‘what is it?’, ‘what can it do?’, ‘how can I use it for teaching and learning?’ and so on, and involves knowledge exchange with other teachers using that technology and the development of informal professional learning networks.

A coordinated cross-sectoral approach to the provision of some core aspects of professional learning would provide a coherent, strategic approach to addressing professional learning issues and create opportunities for cross-sectoral knowledge sharing and creation.

Recommendation 8

The Australian Government take a leadership role, in partnership with other education authorities and entities, in implementing and maintaining the ICT competency framework for teachers as described in the ‘Raising the Standards’ report, but look to apply this to teachers in each of the education sectors, taking into account relevant work done in VET and higher education89. A key component of the described Raising the Standards framework is teacher standards. The Government should undertake to task AICTEC, through its advisory bodies to develop teacher ICT standards for:

• Pre-service teachers

• Practicing teachers

• School leaders

• Teacher educators

• VET teachers

• University teachers


The ALTC and the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) jointly authored report ‘Learning and Teaching in Australian Universities: A thematic analysis of Cycle 1 AUQA audits’ found that:

Learning and Teaching Plans

Typically, learning and teaching plans provided strategy and also more detailed educational policy. Most plans included the following elements although not all elements were present in all plans.

policy on curriculum design and review

assessment and plagiarism policies and procedures

academic quality assurance policies and structures

policies on use of technology and information services

mechanisms for recognising and rewarding excellence

statement of performance indicators and accountabilities

acknowledgement of resource considerations, and

approaches to academic benchmarking relevant to the institution’s mission.

Where key elements such as performance indicators were absent, audit panels usually drew attention to the need for further development. Where plans included all elements (rarely) the audit panel may have mentioned this in commendations. ... In general, the majority of plans were deficient in closing the loop between aims, action, evaluation and improvement. Few had progressed beyond a statement of intent and policies for good academic governance and teaching process. Even those who attended to policies and processes of review and evaluation often neglected to build into their plans processes to ensure improvement based on outcome measurement.90

The variability in institutional teaching and learning plans, along with an absence of any specific mention of the use of ICT for teaching and learning suggests there is an opportunity for leadership of the higher education sector in this area. The Bradley Review of Higher Education91 had few mentions of the transformative nature of ICT in education or the use of it in relation to quality, standards or professional development for university teachers stating only that:

The influence of information and communication technologies on teaching, learning and administration

The new information and communication technologies (ICT) play a significant role in teaching, learning and administrative support in universities, with most students reporting using ICT in some form in each of the subjects they study. While students generally are in favour of the use of ICT to enhance the learning experience and to provide flexibility, face-to-face teaching and learning remains highly valued. There is debate about the impact of a heavy reliance on information and communication technologies on the quality of teaching delivered and the learning experience of students.

Most research indicates that students respond best to a broad mix of learning tools and resources. However, significant use of technology-mediated methods may disadvantage students from backgrounds poor in information and communication technologies (Scott & Alexander 2000). This could have a greater effect on mature-age students who may not be as computer literate as younger students and also on students from rural and low socio-economic backgrounds who may not have access to appropriate resources or infrastructure…(p 72)

...Submissions also discussed the role of information and communication technology. While seen as an important adjunct to contact hours and a necessary and useful tool for off-campus students, submissions advocated the use of information and communication technology only as an addition to face-to-face teaching, not as a replacement. Several submissions highlighted the need for effective and reliable information and communication


technology infrastructure in higher education institutions, particularly those with regional and multiple campuses. (p 211)

Strategies emerging from the Raising the Standards report and published in the SICTAS Workforce Capability report could be applied cross-sectorally to all teachers.

Strategy 1: Establish a mechanism for the development of national ICT standards for teachers that are build on common language and ‘talk to the teacher’.

Strategy 2: Establish processes to ensure that there is consistency and appropriate coverage between the standards specified for the different groups of users.

Strategy 3: Establish a mechanism for future development and maintenance of the framework.

Strategy 4: Establish a strategy to promote the framework and appropriately fund professional learning to foster and increase the level of professional learning.

Strategy 5: Establish a mechanism for the development and use of e-portfolios for the collection and management of teacher artifacts that provide evidence of knowledge, competencies and professional learning courses undertaken and assessments completed.

The proposed framework entailing the development of standards for the various groups of teachers ensures there is consistency and appropriate coverage between the standards specified for the different groups of users.

The benefits of a national framework includes: agreed language, utilising commonly understood terms, facilitates effective information sharing about professional practices across jurisdictions, sectors and educational institutions, provides the basis for national recognition of the quality of teaching, and a basis for ongoing commitment by all governments to support teachers’ professional learning.


3 Introduction

3.1 Overview

The aim of this report is to investigate the impact of emerging technologies on education and training in Australia and to consider the implications for:

• learning and the learner

• professional learning and educators

• infrastructure and policy.


In considering the impact of emerging technologies, discussion in this report is focussed on planning for change and the identification of strategies to enable the education sector to be a ‘change maker’, both nationally and at a local level.

The findings of this report are based on desktop research, open conversations using asynchronous collaborative tools, synchronous 'Tankettes' and a national Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Learning Symposium with leading thinkers from the education and training community.

The most significant current development in ICT is the rapid shift from organisation-centric to person-centric tools and services. Web 2.0 tools and services are among recent developments that support participation in formal and informal networks online, giving individuals and groups access to global communities and enhancing and enriching their daily living and their learning. ICT is increasingly seen as an enabler in building communities and in supporting collaboration.

The education system is an important component of both social policy and economic policy. Competency in technology use is important in the workplace and will continue to be a key skill. In the future people will need, and expect to undertake, formal and informal learning throughout their lives. Education and training systems will play a key role in equipping them to interact with and utilise technology in sophisticated ways and in training them for jobs that do not currently exist.

However, the uptake of ICT to improve and support teaching and learning is inconsistent. A gap exists between the early adopters of ICT and the majority of educators, which leads to inequity of opportunity for learners to learn these skills through the education system.

Policy makers are faced with a world of constantly evolving ICT. In this world learners have the capacity to build their own networks and to form connections in a more organic, chaotic way than is possible in conventional education. The implementation of new ICTs to support teaching and learning is not compatible with a policy paradigm based on hierarchical and centralised control, nor with a risk averse approach to the implementation of technology.

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are integral to contemporary society. Technologies are powerful tools for education and training. They are enabling the transformation of the curriculum and changing the way learners and educators operate, learn and interact.

Joint Ministerial Statement on Information and Communications Technologies in Australian Education and Training: 2008-2011

Reference: http://www.aictec.edu.au/aictec/go/home/about/cache/offonce/pid/95


The challenges for policy makers92 here are summarised from the discussions at the ICT in Learning Symposium and, along with the other references used, have helped shape this report’s recommendations. The challenges are to:

• provide a flexible framework that supports information sharing and reduces duplication through fragmentation of effort

• choose where to invest in research, tools and systems that support integration

• address the barriers to scaling innovative and transformative practice

• monitor performance of the system against key outcomes that are learner focussed.

• development of a flexible national curriculum for schools and assessment so it is responsive to the potential of technologies to engage, enhance and improve learning outcomes for a 21st Century economy.

• provision of tools, mechanisms and systems that encourage the development and sharing of content and of good teaching practice

• development of policy frameworks that encourage widespread use of new technologies through a shared risk management approach.

• instigation and support of transformational professional learning programs across all sectors that effectively engage educators in incorporating the use of ICT to improve learner outcomes

• provision of spaces and mechanisms for trial and evaluation of new ICTs and for sharing of good practice across sectors, between organisations, and across jurisdictions.

• development of a management, maintenance and governance model for managing a complex distributed and connected environment for all stakeholders

• development of decision making frameworks that describe minimum standards for interoperability to encourage national integration of tools and services while allowing for local flexibility

• provision of sandpit spaces for trial and evaluation of new technologies

• promotion of frameworks and systems to encourage sharing of content and best practice in teaching and learning.

Submissions received from education peak bodies are summarised in Appendix 4, and are consistent with the implications identified in the Horizon Reports tabled in Appendix 5.

In fact there is a remarkable consistency in views about the challenges and implications of emerging technologies for teaching and learning.

3.2 What is an 'emerging technology'?

Many definitions of what constitutes an 'emerging technology' exist93.

In a 2005 paper by Education.au for the ACT Department of Education and Training, entitled ‘Emerging Technologies: A Framework for Thinking’94, the following definition of an emerging technology was accepted:

A technology is still emerging if it is not yet a ‘must-have’. For example, a few years ago email was an optional technology. In fact, it was limited in its effectiveness as a communication tool when only some people in an organization had regular access to it. Today, it is a must-have, must-use technology for most people in most organizations.95

The Horizon Project96 Report teams, both international and Australian, annually review a ‘wide range of articles, published and unpublished research, papers, scholarly blogs, and websites’97 to identify the trends in information and communication technologies (ICT) that will have an impact on education


and creative expression. At the time of their assessment of these artefacts, the Horizon Report publishers say:

When the cycle starts, little is known, or even can be known, about the appropriateness or efficacy of many of the emerging technologies for these purposes, as the Horizon Project expressly focuses on technologies not currently in widespread use in academe.98

In Appendix 1, we have summarised the emerging technologies and trends identified by the Horizon Project Reports (Horizon Reports) over the last five years, and the implications of these technologies as stated in these reports.

Information about currently emerging technologies that have an impact on collaboration in teaching and learning, as well as examples of how they are being used, are included in Appendix 2 of the SICTAS Collaboration in Teaching and Learning99 report.

For the purposes of this report we accept the above definition – that is, the technology is not yet a must-have in the education sector, and is optional, but may have a significant impact.

Education: the 'change maker'

Continuous technology change and innovation means that the education sector will be required to be the 'change maker' – making change happen for the education and training sector from early childhood education through to post-graduate level.

It will need to have the ability to harness and mainstream ICT innovation in teaching and learning.

It will need to be agile, forward thinking, innovative and risk-taking.

It will need to accept change as the norm and have the appropriate processes, people and policy frameworks so that change leads to beneficial rather than disruptive outcomes.

A national agenda

While the Australian federation makes taking a national approach to education policy challenging, the Australian Government can take on the important role of establishing national approaches in key areas and provide incentives and programs that support the implementation and mainstreaming of those national approaches.

The view that a national approach can provide advantages in particular areas of technology innovation and implementation is supported in companion SICTAS reports including the Collaboration in Teaching and Learning report, the National Software Infrastructure report, and the Workforce Capability report, as well as the general thrust of Australian Government policy.

The implementation of new ICTs to support teaching and learning is not compatible with a policy paradigm based on hierarchical and centralized control, nor with a risk averse approach to the implementation of technology. The challenges for policy makers are to:

Provide a flexible framework that supports information sharing and reduces duplication through fragmentation of effort

Choose where to invest in research, tools and systems that support integration

Address the barriers to scaling innovative and transformative practice

Monitor performance of the system against key outcomes that are learner focused

ICT in Learning Symposium Communiqué


4 Risk management

By definition, emerging technologies are unproven for education purposes, but may be already mainstreamed in other areas of the economy. Each year new technologies that have the potential to be transformative, or useful for education purposes, are identified. The implications of this for the education sector in Australia are wide-ranging. How does the education sector know which of these emerging technologies are transformative for education, and which are fads?

As part of the 2005 consultancy Education.au undertook for the ACT Department of Education and Training, it identified a number of questions that can be asked as part of a Decision Making Matrix to reduce the risks and recognise realities. This is available as Appendix 6.

The speed of technological change makes decision-making about technology strategy and selection challenging.

Should we implement blogs, a social networking service, replace our Learning Management System, introduce an immersive learning environment, and provide games authoring tools? Should we build in-house, buy proprietary products, buy open source, go to the cloud? How do we develop and maintain an environment supporting innovation in teaching and learning, support professional learning, identify a return on investment, measure improvements in learning outcomes, enhance the learning experience for learners regardless of sector?

There are no easy answers to the question of what technology to implement, when and how.

Decision makers frequently make decisions based on broader factors that are not necessarily directly related to pedagogy. For example, the SICTAS Web 2.0 Site blocking in Schools report found that:

Schools have a fundamental duty of care to students and site blocking is a necessary and key component of every school’s overall cyber-safety strategy. Site blocking has a clear role in front-line protection of students from illegal and inappropriate Internet sites and content. For schools with limited bandwidth, site blocking is also used as a method to limit download of bandwidth-heavy rich media content.

The case for blocking popular Web 2.0 sites such as Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube is less clear.

Typically these sites provide a mixture of both educationally-valuable and undesirable/risky content and interactivity.

Web 2.0 site blocking in schools is a risk management response to the difficult and not well understood issues that schools face in trying to balance cyber-safety concerns with the desire to harness innovative Web 2.0 style collaborative teaching and learning.100

New technology tools and applications will continue to be developed, and learners will expect them to be part of their learning experience. It will be necessary to embrace them to ensure that learners are properly prepared with 21st century skills and thus able to take their places in the workforce, or able to retrain for jobs that are still to emerge.

This means the education sector must be prepared to become the change maker and establish processes and procedures at all levels that support and integrate innovation101 and support those responsible for teacher education, for professional learning, and for teaching and learning generally.

If we are to take advantage of technology for teaching and learning our decision-making must be evidence-informed.

At the same time, decision-makers must acknowledge that some technologies will be so new that there will not be an evidence base. A process of trialling and experimenting should be explicitly integrated into ICT policies, and innovation and risk taking rewarded.


Further, the education sector needs to think beyond currently emerging and maturing technologies: Web 2.0, cloud computing, mobile phones. No matter what decisions are taken today, in a few months or a year another set of decisions will need to be taken because new technology innovations will be emerging.

What is required is broader thinking about ICT and the education sector. The question that needs to be answered is: what do we want ICT to do for teaching and learning and how do we go about doing it? That is, we need to strategically lead and innovate in the use of ICT for teaching and learning rather than follow.

We refer particularly to the Joint Ministerial Statement on Information and Communications Technologies in Australian Education and Training: 2008-2011 which provides an overarching set of principles in which a nationally coordinated approach to ICT in education can be confidently implemented. (see sidebar)

Change is the only certainty

A culture of planning for and managing change must become integral to the education sector’s educators, administrators, leaders and policy makers. The sector must become the 'change maker' with processes people and policy frameworks in place that makes change a managed norm, rather than a disruption.

Planning for change will be a pre-condition for all education organisations - whether sectors, individual organisations, or national bodies - if they are to deliver education relevant to the requirements of the broader 21st century economy, and provide learners with the appropriate skills and knowledge to enable long term employment and a capacity for lifelong learning.

Continuous change will impact on us all in our various roles as learners, educators, policy makers, leaders, employers and employees.

National initiatives funded by the Australian Government and implemented through national collaborations can provide an infrastructure of policies and processes that provide certainty, while supporting and enabling ongoing change.

4.1.1 Common threads

Although the focus of this project - the Strategic ICT Advisory Service - is on technology, the investigations and other input Education.au has received from the many learners, educators, leaders and policy makers that have participated in and contributed to the SICTAS reports, Tankettes, and the ICT in Learning Symposium, reveal that the success of ICT in education is not about the technology, but about people.

Joint Ministerial Statement on Information and Communications Technologies in Australian Education and Training: 2008-2011

...Technology rich learning environments will be underpinned by a secure and robust infrastructure, where software, computers and ICT equipment, networked systems, technical support and access to high speed broadband and online services, will support educators in the delivery of world class education and training.

Jurisdictional and cross sectoral access to networks and digital repositories of resources that are affordable, reusable, discoverable and shareable, will be supported by policy, sustainable resourcing and technical systems and standards that enable the building and exchange of knowledge and resources.

Educators will enhance twenty first century student learning outcomes by effectively and ethically incorporating ICT into their teaching and learning programmes and methods and collaborating in the creation of flexible learning environments...

Reference: http://www.aictec.edu.au/aictec/webdav/site/standardssite/shared/JMS%20on%20ICT%20in%20Australian%20Education%20and%20Training.pdf


Our people are the enablers: they make up our schools, our TAFEs, our universities, are our teachers, our administrators, our curriculum designers, our assessors, our learners, our ICT experts.

As the national government, the Australian Government has the responsibility of ensuring that all Australians are able to thrive in, and contribute to, the 21st century economy.

One mechanism to ensure this is to support an education infrastructure that maps to the real world requirements of industry, business and commerce, enables and supports research and development through skills and knowledge acquisition and sharing, and provides skills and abilities that are relevant now, but which enable learners to undertake lifelong learning experiences in response to an economy that will demand new skills as the world changes.

The 2009 SICTAS report 'Collaboration in Teaching and Learning' states that effective collaborative learning using ICT is dependent on services and skills that are not specific to collaborative learning, but are essential for the provision of ICT in education more generally. These were:

• technical and services architectures to ensure reliable, fast, ubiquitous access

• professional learning opportunities for in-service teachers and ICT training for teacher educators and pre-service teachers

• strong inter-jurisdictional interaction and cooperation to ensure the maximum benefit from investments in ICT

• the report identified some priority areas for national collaboration: o the provision of professional learning opportunities related to ICT, including teacher

education as this will increase the efficacy of all spending on ICT in education o the delivery of post-secondary education opportunities via ICTs, using collaborative

learning approaches to remote and regional Australia to address serious issues of equity and social inclusion

o the development of processes and relationships to support the mainstreaming of proven approaches and tools which will ensure we leverage investments made in ICT for education nationally and across all sectors102.

The 2009 SICTAS report, 'Web 2.0 site blocking for schools', made a number of recommendations that relevant to ICT in education. At the core is the need for national collaboration in a range of areas including:

• professional learning for teachers

• a national approach to cybersafety that covers schools, parents and the home

• bandwidth support for delivery of rich media content

• national curriculum103

• a trust federation to enable collaboration beyond existing jurisdictional or sectoral boundaries104

o systemically leverage best practice in tools, technologies and policies

‘Initiatives being delivered in this Budget to promote social inclusion span from the early childhood years to formal education, from employment services to extra support for Indigenous Australians ...

...Investing in education, training and skills is fundamental to ensuring our economic sustainability, optimising our human capital and fighting disadvantage...’

Media Release, The Hon Julia Gillard and the Hon Ursula Stephens, Social Inclusion through Education and Employment, 13 May 2009

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Ministers/Gillard/Media/Releases/Pages/Article_081029_115506.aspx


o test and trial tools and technologies o policy frameworks (eg in areas such as siteblocking, resource sharing and

repurposing) o technical infrastructure (such as broadband).

The Towards a 21st century National Software Infrastructure for Education and Training105 report suggests there is a significant role for the Australian Government to play in facilitating the development and ongoing sustainability of a 21st century national education and training software infrastructure in the following areas:

• governance and leadership

• standards

• partnership projects to develop devolved interoperable systems

• shared infrastructure

• pilots, trials, knowledge transfer and best practice

• managing the national software infrastructure.

Further, the report recommends a functional model that supports the connection and interoperability of systems and supporting a diverse range of implementation approaches including:

• national centralised systems

• local jurisdictional systems

• internet (cloud computing) services

• interoperability between these systems via agreed national standards.

The report suggests a role for the Australian Government in plugging the gaps that exist between individual institution initiatives and a nationally interoperable education sector environment.

• gaps that prevent local jurisdictions from building national interoperability into their ICT projects.

• gaps that prevent smaller stakeholders from gaining benefits from the national infrastructure

• gaps that prevent interoperability between sectors

• gaps in knowledge and standards maturity that prevent interoperability.

The evidence gathered through the SICTAS investigations supports the notion of collaborative federalism in the provision of education and training to Australian learners.


5 Change making and actions

Jean Baudrillard offers a distinction between change and becoming that informs the discussion of technology and educational change:

We are changing our system of values, changing all our identities, our partners, our illusions, and so on. We are obliged to change, but changing is something other than becoming, they are different things. We are in a ‘changing’ time, where it is the moral law of all individuals, but changing is not becoming. We can change everything, we can change ourselves, but in this time we don’t become anything. It was an opposition put forth by Nietzsche, he spoke about the era of chameleons. We are in a chameleonesque era, able to change but not able to become106.

This quote gets to the core problem in changing schools, colleges, universities, or corporate training. Organizations recognize that they are facing tremendous change pressures and are grasping for clarity on what they are becoming (or will become).107

In the Collaboration in Teaching and Learning (CTL) report, Education.au utilised work undertaken by Jan Herrington and Anthony Herrington from the University of Wollongong108 which, in table form, depicts the impact the shift to collaborative learning approaches is having on the philosophical, theoretical and professional dimensions of learning.

From the basis of the Herrington and Herrington table, the SICTAS CTL report identified the implications for collaboration in teaching and learning.

In this report we go a step further and, using the findings of the companion SICTAS reports and the ICT in Learning Symposium, identify actions that can be taken, firstly, to take advantage of the shifts in these dimensions of learning and, secondly, to support 'change making' - that is, to put in place an infrastructure that will enable Australian education to take advantage of innovations in ICT in a beneficial and timely way, rather than having to react to it as a disruptive influence and a risk management issue.

5.1 The change makers

This set of tables below is based on the Herrington and Herrington model of the philosophical, theoretical and professional dimensions of learning. The original Herrington and Herrington table and the CTL report extension to that table are both at Appendix 7.

Here we describe actions that could support the creating of a national approach to the management of continuous change in ICT as it impacts on the three groups: learning and learners, professional learning and educators and policy makers and infrastructure.

In the SICTAS reports a consistent view has been put that there is an important role for a national body to coordinate, manage, encourage and facilitate various aspects of the implementation of ICT in education. This is particularly important in an environment that will be under continual pressure because of constant change.

The actions below could be undertaken by the Australian Government as part of a coordinated program of activities and/or be combined with cross-sectoral collaborations with funding tied to specific outcomes and managed or mandated through existing projects or initiatives such as the Australian Flexible Learning Framework109, Skills Australia, the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, the Australian Research Council, Teaching Australia, The Le@rning Federation, edna, myfuture, appropriate Collaborative Research Centres and so on.


While working through existing organisations and groups has its positive aspects, the tasking of a national body with overall responsibility for and visibility of strategic coordination of ICT in education would ensure that all sectors, jurisdictions and educational institutions would be party to Australia’s overall advancement and innovation in this area.

Because Australia is both a federal system and has sectoral and institutional silos it is important that national leadership breaks down these separations to ensure the best returns from the investment in ICT in education.

That is, we need to recast the management of ICT in education to reflect learners’ experiences: that is, their learning and their ICT in education experience is a continuum from early childhood through to lifelong learning and there are advantages in taking a ‘topic’ rather than a sectoral, jurisdictional or institutional perspective.

5.1.1 Actions summary

Below is a set of possible actions that could be taken to help position Australia to manage constant change in ICT in the education and training sector. A primary issue is delegation of responsibility: who will take responsibility for managing and implementing the range of actions, strategies and recommendations?

The current system of dispersed responsibility and fragmentation of effort does not enable strategic implementation ensuring equitable access to quality ICT in education for learners across jurisdictions and sectors. These actions could then be applied to the elements of the expanded table. Actions applied to each element of the table are in Appendix 8 of this report.

Learning and learners

• Embed new media literacy skills in teaching and learning at all levels and in all sectors to enable learners to manage identity and privacy issues and empower students, teacher and leaders as digital citizens.

Professional learning and educators

Teacher education

• Include online and collaborative learning pedagogies, online facilitation skills, new media literacy skills110 and appropriate assessment regimes and ICT tools in teacher education as part of the standard curricula

• Include new media literacy skills in professional learning programs (as defined in the SICTAS Collaboration in Teaching and Learning report111).

Professional learning

• Regularly review and (re)align professional learning programs to shifts in learning theory, pedagogical approaches and assessment regimes.

• Establish an online clearing house and social network to support knowledge exchange across the education sectors and between educational organisations on applications and uses of technologies for education. (this might include good practice exemplars, conference exchanges supported by technology to enable information capture, facilitated and informal professional learning networks)

Assessment

• Regularly review and modify assessment regimes to: o align with the 21st century curriculum112 o be reflective of the new media literacy skills and abilities required of learners113 o consider emerging technologies and their implications for teaching and learning


Pedagogy and curriculum

• Regularly review the pedagogy underpinning the use of ICT for teaching and learning.

• Regularly evaluate the efficacy of learning theory114 underpinning teaching and learning and share results through formal and informal knowledge management processes.

Policy makers and infrastructure

Policy

• Encourage and support a philosophy and culture of innovation and action enquiry to new and emerging technologies.

• Encourage educational institutions to provide all learning opportunities both online and face to face in all sectors (early childhood, schools, VET, ACE, higher education). This will reduce differences in access between rural/remote and metropolitan, and provide comparable quality of content between and amongst learning organisations regardless of size or location or make up of student body.

• Promote and encourage the use of standards to ensure that educational content is reusable and sharable.

• Develop a cross-sectoral ICT in Teaching and Learning Continuum policy through AICTEC so that learners' skills and abilities are enhanced as they move through the education sector(s) - from early childhood through to further education.115

• Establish a national incentive system for individuals and institutions for development, sharing and peer reviewing of teaching and learning resources.116

• Systems are supported by policies and processes: o New and emerging tools and technologies are trialled and prototyped o Processes for mainstreaming and upscaling successful prototypes and proofs of

concept are in place o Processes and policies for mainstreaming technologies are developed in a way that

is tool- and technology-independent

Infrastructure

Technical

• Support and implement trust federations117 and open identity approaches in ways that support resource sharing and the implementation of an ‘education cloud’.

• Provide access devices118 and technical infrastructures as part of the day-to-day learning environment.

• Provide support to ensure that learning space design accommodates the current and future needs that the changes in the dimensions of learning will bring.

• Realign education systems, organisations and environments according to a shared set of values, frameworks, standards: for example: standards that enable interoperability and data exchange across jurisdictions and between organisations, a shared security/trust/identity model or models, applications open via APIs, using ‘standards’ that are used internationally as 'default' standards, and/or area formally agreed by standards bodies.

‘Education cloud’

• Use the national software infrastructure to provide an ‘education cloud’ for Web 2.0 type services such as video sharing, blogs, wikis, virtual worlds and online gaming, that supports collaborative and networked learning using a national identity management solution119.


• Develop and implement nationally agreed frameworks and guidelines to support the use of 'cloud' applications120 to address issues such as knowledge management, information management, privacy, persistence and archiving.

• Provide mechanisms for knowledge exchange across the education sectors and between educational organisations on applications and uses of ICT for teaching and learning. (eg good practice exemplars, conference exchanges supported by technology to enable information capture, facilitated and informal professional learning networks).

Content and resources

Provide a national store of reusable and modifiable resources for core curriculum areas for each sector of education:

• Build on existing services like edna, the ALTC Exchange, the Learning Object Repository Network (LORN) and Scootle to provide a nationally 'connected' cross-sectoral system for the lodging, peer reviewing, sharing and discovery of teaching and learning resources.


• Work internationally with the Open CourseWare122 and Open Education Resources communities to develop a strategy for the Australian education and training sector.

• Build on and mainstream existing or completed projects around immersive learning environments123, role plays and so on.

• Work cross-sectorally with the cultural sector and other key groups to identify and make available national resources of significance and develop related pedagogical materials that can be shared and reused124.

• Provide explicit indication of a resource's licensing through implementation of a national cross-sectoral Creative Commons licensing system (or mapping to that system) to enable sharing and reuse of teaching and learning resources125.

• Resource and develop an ongoing formal research program to perpetually interrogate the use of ICT for teaching and learning.

Change maker Impact

Philosophy and theory While current technology tools (such as so-called Web 2.0 applications) support and enhance collaborative learning - which is underpinned by a range of theoretical models - it is likely that emerging technologies and other issues of the future will require shifts, changes and modifications to the theory underpinning learning.

Course design: open ended learning environment, flexible content

Re-usable and shareable content, learning environment not necessarily bound by the learning organisation, sector or jurisdiction, lifelong learning, open courseware, shared courseware

Time and place: distributed to suit contexts of the learners

Greater use of online, blended, distance, just-in-time and flexible learning opportunities

Knowledge base: knowledge built and shared amongst the community

Skill in community building and maintenance, e-moderation and facilitation required for teachers and leaders. Trust, identity, privacy, knowledge management are challenges.


Change maker Impact

Tasks: authentic, reflective, complex and sustained

Tension between standardised curricula, testing, benchmarking and grading and a co-developed, flexible curricula and set of tasks and experiences that respond to learner needs and interests

Resources: Open, chosen by learners with access to search tools

Tension between the provision of the 'right' resources that are preselected by the teacher or learning organisation and resources from a variety of places possibly restricted by filtering and blacklists. Requires the development of information literacy, critical thinking, and good judgement by learners to assess to appropriateness of the resources.

Support: community of learners Requires a reworking of the role of 'teacher' and the development of responsibility for learning in students. Requires a shift from the transmission model to a collaborative learning model.

Mode: collaborative, networked Requires a shift in thinking about grades and results and a shift in focus from performance to process. That is, students need to show that they know how to learn and apply that learning and to negotiate within their community of learners. These new skills are about critical evaluation, search skills and teaming skills.

Technology tools126

Requires a change from the computer room model to a mode where connected devices are part of the normal teaching and learning environment: used or not used as appropriate to the learning experience.

Knowledge outcomes: Conceptual understanding, higher order thinking

Requires a shift away from product to learning process and development of new ways of assessing, not just an ability to retain facts.

Products: authentic artefacts and digital products

Requires new ways of thinking about assessment tasks that are relevant to what it is that students need to learn, know and understand - could include immersive environments, role plays and simulations. May need the development of shareable resources, methods of sharing and reusing, tagging (metadata) of resources, trust federations for sharing.

Assessment: performance based integrated and authentic assessment

There is tension between standardised testing and benchmarking, and assessing collaborative learning achievements by diverse cohorts of students. Also new skills that are processed base are not tested, for example team building, research skills.

Transfer of knowledge: new and changing knowledge acquired when required

Requires a shift in understanding of learning and the purpose of education. That is, part of the process of understanding learning will need to be the understanding that learning is lifelong and skills and knowledge will need to be updated and refreshed in response to a relentlessly changing environment

Personal, just-in-time, community based

Shift from formal 'time away' learning to in-house, just-in-time learning for professional learning. This will require different models and modes of professional development, tailored to individual needs, as well as both formal and informal support for communities of practice both f2f and online.


6 Methodology

6.1 Overview

The aim of this report is to investigate the impact of emerging technologies on education and training in Australia and to consider the impact on learning and the learner, professional learning, infrastructure and policy.

In considering the impact of emerging technologies on education discussion is focussed on planning for change and the identification of strategies to enable the education sector to be a change maker, both nationally and at a local level.

The findings of this report are based on desktop research, open conversations using asynchronous collaborative tools, synchronous 'Tankettes' organised to support the findings of the previous SICTAS reports and a national ICT in Learning Symposium with leading thinkers from the education and training community.

A list of attendees at the ICT in Learning Symposium can be found at Appendix 3.

6.1.1 Desktop research

Desktop research focussed on the implications of emerging technologies for the education and training sector in the 21st century.

A review of the Horizon Project127 reports from 2004 to 2009 was undertaken. Other key reports sourced include Gartner reports about emerging technologies, Educause technology reports, Pew Internet128, and Becta129 technology reports.

Additionally, this report is informed by, and draws on, the findings of the companion SICTAS reports prepared for DEEWR including the Collaboration in Teaching and Learning130, Workforce Capability and Towards a 21st Century National Software Infrastructure for Education and Training.

6.1.2 Strategic conversations and Tankettes

Informal and formal conversations undertaken through the organised Tankettes, established to inform the other SICTAS investigations, have also been used to inform the outputs of this report.

6.1.3 Future Technologies Tankette

The Future Technologies Tankette had two components: firstly a Live Classroom synchronous event and a meeting within Second Life to discuss virtual worlds. Industry and education participants currently working with new and emerging technologies contributed to these discussions. The views of participants were consistent with other work undertaken for this report, and with the companion SICTAS reports.

6.1.4 ICT in Learning Symposium

The national ICT in Learning Symposium was hosted to engage leading education and technology experts in strategic conversations around three themes: Learners and Learning; Infrastructure and Policy Makers; and Professional learning and Educators. The objective of the Symposium was to encourage diverse and multiple conversation around the themes. The details of the ICT in Learning Symposium and the resulting Communiqué are at Appendix 2 and Appendix 1 respectively.


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Appendix 1: ICT in Learning Symposium Communiqué

The national ICT in Learning Symposium: Planning for Change was hosted by Education.au in Sydney on 1 May 2009. Sixty participants attended, including representatives from all education and training sectors, and from the technology industries. All states and territories were represented.

The Symposium was an activity of Education.au’s Strategic ICT Advisory Service (SICTAS) project, funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). The purpose of the Symposium was to bring together leading thinkers and practitioners in education and training to discuss issues around the implications of rapid and constant technological change. Outcomes from the Symposium will inform the development of advice for policy makers on how best to support the effective use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in teaching and learning.

The purpose of this communiqué is to inform you of the significant findings that emerged from the discussion. It is important to note that the event attracted considerable interest from the broader education and training community, as evidenced by activity on Twitter and through responses to blog postings by a number of participants.

Significant findings

The big picture

The most significant current development in ICT is the rapid shift from organisation-centric to person-centric tools and services. Web 2.0 tools and services are among recent developments that support participation in formal and informal networks online, giving individuals and groups access to global communities and enhancing and enriching their daily living and their learning. ICT is increasingly seen as an enabler in building communities and in supporting collaboration.

The education system is an important component of both social policy and economic policy. Competency in technology use is important in the workplace and will continue to be a key skill. In the future people will need, and expect to undertake, formal and informal learning throughout their lives. Education and training systems will play a key role in equipping them to interact with and utilise technology in sophisticated ways and in training them for jobs that do not currently exist.

However, the uptake of ICT to improve and support teaching and learning is inconsistent. A gap exists between the early adopters of ICT and the majority of educators, which leads to inequity of opportunity for learners to learn these skills through the education system.

Policy makers are faced with a world of constantly evolving ICT. In this world learners have the capacity to build their own networks and to form connections in a more organic, chaotic way than is possible in conventional education. The implementation of new ICTs to support teaching and learning is not compatible with a policy paradigm based on hierarchical and centralised control, nor with a risk averse approach to the implementation of technology.


The challenges for policy makers are to:

• provide a flexible framework that supports information sharing and reduces duplication through fragmentation of effort

• choose where to invest in research, tools and systems that support integration

• address the barriers to scaling innovative and transformative practice

• monitor performance of the system against key outcomes that are learner focussed.

Supporting learners and learning

For effective learning to take place, learners need to be motivated and engaged, and presented with challenges that relate to their real world. ICTs can provide personalised learning opportunities and collaborative environments that support effective learning. Web 2.0 technologies are particularly valuable in enabling collaborative learning approaches, and offer tools and services that can be of benefit in teaching and learning for both educators and learners.

It is important for educators to focus on where the use of ICTs can support improved learner outcomes through transforming, amplifying and extending learner’s opportunities and experiences, and to expand and adapt their repertoire of pedagogies to incorporate the use of ICTs where appropriate.

The wide availability of ICT means that many learners have an expectation that ICT will be incorporated into their learning. The changing nature of ICT, particularly in the growth of Web 2.0 tools and services, provides learners with access to virtual communities, which may be more important to them than their educational environments. The effective incorporation of ICT in education and training has the benefit of using tools and services with which many learners are familiar and which they find engaging.

New technologies are being used to solve old problems, such as providing education for remote access learners and supporting disadvantaged groups. There is evidence to show that new technologies have enormous potential in providing access to education and training for indigenous communities.

Key directions for policy include:

• development of a flexible national curriculum for schools and assessment so it is responsive to the potential of technologies to engage, enhance and improve learning outcomes for a 21st Century economy.

• provision of tools, mechanisms and systems that encourage the development and sharing of content and of good teaching practice

• development of policy frameworks that encourage widespread use of new technologies through a shared risk management approach.

Sustaining professional learning

Educators are recognised as one of the greatest influencing factors in learner outcomes and achievements. There is a need to support educators and all education sectors in the development of pedagogies that embed ICT to improve learning outcomes for learners. While it is important in the school sector to embed the use of ICT in pre-service teacher training, the rate and magnitude of change in new ICTs is such that educators across all sectors need to learn how to adapt pedagogy and adopt new ICTs on an ongoing basis.


There is concern that only 20% of educators have transformed their teaching practice to incorporate ICTs. While there are examples of excellence in this area the change in practice has not been scaled across a majority of educators. Professional learning needs to be more fundamentally embedded in educators’ work in all sectors to ensure that new pedagogies, ICTs and methods of assessment and quality are regularly incorporated in teaching practices.

The improvement of learner outcomes is one of the greatest motivators for educators, and professional learning should focus on learner outcomes rather than on the development of particular technology skills. Professional learning should be designed around the question, ‘What do we want our learners to know and be able to do?’ and therefore be contextualised to the local situation as well as responding to the requirements of national and jurisdictional standards in education and training.

The most effective method of bringing about rapid change in pedagogical approaches and developing educators’ skills is where teachers work with colleagues to solve problems, in a model that encourages mentoring, reflection and sharing of good practice. This model is not new and has been implemented successfully in a range of contexts, an example of a national program being the LearnScope program of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework. However, there is enormous potential in using new ICTs to support and enhance professional learning.


• instigation and support of transformational professional learning programs across all sectors that effectively engage educators in incorporating the use of ICT to improve learner outcomes

• provision of spaces and mechanisms for trial and evaluation of new ICTs and for sharing of good practice across sectors, between organisations, and across jurisdictions.

Building flexible infrastructure

There has been significant work across the education and training sector in the development of frameworks and systems that provide national approaches to the provision of services and resources, for example AARNet, the Australian Access Federation, the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, and The Learning Federation.

Collaborative learning and connectedness are key characteristics of 21st century learning. It is important that infrastructure development – including physical infrastructure, software, standards and guidelines, and learning resources – leverages from the considerable achievements to date and is designed to continue to foster collaboration.

Governments have a crucial role in supporting the development of infrastructure at national and jurisdictional levels. A significant issue regarding infrastructure is the tension between centralised platforms and users’ desire for control of their technology environments. National infrastructure should support integration of personal learning environments with systemic structures within formal education environments – thus enabling educators and learners to use the tools they like while connecting to services securely and transparently.

This does not always imply a centralised platform, but does mean that the ‘glue’ that keeps the whole system running requires a strategic focus, national partnerships, and collaborative planning, monitoring and maintenance. This includes implementation of interoperability standards, frameworks for decision making for the adoption of new ICTs, and strategies for sharing educational content, services and good practice.

While it is recognised that governments want to minimise risk and ensure equity of experience and access for learners to ICT for teaching and learning, progress is often impeded by complex decision making and implementation processes. A challenge for policy makers and the education sector is to provide an opportunity for educators to trial, evaluate, select and implement new ICTs in ways that are appropriate to their local needs without the burden of heavy, centralised controls.



• development of a management, maintenance and governance model for managing a complex distributed and connected environment for all stakeholders

• development of decision making frameworks that describe minimum standards for interoperability to encourage national integration of tools and services while allowing for local flexibility

• provision of sandpit spaces for trial and evaluation of new technologies

• promotion of frameworks and systems to encourage sharing of content and best practice in teaching and learning.

For more information

Links to discussions and resources around the Symposium themes can be found at http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/SICTAS/symp

Resources and information about the SICTAS project can be found at

http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/SICTAS


Appendix 2: ICT in Learning Symposium Summary

Overview

The national ICT in Learning Symposium was hosted to engage leading education and technology experts in strategic conversations around three themes: Learner and Learning; Infrastructure and Policy Makers; and Professional learning and Educators. The objective of the Symposium was to encourage diverse and multiple conversation around the themes.

The invited participants and Education.au staff worked in eight small groups of five to six people to encourage deep conversation and to allow all participants time to express their views. Different topics were covered within each theme by each group and the provocateurs assigned for each topic directed and stimulated discussion around specific aspects of each theme.

Details of the discussion topics

• Theme 1 - the implications of emerging technologies for learning and learners. Responses were sought to the following questions:

o What will learning look like in a student-centred demand driven model? o What will learning environments look like? o What are the implications for curriculum and assessment?

• Theme 2 - the implications of continuously emerging technologies for professional learning and educators. Responses were sought to the following questions:

o What are the appropriate professional learning models? o How can policy makers and educational institutions best support educators to meet

the challenges of new technologies?

• Theme 3 - the implications of continuous emerging technologies for infrastructure including physical infrastructure, standards and guidelines. Responses were sought to the following question:

o How can policy and programs best be developed to provide supporting infrastructure for the education and training community?

Technologies such as iPods, laptops, wikis, social networking services such as blogs and Twitter were used to capture and disseminate information to wider audiences and networks in real time.

The outputs of the Symposium, which include reflective blog postings by symposium participants, videos of theme summations and notes generated on the wiki, have been used in the development of this report.

Facilitators nominated to summarise the discussions and draw together common threads were:

• Alan Bevan, Education.au - summarised discussions on Learning and Learners

• Dr Evan Arthur - Group Manager, Digital Education Group Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations - summarised discussions on Infrastructure and policy

• Susan Mann, CEEO Curriculum Corporation - summarised session on Professional Learning and educators

• Jen Dunbabin, E-learning Coordinator - Skills Tasmania - summarised the Open Discussion

Video recordings of the summation sessions and other content generated throughout the day is available from: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS/symp


ICT in Learning Symposium theme summations

The key messages of each Symposium theme was summarised by an educational leader.

Implications of continuously emerging technologies for learning and learners

Students are born in a technological world and, as such, have certain expectations. Their social environment, which is enriched with the use of technologies, should be reflected in their education. As educators we need to consider the impact of technologies and the way information is processed and the learning takes place, and consider the different learning styles of learners.

Today's learners are ubiquitously connected to learning outside formal environments and learning takes place there. There was recognition that informal learning has a role to play in structured learning although there was some hesitancy and concern raised about unstructured learning. It was acknowledged that educators have a role to play in providing guidance and structure.

Technology is viewed as the enabler to solve old problems such as the provision of education in remote and isolated places.

Although technology has a key role the most important factor in learner achievements was teacher/educator capacity. The key question is 'How do we develop capacity?' to enable teachers to develop and change to embrace learning for the 21st century. There needs to be flexible models, providing opportunities for change. These may include various incentives so that teachers can scale up from the 20% who are currently using technologies to support the 60% who need help.

National curriculum needs to be responsive to disruptive pedagogies and the role of assessment needs to be addressed.

Structures and applications that enable sharing need to be in place to share good practices.

Content alone is not enough: there needs to be support wrapped around content that adds value. For example how current is the content, in what context has it been used, how is it rated? The copyright issues need to be addressed - the education sector needs open content and open licences. Incentives need to be provided to stimulate sharing.

Effort is expended in trialling new technologies which work and provide benefits for learning - there needs to be a process to systematise them.

In summary, there needs to be paradigm shift not only on how educators perform but at policy level. There needs to be gutsy and less risk averse policies regarding firewall barriers and blocking of some online environments.

Implications of continuously emerging technologies for infrastructure and policy makers

Infrastructure is seen as the enabler for collaboration to occur. For collaboration to happen we need to have the ability to move information around from system to system or from application to application. The tension is between allowing this to happen and the associated risks. The lengthy process involved in getting approval is killing innovation by not allowing things to happen locally.

The ideal situation would be to allow people to access and use tools that they want and manage that by providing duty of care and do that in a way that produces acceptable results in terms of time pressures.

Decision-makers are faced with massive issues of content problems at schools and work within a control mechanism.

Tools that are developed to control access to environments are done not only for security purposes but to also provide seamless access to information and services.

For policy makers who have to make decisions, it's an issue of how much is spent on developing tools that provide integration, how much control is put in place and how much you allow teachers and students to view.


E-portfolios are tools of empowerment in that they allow people to access their own information and resources, provide them with the ability to integrate and customise - not dependent on backend support.

e-Learning architectures need agreement on a layer of minimum conditions which are balanced by the functional requirements of the system.

Implications of continuously emerging technologies for professional learning

Professional learning needs to be ongoing and student outcomes must be central.

Some of the suggestions for professional learning included activities where sharing occurs, become an educational technologist and not just skilled in IT, be part of a community of learners, being able to reflect and share, and there is value in observing other classes.

There is tension between the old methods and expectations of stakeholders such as parents.

Time and leadership are important and there is transforming potential in using immersive environments for professional learning. The issue is how to test its usefulness when the technology is not available in many learning environments, such as schools, or only through commercial providers such as Linden Labs. Related to this is the value seeing others' practice in virtual spaces. There is a need for testbeds to trial new technologies and ideas.

In summary, innovative ways need to be explored to deliver professional learning.

Open session

The open session enabled any participant to put forward and lead a discussion on a subject that had not been covered in sufficient detail, or at all, during the Symposium

We are experiencing fast environmental change and people by nature are inherently resistant to change. Leadership is important for change and we need leaders to articulate that in order to get there.

A number of sensible options were presented in terms of teacher training including the government's initiative, Teach for Australia, where high achieving graduates will sign up for two year placement in Australian schools where they will receive support and mentoring from experienced teachers and business leaders.

Discussion on open source included:

• current systems changes do not support open source

• need investment in keeping systems open

• tender procurement processes discourage open source

• acceptance at government level on how open source can be integrated

• risks associated with open source.

The concept of schools without walls was canvassed and it was indicated that there are niche markets for it such as children confined at home or hospitals. Advice was to keep it simple and meet needs not currently met.

For change to happen and to enable an ICT embedded education we need leaders - leaders who lead to be change agents. We also need a cultural change from both bottom up and top down.

Government policy needs to support change and provide funding to enable changes. Overseas examples such as the JISC open education resources reform which sets out how academics produce materials.


Appendix 3: ICT in Learning Symposium Participant List

Notes

Names in red were provocateur session leaders.

The ICT in Learning Symposium was not designed as an event made up of representatives from all education and training stakeholders, but of participants with a strong interest in or responsibility for some aspect of ICT in education from a mix of sectors and jurisdictions.

Participant views were not necessarily those of their organisations. Participants were invited on the basis of their interest in, use of, or responsibility for, some aspect of ICT in education.

Name Surname Organisation Email

Kurt Mullane Asia Education Foundation

[email protected]

Aaron Pont Canberra Institute of Technology

[email protected]

Al Upton DECS [email protected]

Alan Bevan Education.au [email protected]

Alison McAllister Education.au [email protected]

Andrew Thompson DET WA [email protected]

Andrew Williams Education.au [email protected]

Barney Dalgarno Charles Sturt University

[email protected]

Belinda Veigli DEEWR [email protected]

Helen Hepburn DEEWR [email protected]

Bronwyn Stuckey Innovative Educational Ideas

[email protected]

Bryn Jones ICTPD.NET [email protected]

Carolyn Papworth Education.au [email protected]

Caryl Oliver caryloliver.com [email protected]

Cherry Stewart University of New England

[email protected]

Christine Dennis ACU National University

[email protected]

David Cummings Victoria University [email protected]

Deb Kember DETA [email protected]



Delia Browne NSW DET [email protected]

Garry Putland Education.au [email protected]

Geoff Romeo Faculty of Education, Monash University

[email protected]

Greg Black Education.au [email protected]

Helen Galatis Education.au [email protected]

James Dalziel Melcoe [email protected]

Jen Dunbabin Skills Tasmania [email protected]

Jen Millea Education.au [email protected]

Jennifer Newsome CASM Coordinator [email protected]

Jenny Buckman DEEWR [email protected]

Jenny Dodd Canberra Institute of Technology

[email protected]

Jenny Lewis Australian Council for Educational Leaders

[email protected]

Jerry Leeson Education.au [email protected]

Joanna Kay jokay.com.au [email protected]

John Pegg Director of the national Centre for Science, ICT and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia (SiMMER National Centre)

[email protected]

John Travers Education.au [email protected]

John Treloar Adobe Systems [email protected]

Judy Fawcett TAFESA Gilles Plains Campus

[email protected]

Judy O'Connell St Joseph's College [email protected]

Evan Arthur DEEWR [email protected]

Katrina Reynen DEECD [email protected]

Kerry Johnson Education.au [email protected]

Kevin Richardson Immanuel College [email protected]

Margaret Lloyd Queensland University of

[email protected]



Technology

Michael Coghlan TAFE SA [email protected]

Michelle Selinger Cisco [email protected]

Owen ONeill e-Works [email protected]

Peter LeCornu St John Ambulance Australia

[email protected]

Raju Varanasi Centre for Learning Innovation, NSW DET

[email protected]

Robert Fitzgerald University of Canberra

[email protected]

Ruth Wallace Charles Darwin University

[email protected]

Sam Hinton University of Canberra

[email protected]

Julian Ridden Moodle

Sue Beveridge Connected Classrooms Program

[email protected]

Susan Mann Curriculum Corporation

[email protected]

Tomaz Lasic Belmont City College [email protected]

Vivien Smith Hawker Primary School

[email protected]

Dean Groom Macquarie University [email protected]

John Hedberg Macquarie University [email protected]

Frankie Forsyth Pelion Consulting Pty Ltd

[email protected]


Appendix 3: Submissions to the Annual Report on Emerging Technologies

Submissions to the Annual Report on Emerging Technologies

Education.au issued an invitation to peak bodies across the education and training sector to provide written submissions on sector issues and challenges of emerging technologies as they apply to their sector. Sector feedback was sought under the same three themes:

• Theme 1 - the implications of emerging technologies for learning and learners. Responses were sought to the following questions:

o What will learning look like in a student-centred demand driven model? o What will learning environments look like? o What are the implications for curriculum and assessment?

• Theme 2 - the implications of continuously emerging technologies for professional learning and educators. Responses were sought to the following questions:

o What are the appropriate professional learning models? o How can policy makers and educational institutions best support educators to meet

the challenges of new technologies?

• Theme 3 - the implications of continuous emerging technologies for infrastructure including physical infrastructure, standards and guidelines. Responses were sought to the following question:

o How can policy and programs best be developed to provide supporting infrastructure for the education and training community?

Submission responses

Responses to our request for submissions to the Annual Report on Emerging Technologies were received from the following entities (listed in alphabetical order):

• Australian Council for Private Education and Training (ACPET)

• Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL)

• Council of Australian University Directors of Information Technology (CAUDIT)

• Flexible Learning Advisory Group (FLAG)

• Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA)

• National Centre for Vocational Education and Research (NCVER)

Summary of submissions

Key points from the submissions, under the three themes, are listed below:

Theme 1 - Learning and learners

• The new learning environment will be highly customised as the learner is empowered and takes control of their learning. While the role of the educator is evolving from one of being the subject expert to one of being the facilitator that supports the development of critical thinking and provides guidance.


• Learner are sophisticated uses of digital technology within and outside education and training environments and demand a more personalised experience that matches their learning style.

• More stimulating and engaging learning environments will need to be provided

• Learners need a seamless education and training entry and exit points. Learners should have the opportunity to choose a provider who would develop a learning program suited to their needs.

• Teachers will need to spend more time on curriculum design and integrating learning activities and assessment tasks into a more authentic experience for learners

• Assessment will become more authentic and flexible -- assessment to be taken when learner is ready

• Learning spaces design will embrace the new pedagogy of collaborative learning and student interaction

• Industry and employees now demand more than subject expertise - employability skills needed include technological fluency, communication skills using technology, collaboration and teamwork, leadership and creativity.

• New emerging technologies can make training more accessible in geographically isolated communities and create opportunities for interactive and learner driven learning including work-place learning.

• Learning will increasingly take place at the workplace

• Increase in the use of virtual environments for learning (particularly in the VET sector)

• The use of e-portfolio as a means to document recognition of prior learning

• Move away from prescriptive content to flexible curriculum that allows innovative courses design. Curriculum and courses must be based on fit for purpose

Theme 2 - Professional learning

• Learning models that encourage active participation and engagement of learners will be required. These models will integrate learning and assessment and provide opportunities for learning in authentic environments

• Flexibility in assessment with the incorporation of formative and summative assessment -- a learner-centric environment where the learner is in control of their learning

• Increased emphasis on work-based learning, volunteerism and offshore learning for university students. This demand is placing increasing expectations on technological support to provide seamless interface with the students.

• The use of new technologies (communication tools) to facilitate interaction and knowledge exchange has the potential to enhanced learning and research excellence.

• New frameworks and pedagogies have profound implications for the way academics are educated. Academics will need to be flexible and adaptable with ongoing up-skilling in technologies and their use in teaching.

• To face the challenges, academics will need to be provided with ongoing continuous development in ICT and their impact on learning

• Academic developers will need to review theory and practice principles that they espouse and take into account new expectations for effective learning. Just in time access to professional development will be necessary.

• Emphasis on providers to improve their engagement with technology.

• Professional development for providers can help drive a culture of lifelong learning by offering greater flexibility of when, where and how education and training is delivered.


• Proposed initiative could be a repository of e-learning data and good practices.

• Provision of self-assessment tools for trainers and individuals to plot their progress and identify opportunities for further development.

• Build on existing collaboration to bring practitioners together to share practices.

• A range of professional development programs/initiatives have been implement by the VET sector -- the models implemented are congruent with professional practice, that is professional development is undertaken at the workplace.

• Need learning models that assist with the integration of technologies in educators' practices plus keep abreast of new emerging technologies.

• Database of good practices -more information on how others have developed ways of engaging students.

Theme 3 - Infrastructure, standards and guidelines

• Facility usage, design and management need to be guided by their education purpose.

• There would be benefit in developing national principles and guidelines to assist in the planning the necessary infrastructure, learning spaces and methodologies to take education forward.

• Need a national initiative to look at higher education learning infrastructure.

• Cross-sectoral collaboration can assist ICT managers in meeting the demands of emerging technologies.

• CAUDIT has ICT procurement programs with major ICT vendors (hardware, software and services) which are based on templates agreements and simple pricing models.

• Tension between security and access to fundamental e-learning tools - virtual classrooms, social networks.

• There is a need for agreement on protocols that evaluate security risks and balance those against seamless access to effective e-learning.

• OECD data (released 2009) indicates Australia is ranked second to last on broadband speeds.


Appendix 5 Comparison of Horizon reports

The Horizon Project131 and the Horizon Reports are part of the Emerging Technologies Initiative managed by the New Media Consortium in the UK. The Horizon Project is a joint venture between the New Media Consortium (NMC)132 and Educause133. The reports chart emerging technologies that are likely to have a major impact. They are collaboratively developed by largely volunteer participants who are invited to be members of Horizon Project teams. Australia now has its own Horizon Report focusing on the technologies likely to have an impact in Australia134.

As well as identifying year-by-year technologies to watch, the Horizon Project also identifies overarching meta trends.

Meta trends

These are:

• the evolving approaches to communication between humans and machines;

• the collective sharing and generation of knowledge;

• computing in three dimensions;

• connecting people via the network;

• games as pedagogical platforms;

• the shifting of content production to users;

• the evolution of a ubiquitous platform.

The text in the table below is copied directly from the associated Horizon Reports.

NOTE

A specific K-12 Horizon Report was produced in 2009135. The 2009 Australia/New Zealand Horizon Report136 is currently under development.


Technologies

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2009143

1 year Learning Objects

Extended Learning Social Computing User-Created Content Grassroots Video Virtual Worlds & Other Immersive Digital Environments

Mobiles

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)

Ubiquitous Wireless Personal Broadcasting Social Networking Collaboration Webs

Cloud-Based Applications

Cloud Computing

2 -3 Rapid Prototyping

Intelligent Searching The Phones in Their Pockets

Mobile Phones Mobile Broadband Geolocation Geo-Everything

Multimodal Interfaces

Educational Gaming Educational Gaming Virtual Worlds Data Mashups Alternative Input Devices

The Personal Web

4 -5 Context Aware Computing

Social Networks & Knowledge Webs

Augmented Reality and Enhanced Visualisation

The New Scholarship and Emerging Forms of Publication

Collective Intelligence

Deep Tagging Semantic-Aware Applications

Knowledge Webs

Context-Aware Computing/Augmented Reality

Context-Aware Environments and Devices

Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming

Social Operating Systems

Next-Generation Mobile

Smart Objects


Critical Challenges

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critical challenges

The likely impacts of these six trends for teaching and learning are significant and broad-reaching. Even more than their potential for the classroom, each of the trends is influencing the others in ways that continue to unfold. As they do, it is a virtual certainty that new forms of communication, collaboration, and learning will follow.

Information literacy

The skills of critical thinking, research, and evaluation of content, not to mention creative demonstration of mastery or knowledge, are needed more than ever. Techniques for finding and assessing relevant information from the array of resources available both on- and offline are crucial, especially in light of the rising trend toward collaborative work.

Intellectual property concerns and the management of digital rights

The typical approach of experimentally deploying new technologies on campuses does not include processes to quickly scale them up to broad usage when

Assessment of new forms of work continues to present a challenge to educators and peer reviewers. Learning that takes place in interdisciplinary, context-rich environments such as games and simulations is still difficult to evaluate.

Capturing a portfolio of work, when much of that work takes place in new media forms like blogs, podcasts, and videos, poses a problem for learners and for professors seeking tenure.

Shifts taking place in scholarship, research, creative expression, and learning, and a profound need for leadership at the highest levels of the academy that can see the opportunities in

Shifts in scholarship, research, creative expression, and learning have created a need for innovation and leadership at all levels of the academy. This challenge has evolved over the past year and is a crucial one for teaching and learning.

Experimentation must be encouraged and supported by policy; in order for that to happen, scholars, researchers, and teachers must demonstrate its value by taking advantage of opportunities for collaboration and interdisciplinary work.

Demand for mobile content will continue to grow

Emphasis on collaborative learning is pushing the

Protectionism limits access to materials, ideas, and collaborative opportunities. Security concerns too often go too far. Both policies and firewalls are severely limiting access to - and hampering the utility of - the Internet, the use of digital materials, and many benefits of social networking.

Many teachers do not have the skills to make effective use of emerging technologies, much less teach their students to do so. The technical skills of teachers are too often out of step with those of their students

Assessment continues to be a significant barrier to adopting new tools and

Growing need for formal instruction in key new skills, including information literacy, visual literacy, and technological literacy.

Students need to be technologically adept, to be able to collaborate with peers all over the world, to understand basic content and media design, and to understand the relationship between apparent function and underlying code in the applications they use daily.

Schools are still using materials developed decades ago, but today’s students come to school with very different experiences than those of 20 or 30 years ago, and think and work very differently as well.


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they work, and often creates its own obstacles to full deployment.

Clearly support needs are increasing; each new technology comes with its own requirements for support, of course, while the support needs of established technologies also remain. The very pace of the churn, however, is also creating a backlash effect from those who are asked to change the way they work, often just as they are settling into full productivity with the last new tool.

these shifts and carry them forward.

Issues of intellectual property and copyright continue to affect how scholarly work is done.

Intellectual property law presents a number of challenges to institutions of higher education.

Collaborative learning pushing to develop new forms of interaction and assessment.

Growing expectation to deliver services, content and media to mobile and personal devices.

educational community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment (virtual worlds)

Fluency in information, visual, and technological literacy is of vital importance, yet these literacies are not formally taught to most students. We need new and expanded definitions of these literacies that are based

on mastering underlying concepts rather than on specialized skill sets, and we need to develop and establish methods for teaching and evaluating these critical literacies at all levels of education.

approaches

Poor quality broadband limits options at school and at home. Public policy and reliance on telecom companies for infrastructure and broadband services has failed to ensure sufficient resources to support the level of quality broadband penetration needed to remain competitive.

Institutions need to adapt to current student needs and identify new learning models that are engaging to younger generations.

Significant shifts are taking place in the ways scholarship and research are conducted, and there is a need for innovation and leadership at all levels of the academy.

Growing expectation to make use of and to deliver services, content, and media to mobile devices-As new devices continue to make content almost as easy to access and view on a mobile as on a computer, and as ever more engaging applications take advantage of new interface technologies like accelerometers and multi-touch screens, the applications for mobiles continue to grow.


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Relevance to teaching

Learning objects, if designed to support deeper learning, offered considerable potential to increase student ownership of the learning process and could be well suited for learning activities that are social, active, engaging, and contextual.

Potential to individualize learning in ways that have not been possible before

Considerable work is taking place in the design of ontologies, topologies, and metadata approaches to make learning objects easy to catalog and find.

Designing object-oriented learning requires new ways of thinking, methodologies, and technologies, and these changes to the status quo present potential barriers to adoption.

Blogs, wikis, and other asynchronous forums encourage sharing of multiple perspectives in a safe atmosphere. Familiarity with the toolset may lead to increasingly creative approaches to learning on the part of students.

Extended learning models allow faculty to offer courses in more flexible ways. Classroom efficiency is maximized by providing students with access to web-based resources and online learning activities, affording greater learning opportunities

Taking courses at a distance can now have a substantially similar feel to the interactions possible in face-to-face courses.

Potential of folksonomic tools to transform the way we label and find articles, resources, and other materials. Just as tools like Flickr, Facebook, del.icio.us and others have replaced taxonomies and ontologies in social networking contexts

Using tools for creating and tagging content, teachers can foster collaborative work not only among their own students, but with colleagues, students, and community members from around the world. Tools like del.icio.us and Flickr have no classroom boundaries.

Publishing online. Comparing their own work to that of others can give students a valuable perspective

Inter-institutional collaboration has become more common, and these tools support the kinds of work that happens at a distance.

Accessibility to tools which require just a browser.

Issues of file format, operating system compatibility, disk storage space, and versioning, all of which can stand in the way of productive collaborative work at a distance, disappear

As the costs of production and distribution for video have dropped to nearly zero, many of the barriers to using in learning and creative situations have fallen away. Rather than investing in expensive infrastructure, universities are beginning to turn to services like

YouTube and iTunes U to host their video content for them.

Hosting services like YouTube and iTunes U even provide institutional ‘channels’ where content can be collected and branded.

Collaborative tools enable learning to take place anywhere – using free tools

Creative applications for virtual worlds are emerging in dozens of disciplines like literature, the arts, the sciences, mathematics, medicine, and many other areas.

Cloud-based applications is causing a shift in the way we think about software and files. Rather than locking data and applications inside a single computer, we are gradually moving our software and files into the cloud, making them accessible from any computer using tools that are free or very inexpensive. The types used are the ready-made applications, hosted on a dynamic, ever-expanding cloud, that enable end users to perform tasks that otherwise would require a separately installed (and licensed) software package. this set of technologies is clearly an enabling force in

Mobiles are already in use as tools for education on many campuses. New interfaces, the ability to connect to wifi and GPS in addition to a variety of cellular networks, and the availability of third-party applications have created a device with nearly infinite possibilities for education, networking, and personal productivity on the go; almost every student carries a mobile device, making it a natural choice for content delivery

Cloud-based applications is causing a shift in the way we think about how we use software and store our files. The idea of data storage as something that can be separated from an individual computer is not unusual, but now it is becoming common to consider applications in the same light

Educational


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when using server-based shared editing spaces.

the mix, and could distribute applications across a wider set of devices that are browser-enabled and greatly reduce the overall cost of computing.

Geolocation

Researchers can study migrations of animals, birds, and insects or track the spread of epidemics using data from a multitude of personal devices uploaded as geotagged photographs, videos, or other media plotted on readily-available maps

institutions are beginning to take advantage of ready-made applications hosted on a dynamic, ever-expanding cloud that enable end users to perform tasks that have traditionally required site licensing, installation, and maintenance of individual software packages. Email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, collaboration, media editing, and more can all be done inside a web browser, while the software and files are housed in the cloud.

Automatic geolocation opens opportunities for field research and data acquisition in the sciences, social observation studies, medicine and health, cultural studies, and other areas. Researchers can study migrations of animals, birds, and insects or track the spread of epidemics using data from a multitude of personal


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devices uploaded as geotagged photographs, videos, or other media plotted on readily-available maps.

Tools that enable the personal web are also ideal toolsets for research and learning. The ability to tag, categorize, and publish work online, instantly, without the need to understand or even touch the underlying technologies provides a host of opportunities for faculty and students. By organizing online information with tags and web feeds, it is a simple matter to create richly personal resource collections that are easily searchable, annotated, and that support any interest.

Trends Costs are rising, budgets are shrinking, and the demand for new services is growing.

Student enrollments

Growing use of Web 2.0 and social networking combined with collective intelligence and mass amateurization—is gradually but

Worldwide production of over 1 billion mobile phones per year is driving both innovation and adoption of ever more capable portable

Increasing globalization continues to affect the way we work, collaborate, and communicate. Information technologies are


2004144 2005145 2006146 2007147 2008148 2008 Aust/NZ149 2009150

are declining. There is an increasing need for distance education, with pressure coming not only from non-traditional students seeking flexible options, but from administrative directives to cut costs.

Globalization is changing the way we work, collaborate, and communicate.

China, India, and other southeast Asian nations continue to develop skilled researchers and thinkers who contribute significantly to the global body of knowledge and whose work fuels much innovation.

The trends toward digital expressions of scholarship and more interdisciplinary and collaborative work continue to move away from the standards of traditional peer-reviewed paper publication. New forms of peer review are emerging, but existing academic practices of

inexorably changing the practice of scholarship.

The proliferation of tools that enable co-creation, mashups, remixes, and instant self-publication is remaking the traditional model of academic publication and has growing implications for tenure and merit systems.

Access to - and portability of - content

Electronic book readers like the Amazon Kindle and small but powerful web-enabled devices like the Apple iPhone and the LG Electronics Voyager make it possible to carry vast amounts of information in a small package.

The gap between students’ perception of technology and that of faculty continues to widen.

Students and faculty continue to view and experience technology very differently. Students have

devices

Movement away from desktop computers and labs is shifting the locus of control over access to resources from central authorities to users, with a resulting shift in the ways learning spaces are conceptualised and designed.

Influences from the workplace that are impacting how learning is designed and conducted -increased emphasis of the workplace on skills will fuel a greater focus on certifications, portfolios, and other ways that life experiences can be documented.

Tremendous growth in the sorts of free and/or very-low-cost tools available to bring people together in real time, to share assets and resources, and to communicate.

having a significant impact on how people work, play, gain information, and collaborate.

The notion of collective intelligence is redefining how we think about ambiguity and imprecision. Collective intelligence may give rise to multiple answers, all equally correct, to problems. Today’s learners want to be active participants in the learning process – not mere listeners

Today’s learners want to be active participants in the learning process – not mere listeners

Mobile phones are benefiting from unprecedented innovation, driven by global competition.


2004144 2005145 2006146 2007147 2008148 2008 Aust/NZ149 2009150

specialization and long-honored notions of academic status are persistent barriers to the adoption of new approaches

From small, flexible software tools to ubiquitous portable devices and instant access, students today experience technology very differently than faculty do, and the gap between students’ view of technology and that of faculty is growing rapidly

embraced social technologies like Facebook and many similar platforms in unprecedented numbers, yet these technologies remain a mystery to many on campuses.

SICTAS: Planning for change Education.au 66

Appendix 6: Decision Making Matrix

In 2005 Education.au wrote a report for Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Department of Education and Training. In the report Education.au developed a high level decision-making matrix for issues that needed to be taken into account when considering the implementation of new technologies. Although focused on the needs of the school education sector the questions, with some modification, are relevant to VET and higher education sectors as the focus is on the outcomes, implementation, and the people issues, rather than on the technologies. That is, technologies will continue to emerge: addressing the outcomes, people issues and the implications can help assure that the investment in ICT is realised in better learning outcomes, retention and completion rates, social inclusion, innovative practice and enhanced productivity.

Teaching and Learning outcomes

• Is the technology likely to support and improve teaching and learning outcomes?

• Does it provide students with the digital literacies required to live and work in contemporary society?

• Does the technology enable existing pedagogical models to be utilised?

• Does it require new thinking about teaching and learning in order to fully utilise its potential?

• Teacher Acceptance

• Will teachers accept and use this technology?

• What will be the requirements for, and impact on, teacher training and professional development?

• How will teachers be introduced to and given on-going professional development so as to maximize the effectiveness of this technology in the curriculum?

• What kind and levels of technical support will be provided for this technology?

• Will teachers be required to have their own device associated with this technology? If so, what part of the cost will they need to bear?

Student Acceptance and Parental Support

• Will students find this technology relevant to their lives and their learning?

• Does the use of this technology utilise existing skills, support skill development, and enhance skills?

• Is using this technology part of their required digital literacy in a knowledge economy?

• Are parents willing and able to support the use of this technology – both financially, if necessary, but also by providing encouragement and support to their children?

Leadership in use and take-up

• Will this technology be supported by principals and other educational leaders?

• Will principals and others lead by example, utilising this technology in their daily practice?

• Will staff champions of this technology be recognised and supported, and provided with the opportunity to demonstrate its best practice use to colleagues?

Relevant, Available and Cost effective Content

• Is there content already available that can be used with this technology?

• If not, can the technology be effectively implemented for teaching and learning purposes?

• Will content have to be specifically created?


Sustainability, Resourcing, Risk, Extensibility

• If we invest in this technology, is the financial investment sustainable in the long term?

• What are the resource implications for infrastructure, training, maintenance and enhancement?

• As the sector grows, can the technology grow and extend to meet new requirements?

Interoperability and Integration

• Is this technology interoperable with current technology in place – that is, is it backwards compatible?

• Can it be integrated with existing systems?

• Will it interoperate with other systems?

• Is it standards compliant to enable content and data sharing?

• Is there a need for a middleware layer between it and other applications, platforms or systems?

Applicability

• Does this technology apply right across the school and college, or is it more relevant to some sectors than others?

There is clearly a need for organisations to be able to access guides, checklists, methodologies, case studies and exemplars to inform decision-making, support good practice, and enable benchmarking and reduce duplication of activity: that is, a network sharing professional knowledge.151


Appendix 7: Shifts in the philosophical, theoretical and professional dimensions of learning

Jan Herrington and Anthony Herrington from the University of Wollongong152 (see Table 1) have described the shifts occurring in the dimensions of learning as we move towards collaborative learning.

Table 1: Shifts in dimensions of learning

Dimension Moving from Moving to

Philosophy Instructivist Constructivist

Theory Behaviourist, cognitivist Situated, socio-constructivist, andragogical

Course design Bounded scope and sequence Open-ended learning environment, flexible content

Time and place Fixed in educational institutions Distributed, to suit the contexts of the learners

Knowledge base ‘Objective’ knowledge largely determined by experts

Knowledge built and shared among the community

Tasks Decontextualised, concise, self contained

Authentic, reflective, complex and sustained

Resources Fixed, chosen by teacher Open, chosen by learners with access to search tools

Support Teacher Community of learners

Mode Individual, competitive Collaborative, networked

Technology tools Fixed, located in learning space Mobile, portable, ubiquitous, available

Knowledge outcomes

Facts, skills, information Conceptual understanding, higher order learning

Products Academic essays, exercises, or no tangible product

Authentic artifacts and digital products

Assessment Standardised tests, examinations Performance-based, integrated and authentic assessment

Transfer of knowledge

Stable knowledge adapted to different contexts

New and changing knowledge acquired when required


Courses, group events, workshops Personal, just-in-time, community based


Implications of the shifts for teaching and learning

Moving towards collaborative learning has implications for teaching and learning. For this the investigation below develops the Herrington and Herrington table further and identifies these implications.

Table 2: Implications of shifts for teaching and learning

Dimension Moving to Implications for collaboration in teaching and learning

Philosophy Constructivist Collaborative learning within and between learning organisations, teachers as guides and facilitators, changes in role of teachers, changes in skills mix needed for teachers

Theory Situated, socio-constructivist, andragogical

Real life examples, simulations, role plays, real contexts, immersive learning, games, virtual worlds needed to provide relevant and authentic learning experiences

Course design Open-ended learning environment, flexible content


Time and place Distributed, to suit the contexts of the learners


Knowledge base Knowledge built and shared among the community

Skills in community building and maintenance, e-moderation and facilitation required for teachers and leaders. Trust, identity, privacy, knowledge management, are challenges.

Tasks Authentic, reflective, complex and sustained

Tension between standardised curricula, testing, benchmarking and grading, and a co-developed, flexible curricula and set of tasks and experiences that respond to learner needs and interests.

Resources Open, chosen by learners with access to search tools

Tension between provision of the ‘right’ resources that are pre-selected by the teacher or learning organisation, and resources from a variety of sources possibly restricted by filtering and blacklists. Requires the development of information literacy, critical thinking, and good judgement by students to assess the appropriateness of the resources.



Support Community of learners Requires a reworking of the role of ‘teacher’ and the development of responsibility for learning in students. Requires a shift from transmission model to a collaborative learning model.

Mode Collaborative, networked Requires a shift in thinking about grades and results and a shift in focus from performance to process. That is, students need to show that they know how to learn and apply that learning and to negotiate within their communities of learners.

Technology tools Mobile, portable, ubiquitous, available

Requires change from the computer room model to a model where connected devices are part of the normal teaching and learning environment: used or not used as appropriate to the learning experience.

Knowledge outcomes Conceptual understanding, higher order learning


Products Authentic artifacts and digital products

Requires new ways of thinking about assessment tasks that are relevant to what it is that students need to learn, know and understand – could include immersive environments, role plays and simulations. May need the development of shareable resources, methods of sharing and reusing, tagging (metadata) of resources, trust federations for sharing.

Assessment Performance-based, integrated and authentic assessment

May be tensions between standardised testing and benchmarking, and assessing collaborative learning achievements by diverse cohorts of students.

Transfer of knowledge New and changing knowledge acquired when required

Requires a shift in the understanding of learning and the purpose of education. That is, part of the process of understanding learning will need to be the understanding that learning is lifelong and skills and knowledge will need to be updated and refreshed in response to a relentlessly changing environment.



Professional learning Personal, just-in-time, community based

Shift from formal ‘time away’ learning to in-house, just-in-time learning for professional learning. This will require different models and modes of professional development, tailored to individual needs, as well as both formal and informal support for communities of practice both f2f and online.


Appendix 8: The change makers

This set of tables below is based on the Herrington and Herrington table of elements expressing the changes the shift to collaborative learning will bring to the philosophical, theoretical and professional dimensions of learning. The original Herrington and Herrington table and the CTL report extension to that table are both at Appendix 7.

Philosophy and theory

Change maker Impact

Philosophy and theory While current technology tools (such as so-called Web 2.0 applications) support and enhance collaborative learning - which is underpinned by a range of theoretical models - it is likely that emerging technologies and other issues of the future will require shifts, changes and modifications to the theory underpinning learning.

Actions



Course design

Change maker Impact

Course design: open ended learning environment, flexible content


Actions

• Promote and encourage the use of standards to ensure that educational content is reusable and sharable

• Establish a national incentive system for individuals and institutions154 for development, sharing and peer reviewing of teaching and learning resources.155









Time and place

Change maker Impact

Time and place: distributed to suit contexts of the learners


Actions





Knowledge base

Change maker Impact

Knowledge base: knowledge built and shared amongst the community

Skill in community building and maintenance, e-moderation and facilitation required for teachers and leaders. Trust, identity, privacy, knowledge management are challenges.

Actions







• Regularly review and modify assessment regimes to:

o align with the 21st century curriculum165

o be reflective of the new media literacy skills and abilities required of learners166

o consider emerging technologies and their implications for teaching and learning



Tasks

Change maker Impact

Tasks: authentic, reflective, complex and sustained

Tension between standardised curricula, testing, benchmarking and grading and a co-developed, flexible curricula and set of tasks and experiences that respond to learner needs and interests

Actions












Pedagogy and curriculum



Resources

Change maker Impact

Resources: Open, chosen by learners with access to search tools

Tension between the provision of the 'right' resources that are preselected by the teacher or learning organisation and resources from a variety of places possibly restricted by filtering and blacklists. Requires the development of information literacy, critical thinking, and good judgement by learners to assess to appropriateness of the resources.

Actions














Support

Change maker Impact

Support: community of learners

Requires a reworking of the role of 'teacher' and the development of responsibility for learning in students. Requires a shift from the transmission model to a collaborative learning model.

Actions
















Mode

Change maker Impact

Mode: collaborative, networked

Requires a shift in thinking about grades and results and a shift in focus from performance to process. That is, students need to show that they know how to learn and apply that learning and to negotiate within their community of learners. These new skills are about critical evaluation, search skills and teaming skills.

Actions
















Technology tools

Change maker Impact

Technology tools192

Requires a change from the computer room model to a mode where connected devices are part of the normal teaching and learning environment: used or not used as appropriate to the learning experience.

Actions




• Systems are supported by policies and processes:

o New and emerging tools and technologies are trialled and prototyped

o Processes for mainstreaming and upscaling successful prototypes and proofs of concept are in place

o Processes and policies for mainstreaming technologies are developed in a way that is tool- and technology-independent









Knowledge outcomes

Change maker Impact

Knowledge outcomes: Conceptual understanding, higher order thinking


Actions














Products

Change maker Impact

Products: authentic artefacts and digital products

Requires new ways of thinking about assessment tasks that are relevant to what it is that students need to learn, know and understand - could include immersive environments, role plays and simulations. May need the development of shareable resources, methods of sharing and reusing, tagging (metadata) of resources, trust federations for sharing.

Actions




















• Processes and policies for mainstreaming technologies are developed in a way that is tool- and technology-independent














Assessment

Change maker Impact

Assessment: performance based integrated and authentic assessment

There is tension between standardised testing and benchmarking, and assessing collaborative learning achievements by diverse cohorts of students. Also new skills that are processed base are not tested, for example team building, research skills.

Actions
















Transfer of knowledge

Change maker Impact

Transfer of knowledge: new and changing knowledge acquired when required

Requires a shift in understanding of learning and the purpose of education. That is, part of the process of understanding learning will need to be the understanding that learning is lifelong and skills and knowledge will need to be updated and refreshed in response to a relentlessly changing environment

Actions





















Processes and policies for mainstreaming technologies are developed in a way that is tool- and technology-independent
















Change maker Impact

Personal, just-in-time, community based

Shift from formal 'time away' learning to in-house, just-in-time learning for professional learning. This will require different models and modes of professional development, tailored to individual models and modes of professional development, tailored to individual needs, as well as both formal and informal support for communities of practice both f2f and online.

Actions














o Processes and policies for mainstreaming technologies are developed in a way that is tool- and technology-independent

• Provide mechanisms for knowledge exchange across the education sectors and between educational organisations on applications and uses of ICT for teaching and learning. (eg good


practice exemplars, conference exchanges supported by technology to enable information capture, facilitated and informal professional learning networks).






• Resource and develop an ongoing formal research program to perpetually interrogate the use of ICT for teaching and learning


Endnotes

1 Education.au, 2005, Emerging Technologies: A framework for thinking, ACT, ACT Department of Education and Training 22 Consortium of School Networking Emerging Technologies Committee, 2004, Hot Technologies for K-12 Schools: the 2005 guide for technology decision makers, Washington DC: Consortium of School Networking. 3 New Media Consortium, Horizon Project, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/horizon Accessed 29 May 2009 4 New Media Consortium, Horizon Report, 2009, Reference: http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/chapters/the-horizon-project/ Accessed 23 March 2009 5 New Media Consortium, Horizon Report, 2009, Reference: http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/chapters/the-horizon-project/ Accessed 23 March 2009 6 The SICTAS Collaboration in Teaching and Learning report’s Appendix 2 describes and provides examples of emerging technologies currently gaining traction in education and training – see http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl.The report prepared by Education.au for the ACT Department of Education: Emerging Technologies: a framework for thinking also describes a range of technologies and provides examples of how they are being used in education – see http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/82272/20080312-1246/www.det.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/17830/emergingtechnologies.pdf. 7 The desktop research is exemplified in the materials listed in the bibliographies of the companion SICTAS reports. 8 These materials can be accessed through the edna groups established to support SICTAS. Reference: http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=2009 Accessed 16 June 2009 9 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), Digital Education Revolution, Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/Pages/default.aspx Accessed 2 June 2009 10 Ministerial Council on Education, Employment and Youth Affairs, 2008, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, Reference: http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf Accessed 2 June 2009 11 MCEETYA, 2008, MCEETYA Joint Ministerial Statement on Information and Communications Technologies for Education and Training: 2008-2011, Reference: http://www.aictec.edu.au/aictec/go/home/about/pid/95 Accessed 6 June 2009 12 National Curriculum Board, Reference: http://www.ncb.org.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 13 Australian Government Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, National Broadband Network: 21st century broadband, Reference: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications/national_broadband_network Accessed 2 June 2009 14 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Vocational Education Broadband Network, Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Skills/VEN/Pages/VocationalEducationBroadbandNetwork.aspx Accessed 2 June 2009 15 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Review of Australian Higher Education, Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Review/Pages/ReviewofAustralianHigherEducationReport.aspx Accessed 2 June 2009 16 Cutler and Company, 2008, Venturous Australia, Reference: http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Documents/NIS_review_Web3.pdf Accessed 2 June 2009 17 edna (Education Network Australia), Reference: http://www.edna.edu.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009


18 The Le@rning Federation, Reference: http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009 19 Australian Flexible Learning Framework, Reference: http://flexiblelearning.net.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009 20 These were identified by participants in the ICT in Learning Symposium. This material is from the Communiqué from that event. 21 Herrington, J and Herrington, A, 2007, WA, Authentic Mobile Learning in Higher Education, The Australian Association for Research in Education, AARE 2007 International Educational Research Conference - Freemantle Abstracts of Papers and Presented Papers, Reference: http://www.aare.edu.au/07pap/her07131.pdf Accessed 10 October 2008 22 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), Digital Education Revolution, Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/Pages/default.aspx Accessed 2 June 2009 23 Ministerial Council on Education, Employment and Youth Affairs, 2008, Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians, Reference: http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf Accessed 2 June 2009 24 MCEETYA, 2008, MCEETYA Joint Ministerial Statement on Information and Communications Technologies for Education and Training: 2008-2011, Reference: http://www.aictec.edu.au/aictec/go/home/about/pid/95 Accessed 6 June 2009 25 National Curriculum Board, Reference: http://www.ncb.org.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 26 Australian Government Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, National Broadband Network: 21st century broadband, Reference: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/communications/national_broadband_network Accessed 2 June 2009 27 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Vocational Education Broadband Network, Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Skills/VEN/Pages/VocationalEducationBroadbandNetwork.aspx Accessed 2 June 2009 28 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Review of Australian Higher Education, Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Review/Pages/ReviewofAustralianHigherEducationReport.aspx Accessed 2 June 2009 29 Cutler and Company, 2008, Venturous Australia, Reference: http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Documents/NIS_review_Web3.pdf Accessed 2 June 2009 30 edna (Education Network Australia), Reference: http://www.edna.edu.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009 31 The Le@rning Federation, Reference: http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009 32 Australian Flexible Learning Framework, Reference: http://flexiblelearning.net.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009 33 For example, Becta funds a range of research, some undertaken internally and some undertaken by research partners. 34 National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Reference: http://www.ncver.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 35 Australian Council for Education Research, Reference: http://www.acer.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 36 An example of this for illustrative purposes is the COLIS project – Collaborative Online Learning and Information Services, Reference: http://www.colis.mq.edu.au/about.htm Accessed 2 June 2009. Other examples are some of the projects funded through MERRI and FRODO. 37 Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Digital Education Revolution, Professional Development for Teachers, Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/Pages/ProfessionalDevelopmentforTeachers.aspx Accessed 6 June 2009


38 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl, p. 7, Accessed 2 June 2009 39 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl, p. 9, Accessed 2 June 2009 40 Becta, Reference: http://www.becta.org.uk/ Accessed 6 June 2009 41 Becta, Strategic Advice, Reference: http://partners.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=sa Accessed 15 June 2009 42Becta, Managed Research, ‘The evidence teams in Becta's Strategy and Policy directorate lead, co-ordinate and analyse evidence and data on all aspects of technology in education. We work with the research community to:

measure the impact of technology on stakeholders

assess progress in adoption and use

build evidence on the realisation of benefits

provide analysis to support policy

provide research and analysis to support future policy direction

Reference: http://partners.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=rh&catcode=_re_mr_02 Accessed 16 June 2009 43 These issues were covered in the SICTAS Web 2.0 and Site Blocking in Schools Report. Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/papers/SICTAS-nsi.pdf Accessed 2 June 2009 44 AARNET, Reference: http://www.aarnet.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 45 Futurelab, Reference: http://www.futurelab.org.uk/about-us Accessed 16 June 2009 46 National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Reference: http://www.ncver.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 47 Australian Council for Education Research, Reference: http://www.acer.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 48 DETYA (now DEEWR) developed a prototype ICT Research clearinghouse for school education in 1998/99 which was incorporated into the edna project and is still maintained there. This could be extended and enhanced using the edna project as the aggregator for this ICT Research content. Reference: http://ictresearch.edna.edu.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009 49 An example of this for illustrative purposes is the COLIS project – Collaborative Online Learning and Information Services, Reference: http://www.colis.mq.edu.au/about.htm Accessed 2 June 2009. Other examples are some of the projects funded through MERRI and FRODO. 50 The Education Tax Refund for school education goes some way towards this, however the amount of the refund does not reflect the costs of investments in ICTs – eg maximum of $750 for a secondary school student. Reference: http://www.educationtaxrefund.gov.au/home/ Accessed 6 June 2009 51 Australian Access Federation, Reference: http://www.aaf.edu.au/ Accessed 16 June 2009 52 Australian Access Federation and Open ID are discussed in the SICTAS Collaboration in Teaching and Learning Report pp36-38 Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl and the AAF website is at http://www.aaf.edu.au/. More on Open ID can be found at http://openid.net/. Accessed 2 June 2009 53 Cloud computing is a model of computing where ‘the data or software applications are not stored on the user’s computer, but rather are accessed through the web from any device at any location a person can get web access’. Definition from Pew Internet and American Life Project 2008, Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services, Reference: http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Cloud.Memo.pdf Accessed 24 November 2008. 54 Millea, J, Smith, K, Hendrick, G, Galatis, H, 2009, Heading into the Cloud, Education Technology Solutions (in press). 55 edna: Education Network Australia, http://www.edna.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009


56 Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Exchange, http://www.altcexchange.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 57 Learning Object Repository Network (LORN), Reference: http://lorn.flexiblelearning.net.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 58 Scootle is a web service that provides access to TLF learning objects. Reference: http://www.scootle.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 59 As part of the ALTC Exchange project ascilite undertook research into peer review models for teaching and learning resources. Lefoe, G, Philip, R, O’Reilly M and Parrish, D, Sharing quality resources for teaching and learning: A peer review model for the ALTC Exchange in Australia, Australasian Journal of Educational Techology, 2009, 25(1), 45-59, Reference: http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet25/lefoe.pdf Accessed 6 June 2009 60 Hayman, S, 2007, Folksonomies and Tagging: New developments in social bookmarking, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/papers/arkhayman.pdf Accessed 16 June 2009 61 Copyright Law Review Committee, 1999, Simplification of the Copyright Act 1968, Reference: http://www.clrc.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/Copyright_CopyrightLawReviewCommittee_CLRCReports_SimplificationoftheCopyrightAct1968, Accessed 6 June 2009 62 Creative Commons Australia, Reference: http://www.creativecommons.org.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 63 ccLearn is a ‘division of Creative Commons dedicated to realising the full potential of the internet to support open learning and open educational resources. Our mission is to minimize legal, technical and social barriers to sharing and reuse of educational materials’. Reference: http://learn.creativecommons.org/ Accessed 6 June 2009 64 Mason, J, Macnamara, D, Millea, J, Rights Management and the Carrick Institute Exchange Final Report 2007, Education.au (unpublished) 65 AICTEC, Intellectual Property and Privacy Advisory Group, Reference: http://www.aictec.edu.au/aictec/go/home/about/cache/offonce/pid/255 Accessed 2 June 2009 66 Creative Commons Australia, Creative Commons Licences, Reference: http://creativecommons.org.au/licences Accessed 6 June 2009 67 Government Information Licensing Framework, Reference: http://www.gilf.gov.au/ Accessed 12 June 2009 68 Cutler and Company, 2008, Venturous Australia, Reference: http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Documents/NIS_review_Web3.pdf p7 - ironically while Cutler and Company retain full copyright in the report: ‘Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and the license given to the Australian Government, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from Cutler & Company Pty Ltd. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction rights should be addressed to Dr Cutler, Cutler & Company Ltd, 7 Leverson Street, North Melbourne, Vic 3051.’. 69 ALTC Exchange, Reference: http://www.altcexchange.edu.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009 70 For example, in the very first line of the University of Melbourne’s IP policy it states ‘members of academic staff own the intellectual property they create, subject to one exception and certain compliance conditions’ (that one exception involving significant follow-on text that highlights contexts where third parties are involved); at Central Queensland University the key word within its IP policy is ‘balance’ between the interests of the institution and the academic; and at Edith Cowan, the ‘University claims ownership of the IP created by staff in the course of their duties’. While IPR policies vary in substance and detail across institutions it is largely the case that the context of employment is the most significant indicator in determining IP ownership. For example, it is clear that students also create IP during their studies and their ‘ownership’ of this IP is typically seen as residing with them, because they are not employed by the university concerned.

71 Dataset Acquisition, Accessibility and Annotation e-research Technologies (DART). ‘The DART project is an ambitious proof-of-concept project to develop tools to support the new collaborative research infrastructure of the future. The project aims to enable researchers and reviewers to access original and analysed data, collaborate around the creation of research outputs, stored publications, plus add content, annotations and notes. It will also look at the collection of large datasets, including the remote control and automated data collection.’ Reference: http://dart.edu.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009


72 Mason, J, Macnamara, D and Millea, J, 2007, Rights Management and the Carrick Institute Exchange Final Report, Education.au, unpublished. 73 AICTEC, 2008, AICTEC Intellectual Property and Privacy in Technology Advisory Group (IPPTAG): Activity Statement, Reference: 43rd Meeting, Tuesday 28th October 2008, Agenda Item 3.6. 74 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Request for Proposal for Education Copyright Matrix of Open Access Licences (ECM). This project was won by Education.au. Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/Documents/request_for_proposal1.pdf Accessed 2 June 2009 75 Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Request for Proposal for Education Copyright Matrix of Open Access Licences (ECM). This project was won by Education.au. Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/Documents/request_for_proposal1.pdf Accessed 2 June 2009 76 Second Life, Reference: http://www.secondlife.com, Accessed 2 June 2009 77 Browne, D 2009, ICT in Learning Symposium, Reference: http://symposiumsictas.wikispaces.com/file/view/ICT+in+Learning+Symposium.ppt Accessed 2 June 2009 78 Copyright Agency Limited, Reference: http://www.copyright.com.au/ Accessed 2 June 2009 79 Browne, D 2009, ICT in Learning Symposium, Reference: http://symposiumsictas.wikispaces.com/file/view/ICT+in+Learning+Symposium.ppt Accessed 2 June 2009 80 The AEShareNet licensing system is a collaborative system designed to streamline the licensing of intellectual property so that Australian learning materials are developed, shared and adapted efficiently. Reference: http://www.aesharenet.com.au/aesharenet/ Accessed 2 June 2009 81 This recommendation is supported by the IPPTAG work plan: ‘A project to work with the Teaching for the Digital Age Advisory Group to research and then report to AICTEC on options to improve information accountability education at the teacher and student level.’ 82 The Open CourseWare Consortium is an international group of institutions who make courseware available free and online. Reference: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ Accessed 18 May 2009 83 Cape Town Open Education Declaration, Reference: http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/related-initiatives Accessed 2 June 2009 84 Copyright Act 1968, Reference: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca1968133/ Accessed 13 June 2009 85 A wealth of this kind of information is already available but is frequently posted on individual blogs, separate jurisdictional or project-specific websites, or social networking services. Bringing this material together through RSS, lifestreaming and other forms of aggregation could support the development of powerful professional networks around this information. 86 Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Digital Education Revolution, Professional Development for Teachers, Reference: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Schooling/DigitalEducationRevolution/Pages/ProfessionalDevelopmentforTeachers.aspx Accessed 6 June 2009 87 The Framework previously supported the Flexible Learning Leaders project to ‘to enhance the capacity of a number of VET professionals to lead the implementation of flexible learning in their own organisations, in their state or territory and/or nationally’ however that has been discontinued. Reference: http://pre2005.flexiblelearning.net.au/projects/leaders.htm Professional learning through the Framework is now funded from within projects that are funded through the states. Each state has at least one e-learning co-ordinator and a Toolbox Champion funded under the Framework who are there to help people with e-learning – their role is to link people into local initiatives as well as support people in using Framework products and services.


88 For example http://www.altc.edu.au/node/6548 - a workshop being provided as part of an ALTC teaching fellowship and http://www.altc.edu.au/node/6572 as an outcome of a project. 89 For example, the Chalmers, D, 2008, ALTC-funded Indicators of University Teaching and Learning Quality project, the roles of the Australian University Quality Agency, and the proposed Tertiary Education and Standards Agency (TEQSA). 90 Ewan, C, 2009, Learning and Teaching in Australian Universities: a thematic analysis of Cycle 1 AUQA audits, AUQA and ALTC, pp 3-4, Reference: http://www.auqa.edu.au/files/publications/auqa%20report%20.pdf Accessed 6 June 2009 91 Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2008, Review of Australian Higher Education Final Report, http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Review/Documents/PDF/Higher%20Education%20Review_one%20document_02.pdf Accessed 6 June 2009 92 These were identified by participants in the ICT in Learning Symposium. This material is from the Communiqué from that event. 93 Many definitions of ‘emerging technologies’ rely on providing examples of what an emerging technology is. This is useful for clarity, but is not a definition that stands the test of time. In this report we are specifically interested in emerging technologies relevant to education and training purposes. 94 Education.au, 2005, Emerging Technologies: A framework for thinking, ACT, ACT Department of Education and Training 9595 Consortium of School Networking Emerging Technologies Committee, 2004, Hot Technologies for K-12 Schools: the 2005 guide for technology decision makers, Washington DC: Consortium of School Networking. 96 New Media Consortium, Horizon Project, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/horizon Accessed 29 May 2009 97 New Media Consortium, Horizon Report, 2009, Reference: http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/chapters/the-horizon-project/ Accessed 23 March 2009 98 New Media Consortium, Horizon Report, 2009, Reference: http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/chapters/the-horizon-project/ Accessed 23 March 2009 99 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Colllaboration in Teaching and Learning, Appendix 2, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl Accessed 6 June 2009 100 Hendrick, G, 2009, Web 2.0 site blocking in schools, p. 2, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/webdav/site/myjahiasite/shared/papers/SICTAS-nsi.pdf Accessed 29 May 2009 101 Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, 2008, ACT, Review of the National Innovation System, Venturous Australia, Recommendation 5.1 point 3, Australian Government, Reference: http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Documents/NIS_summary_web3.pdf Accessed 22 November 2008 102 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 103 Although the National Curriculum currently refers to a subset of subjects in the school education sector, it could also apply to the VET sector (for example an extension of the Training Packages concept) and to the higher education sector where for many subjects key content would be the same. 104 Hendrick, G, 2009, Web 2.0 Site blocking in Schools, Education.au, page 4, Reference http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/pid/695 Accessed 5 May 2009 105 Hendrick, G and Williams, A, 2009, Towards a National Software Infrastructure, Education.au (unpublished). 106 Baudrillard, J, 2002, Between difference and singularity: An open discussion with Jean Baudrillard, Reference: http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-between-difference-and-singularity-2002.html 107 Siemens, G, and Tittenberger, P, 2009, Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning, Reference: http://www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/cetl/HETL.pdf Accessed 13 June 2009


108 Herrington, J and Herrington, A, 2007, WA, Authentic Mobile Learning in Higher Education, The Australian Association for Research in Education, AARE 2007 International Educational Research Conference - Freemantle Abstracts of Papers and Presented Papers, Reference: http://www.aare.edu.au/07pap/her07131.pdf Accessed 10 October 2008 109 Australian Flexible Learning Framework, Reference: http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/ Accessed 6 June 2009 110 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 111 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 112 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 113 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 114 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 115 In the CTL report Education.au recommended an ICT Continuum be aligned with stages of learning at a national level and build upon the work of the states/territories as part of the implementation of the national curriculum. In this report we suggest extending the continuum so that learners build their ICT skills and abilities coherently as they progress from school education to TAFE and/or higher education. 116 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 117 Trust federations and OpenID are discussed in the CTL report (p 36). 118 The term ‘Access devices’ refers to devices that may be used to access the internet including, but not limited to, desktop computers, laptop computers, netbooks, PDAs, mobile phones, interactive whiteboards. 119 The SICTAS report: Web 2.0 Site Blocking in Schools, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/SICTAS/pid/695 120 Cloud computing and its usage in the education sector is discussed in the CTL report p. 79. 121 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 122 The Open CourseWare Consortium is an international group of institutions who make courseware available free and online. Reference: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ Accessed 18 May 2009 123 The VET and higher education sectors have both used immersive learning environments for particular projects, or for particular units of work. For example, in the VET sector, CIT has completed the Eduversal project (http://eduversal-studios.wikispaces.com/) using Open Croquet as its virtual world tool. In the higher education sector, the ALTC has funded projects such as Enrole (http://www.uow.edu.au/cedir/enrole/) which is aimed at supporting teachers who wish to use role plays in their teaching and providing successful role play templates for reuse. 124 Work is being done by The Learning Federation to look at ways of making resources of educational value available to the school education sector. The reuse of digital resources from the cultural institutions provides a way of building on initiatives and projects in the cultural sector to make these resources available, and adds value to the education experience of Australian learners - whether in formal or informal learning situations. 125 Creative Commons Australia, Reference: http://creativecommons.org.au/ Accessed 18 May 2009


126 Technology tools could refer to any kind of technology or tool as described the Collaboration in Teaching and Learning report, or in the Horizon Reports. 127 The Horizon Project is a joint project of the UK-based New Media Consortium and Educause focused around emerging technologies that may impact on education and creative expression. Reference: http://www.nmc.org/horizon 128 Pew Internet and American Life Project, Reference: http://www.pewinternet.org/ Accessed 22 May 2009 129 Becta is the United Kingdom’s government agency leading the national drive to ensure the effective and innovative use of technology throughout learning. Reference: http://www.becta.org.uk/ 130 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 131 New Media Consortium, The Horizon Project, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/horizon Accessed 24 November 2008 132 New Media Consortium, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/ Accessed 25 November 2008 133 Educause, Reference: http://www.educause.edu/ Accessed 6 June 2009 134 New Media Consortium, 2008, Horizon Report Australia-New Zealand Edition 2008, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report-ANZ.pdf Accessed 8 December 2008 135 New Media Consortium, 2009, Horizon Report 2009 K-12 Edition, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/publications/2009-horizon-k12-report Accessed 29 May 2009 136 New Media Consortium, Horizon.au, Reference: http://horizon.nmc.org/australia/Main_Page Accessed 29 May 2009 137 New Media Consortium, Horizon Report, 2004, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2004_Horizon_Report.pdf. Accessed 25 May 2009 138 New Media Consortium, Horizon Report, 2005, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2005_Horizon_Report.pdf Accessed 25 May 2009 139 New Media Consortium, 2006, Horizon Report, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2006_Horizon_Report.pdf Accessed 29 May 2009 140 New Media Consortium, 2007, Horizon Report, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf Accessed 29 May 2009 141 New Media Consortium, 2008, Horizon Report, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf Accessed 29 May 2009 142 New Media Consortium, 2008, Horizon Report Australia and New Zealand, Reference: http://horizon.nmc.org/australia/Main_Page Accessed 29 May 2009 143 New Media Consortium, 2009, Horizon Report, Reference: http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/ Accessed 29 May 2009 144 New Media Consortium, Horizon Report, 2004, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2004_Horizon_Report.pdf. Accessed 25 May 2009 145 New Media Consortium, Horizon Report, 2005, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2005_Horizon_Report.pdf Accessed 25 May 2009 146 New Media Consortium, 2006, Horizon Report, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2006_Horizon_Report.pdf Accessed 29 May 2009 147 New Media Consortium, 2007, Horizon Report, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf Accessed 29 May 2009 148 New Media Consortium, 2008, Horizon Report, Reference: http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2008-Horizon-Report.pdf Accessed 29 May 2009 149 New Media Consortium, 2008, Horizon Report Australia and New Zealand, Reference: http://horizon.nmc.org/australia/Main_Page Accessed 29 May 2009


150 New Media Consortium, 2009, Horizon Report, Reference: http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/ Accessed 29 May 2009 151 This Appendix is from the Collaboration in Teaching and Learning report published in 2009 by Education.au's Strategic ICT Advisory Service for the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/pid/693 Accessed 24 March 2009 152 Herrington, J and Herrington, A, 2007, WA, Authentic Mobile Learning in Higher Education, The Australian Association for Research in Education, AARE 2007 International Educational Research Conference – Fremantle Abstracts of Papers and Presented Papers, Reference: http://www.aare.edu.au/07pap/her07131.pdf Accessed 10 October 2008 153 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 154 Becta has an ICT Mark scheme: ‘a national accreditation scheme which gives schools recognition for their achievements in using technology to deliver excellent learning. Over 1,000 schools in the UK have achieved the ICT Mark and thousands more are working towards it.’ Reference: http://www.nextgenerationlearning.org.uk/ICT-Mark-Schools/ICT-mark/ Accessed 6 June 2009 155 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 156 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 157 The Open CourseWare Consortium is an international group of institutions who make courseware available free and online. Reference: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ Accessed 18 May 2009 158 The VET and higher education sectors have both used immersive learning environments for particular projects, or for particular units of work. For example, in the VET sector, CIT has completed the Eduversal project (http://eduversal-studios.wikispaces.com/) using Open Croquet as its virtual world tool. In the higher education sector, the ALTC has funded projects such as Enrole (http://www.uow.edu.au/cedir/enrole/) which is aimed at supporting teachers who wish to use role plays in their teaching and providing successful role play templates for reuse. 159 Work is being done by The Learning Federation to look at ways of making resources of educational value available to the school education sector. The reuse of digital resources from the cultural institutions provides a way of building on initiatives and projects in the cultural sector to make these resources available, and adds value to the education experience of Australian learners - whether in formal or informal learning situations. 160 Creative Commons Australia, Reference: http://creativecommons.org.au/ Accessed 18 May 2009 161 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 162 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 163 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 164 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 165 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 166 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009


167 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 168 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 169 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 170 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 171 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 172 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 173 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 174 The SICTAS report: Web 2.0 Site Blocking in Schools, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/SICTAS/pid/695 175 Cloud computing and its usage in the education sector is discussed in the CTL report p. 79. 176 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 177 The Open CourseWare Consortium is an international group of institutions who make courseware available free and online. Reference: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ Accessed 18 May 2009 178 The VET and higher education sectors have both used immersive learning environments for particular projects, or for particular units of work. For example, in the VET sector, CIT has completed the Eduversal project (http://eduversal-studios.wikispaces.com/) using Open Croquet as its virtual world tool. In the higher education sector, the ALTC has funded projects such as Enrole (http://www.uow.edu.au/cedir/enrole/) which is aimed at supporting teachers who wish to use role plays in their teaching and providing successful role play templates for reuse. 179 Work is being done by The Learning Federation to look at ways of making resources of educational value available to the school education sector. The reuse of digital resources from the cultural institutions provides a way of building on initiatives and projects in the cultural sector to make these resources available, and adds value to the education experience of Australian learners - whether in formal or informal learning situations. 180 Creative Commons Australia, Reference: http://creativecommons.org.au/ Accessed 18 May 2009 181 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 182 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 183 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009


184 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 185 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 186 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 187 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 188 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 189 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 190 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 191 In the CTL report Education.au recommended an ICT Continuum be aligned with stages of learning at a national level and build upon the work of the states/territories as part of the implementation of the national curriculum. In this report we suggest extending the continuum so that learners build their ICT skills and abilities coherently as they progress from school education to TAFE and/or higher education. 192 Technology tools could refer to any kind of technology or tool as described the Collaboration in Teaching and Learning report, or in the Horizon Reports. 193 In the CTL report Education.au recommended an ICT Continuum be aligned with stages of learning at a national level and build upon the work of the states/territories as part of the implementation of the national curriculum. In this report we suggest extending the continuum so that learners build their ICT skills and abilities coherently as they progress from school education to TAFE and/or higher education. 194 Trust federations and OpenID are discussed in the CTL report (p 36). 195 The term ‘Access devices’ refers to devices that may be used to access the internet including, but not limited to, desktop computers, laptop computers, netbooks, PDAs, mobile phones, interactive whiteboards. 196 The SICTAS report: Web 2.0 Site Blocking in Schools, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/SICTAS/pid/695 197 Cloud computing and its usage in the education sector is discussed in the CTL report p. 79. 198 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 199 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 200 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 201 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009


202 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 203 In the CTL report Education.au recommended an ICT Continuum be aligned with stages of learning at a national level and build upon the work of the states/territories as part of the implementation of the national curriculum. In this report we suggest extending the continuum so that learners build their ICT skills and abilities coherently as they progress from school education to TAFE and/or higher education. 204 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 205 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 206 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 207 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 208 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 209 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 210 Trust federations and OpenID are discussed in the CTL report (p 36). 211 The term ‘Access devices’ refers to devices that may be used to access the internet including, but not limited to, desktop computers, laptop computers, netbooks, PDAs, mobile phones, interactive whiteboards. 212 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 213 The Open CourseWare Consortium is an international group of institutions who make courseware available free and online. Reference: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ Accessed 18 May 2009 214 The VET and higher education sectors have both used immersive learning environments for particular projects, or for particular units of work. For example, in the VET sector, CIT has completed the Eduversal project (http://eduversal-studios.wikispaces.com/) using Open Croquet as its virtual world tool. In the higher education sector, the ALTC has funded projects such as Enrole (http://www.uow.edu.au/cedir/enrole/) which is aimed at supporting teachers who wish to use role plays in their teaching and providing successful role play templates for reuse. 215 Work is being done by The Learning Federation to look at ways of making resources of educational value available to the school education sector. The reuse of digital resources from the cultural institutions provides a way of building on initiatives and projects in the cultural sector to make these resources available, and adds value to the education experience of Australian learners - whether in formal or informal learning situations. 216 Creative Commons Australia, Reference: http://creativecommons.org.au/ Accessed 18 May 2009 217 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl


218 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 219 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 220 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 221 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 222 In the CTL report Education.au recommended an ICT Continuum be aligned with stages of learning at a national level and build upon the work of the states/territories as part of the implementation of the national curriculum. In this report we suggest extending the continuum so that learners build their ICT skills and abilities coherently as they progress from school education to TAFE and/or higher education. 223 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 224 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 225 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 226 This aligns with the focus of the recently announced Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills project. Reference: http://www.atc21s.org/workingGroups/default.html Accessed 6 June 2009 227 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 228 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 229 In the CTL report Education.au recommended an ICT Continuum be aligned with stages of learning at a national level and build upon the work of the states/territories as part of the implementation of the national curriculum. In this report we suggest extending the continuum so that learners build their ICT skills and abilities coherently as they progress from school education to TAFE and/or higher education. 230 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 231 The SICTAS report: Web 2.0 Site Blocking in Schools, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/SICTAS/pid/695 232 Cloud computing and its usage in the education sector is discussed in the CTL report p. 79. 233 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009


234 The Open CourseWare Consortium is an international group of institutions who make courseware available free and online. Reference: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ Accessed 18 May 2009 235 The VET and higher education sectors have both used immersive learning environments for particular projects, or for particular units of work. For example, in the VET sector, CIT has completed the Eduversal project (http://eduversal-studios.wikispaces.com/) using Open Croquet as its virtual world tool. In the higher education sector, the ALTC has funded projects such as Enrole (http://www.uow.edu.au/cedir/enrole/) which is aimed at supporting teachers who wish to use role plays in their teaching and providing successful role play templates for reuse. 236 Work is being done by The Learning Federation to look at ways of making resources of educational value available to the school education sector. The reuse of digital resources from the cultural institutions provides a way of building on initiatives and projects in the cultural sector to make these resources available, and adds value to the education experience of Australian learners - whether in formal or informal learning situations. 237 Creative Commons Australia, Reference: http://creativecommons.org.au/ Accessed 18 May 2009 238 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 239 Millea, J and Galatis, H, 2008, Collaboration in Teaching and Learning, p. 28, Education.au, Reference: http://www.educationau.edu.au/SICTAS-ctl 240 A number of theories apply to the use of technology for teaching and learning. A number are mentioned in the CTL report (see page16) and include social constructivism, cooperative learning theory, situated learning theory, behaviourism, Piaget’s development theory, neuroscience, brain-based learning, learning styles, multiple intelligencies, right brain/left brain thinking, communities of practice, control theory, observational learning, connectivism and the theory of expansive learning. As the use of ICT for education purposes matures and more research occurs it is likely that existing theories will be built on and new theories will emerge. It is important that theories are continually tested for usefulness and new theoretical models explored and utilised as appropriate. 241 Models exist for such an approach such as the US MERLOT project. See http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm Accessed 18 May 2009 242 The Open CourseWare Consortium is an international group of institutions who make courseware available free and online. Reference: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/ Accessed 18 May 2009 243 The VET and higher education sectors have both used immersive learning environments for particular projects, or for particular units of work. For example, in the VET sector, CIT has completed the Eduversal project (http://eduversal-studios.wikispaces.com/) using Open Croquet as its virtual world tool. In the higher education sector, the ALTC has funded projects such as Enrole (http://www.uow.edu.au/cedir/enrole/) which is aimed at supporting teachers who wish to use role plays in their teaching and providing successful role play templates for reuse.