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Learners, learning and new technologiesAngela McFarlane aa Great BritainPublished online: 04 Jun 2010.

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Learners, Learning and New TechnologiesAngela McFarlane, Great Britain

AbstractsIn 1997 the UK Government introduced a major five-year programme to support and evaluate the successful use of newtechnologies in life-long learning. Known as the National Grid for Learning (NGfL) Strategy, this ambitious visionaddresses ICT infrastructure, content and practice. Recent OECD studies suggest that the main issues addressed throughthe NGfL are common to those being tackled throughout the developed world (OECD 2002). This paper will look at theimplications of these strategies for curriculum improvement and reform. A theorisation of the possible relationshipsbetween different features of ICT and learning will be offered. Finally the contrast between home and school based use oftechnologies, and the implications for learning will be considered.

Apprentis, apprentissage et nouvelles technologiesEn 1997, le gouvernement britannique a lance un programme d’envergure de cinq ans pour soutenir et evaluer l’emploireussi de nouvelles technologies dans l’education tout au long de la vie. Ce programme est connu sous le nom de lastrategie du National Grid for Learning (NGfL), une vision ambitieuse qui touche a l’infrastructure des TIC, leur contenuet leur pratique. Des etudes recentes de l’OCDE suggerent que les buts principaux recherches par le NGfL sont communsavec ceux recherches dans tous les pays developpes (OCDE 2002). Cet article etudie les implications de ces strategies pourl’amelioration du curriculum et la reforme et pretend montrer que l’e-mail, les conferences par informatique et le webpeuvent potentiellement changer la nature des rapports entre apprenants, enseignants, ecoles, communautes locales,nationales et internationales. L’article considere trois perspectives de TIC educatives: comme outil, soutien pourl’enseignement et agent revolutionnaire et leurs relations avec l’evaluation. Finalement, le contrat entre la maison etl’usage des technologies basees a l’ecole et leurs implications pour l’enseignement seront consideres.

Lerner, Lernen und neue Technikologien1997 fuhrte die Regierung des Vereinigten Konigreiches ein umfangreiches Funfjahresprogramm ein, um die erfolgreicheVerwendung neuer Technologien im lebenslangen Lernen zu unterstutzen und auszuwerten. Diese als ‘National Grid forLearning Strategy (NGfL)’ bekannte ehrgeizige Vision ist auf ICT- Infrastruktur, Inhalt und Ubung fokussiert. Neue OECDStudien legen nahe, daß sich die durch das NGfL angesprochenen Hauptfragen jenen, die uberall in der entwickelten Weltgestellt werden, (OECD 2002) gleichen. Dieses Papier betrachtet die Auswirkungen dieser Strategien auf Lehr-planverbesserung und -Reform und wird belegen, dass E-Mail, E-Conferencing und die Nutzung des Web die Art derBeziehungen zwischen Lernenden, Lehrern, Schulen sowie lokalen, nationalen und internationalen Gemeinschaftenpotentiell verandern konnen. Dann werden drei Perspektiven von Bildungs-ICT im Verhaltnis zur Einschatzung betrachtet:als Werkzeug, als Lernunterstutzung und als ‘revolutionarer Agent’. Zuletzt wird der Kontrakt zwischen Zuhause und derschulischen Verwendung von Technologien und die daraus sich ergebenden Auswirkungen auf das Lernen betrachtet.

IntoductionThere is a well-rehearsed argument that schools, and to some extent Universities, of the early 21st Centuryare still wedded to practices more suited to equipping young people to take their place in the industrial ratherthan the information age. Perhaps more importantly, education systems are still dependent on methods ofassessing the success of individuals which rely on knowledge and ways of knowing that are better suited totimes before access to information sources was as ubiquitous as today, and the rate of growth of knowledgewas more manageable. And yet the world that these same young people inhabit beyond education is rich with

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information technologies, to which they have increasing access, and with which they have a fluency which maygo unacknowledged.

BackgroundAccording to The Smithsonian Institute, the information age began when Samuel Morse invented the firstmachine to send and receive his coded messages in 1837. The concepts underpinning the notion of this ageseem to be both the production and the dissemination of information – which free communication from theconstraints of time and geography. The most recent technological innovations that represent the current stateof play are the mobile telephone and the range of other digital devices which can be connected to theinternet. Amongst these, the most commonly experienced are personal computers.

Since the birth of the personal computer, there have been those who believe that these machines haveenormous potential value for education at all levels. From the earliest days of the microcomputer, there wasa ground swell of opinion among some, often very vocal, educationalists and politicians that computers ineducation would be a ‘good thing’. Not surprisingly, they had different views on why that might be so. Thefirst UK government initiatives to put computers in schools were not from the Department of Education andScience, as it then was, but from the Department for Trade and Industry. Computers would fill the world ofwork, so children had better learn about them at school.

This belief in the educational value of computers has also extended to parents and accounts for the high levelof home ownership of computers among families with children. In the 14–16 age group it is now very rareto find a child in the UK without home access to a computer. In a context where there is competition amongfamily members for access to the machine, the plea to do homework may be used to usurp a brother – evenwhere the homework is abandoned after possession of the computer is assured.

Justifying the investmentThe current government has pledged to place education at the top of its agenda, and amongst many other,arguably more far reaching, policy initiatives, it established the National Grid for Learning in 1998 (DfEE1998). The policy has addressed three components of effective ICT implementation in education;infrastructure, content and practice.

This is a long-term policy that has initiated a wide range of projects and spending programmes that togetheraccount for a budget of some £2 billion pounds over five years (See Table 1). There is also some evidence thatsuch investment attracts a matching level of funding from other sources such as parents, local government

Table 1 UK central investment in schools and libraries infrastructure, content and practice

UK National Grid for Learning Government Investment 1997–2002 £m

Schools infrastructure 700Library and community infrastructure 200ICT learning centres 400Content digitisation for the NGfL and libraries 50

Lottery funding £m

Training for teachers and librarians 250

Government Commitment for 2002–2004 £m

710

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and school budgets. One aim is to increase the number of computers in schools from 1 computer for every12.5 pupils in primary schools and 7.9 pupils in secondary schools in 2000 to 1:8 in primary and 1:5 insecondary. There are also schemes to increase the quantity of digital content available on line to schools, andto provide some training for teachers. The last of these was funded not by government but through lotteryfunding and has been of variable quality and impact according to the evaluation carried out by the TeacherTraining Agency (see www.canteach.gov.uk).

This is the latest, and arguably greatest, in a long line of government policy initiatives aimed at increasing theuse of digital technologies in schools. Understandably where significant investment of public money isconcerned, at regular points in the history of ICT in schools there have been major exercises in research andevaluation. These have sought the holy grail of evidence to link the use of computers in schools withmeasurable increases in attainment. Arguably as a direct consequence of the prevailing managerial culture inour society (Deem 2002), and possibly a misunderstanding of the role of quantitative data (Goldstein 2002),these investigations have all concentrated on quantitative studies that sought relationships between thenumber of computers, and times they were used, and the test scores pupils achieved having used them. Thetwo most wide-ranging of these are the government funded Impact and Impact 2 studies reporting in 1993and 2002 respectively (Watson, 1993, Harrison et al., 2002). At best, they find mildly positive correlationsbetween computer use and achievement – but correlation is not causation. The notion that computer accesswill boost test scores must by now be discredited as the main justification for investment. So what if anythinghas gone wrong? Have we in fact, as claimed in the UK’s Daily Mail on 25th October 2002, wasted millionsof public money on computers in schools?

If test scores are the only measure by which the programme is to be justified, it would seem that so far theinvestment has failed; the recent Impact 2 (ibid.) report shows little to convince the reader that morecomputers mean higher test scores. But this is hardly surprising when you look at the levels of pupil useof ICT in subject teaching, which remain very low. Given the pupil computer ratios, even if the machinesare in use full time, the amount of use any one child has in a given day will be small. Moreover, there islittle detail available on what exactly pupils are doing, or witnessing, through the use of ICT they doexperience. The high variability of results with level of ICT use suggests that it is not whether ICT is usedthat is important, so much as what is done with it. Many questions remain unanswered. Much emphasis, asevidenced through the pupil computer ratio as a key measure of penetration, is placed on personal use oftechnology by the learner, but is this really the issue here? What about the demonstration of complex ideasby a teacher using an interactive whiteboard? To what extent can computers be tools of demonstrationrather than of personal exposition, and still impact on learning? And perhaps even more critically, whatkinds of learning are being credited in the tests and do they match those facilitated through the widerange of uses of ICT in the classroom?

Figure 1 A headline from the Daily Mail on 25th October 2002

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It would seem that in attempting to understand the role of computers in education, it is important tounderstand that there is a broad range of applications, each of which might make a contribution to thesupport of learning. Having identified what that contribution might be, it is then essential to ensure that thestyle of computer use does in fact support that contribution, and that the mechanism used to captureevidence of that learning records evidence of that type of learning and not another. There is little pointlooking to harvest apples from an orange tree (McFarlane 2001).

Perhaps surprisingly, there is little detailed theorisation of the likely relationships between ICT use and theachievement of learning. The view educationalists took, and to some extent continue to take, of computers,falls on a spectrum which has at one end, the machine as deliverer of curriculum content, via structuredlearning material or drill and practice software that would in part at least replace human teachers. At theother end of this continuum are those who see the computer as a tool, memorably characterised as the‘person plus’ by Perkins (1992). Here the machine is primarily a device to create and manipulate digital datain ways that challenge learners to develop their own interpretations of the world. These two contrastingperspectives can be characterised as the ‘computer as teacher’ versus the ‘computer as tool’.

It is perhaps impossible to make decisions about the relative merits of these approaches without also makingvalue judgements about both education and indeed the nature of knowledge. If the purpose of education isto impart to the next generation a distinct body of knowledge, the possession of which will equip the recipientfor the role they will adopt in life, then clearly the ‘computer as teacher’ has a part to play. It would be easyto dismiss this characterisation of education as lacking relevance in today’s world – fitting more readily a viewof education and its purposes more appropriate to the 19th century than the 21st. If this were the whole viewof education then these criticisms must be valid. However there are arguably key areas of knowledge wherethis approach still retains relevance. One such seems to be the acquisition of basic computational skills inmathematics where it is argued that mastery is an important first step in tackling more complex mathematicswhere the computational elements need to be habituated so that they do not interfere with development ofmore complex manipulations. (Underwood and Underwood 1990). But despite some twenty years ofresearch into the relationship between ‘teaching software’ and attainment, hard evidence of success remainsrare. It would seem that examples beyond basic numeracy remain elusive. An unpublished survey of some 300sources revealed that the research evidence is hard to interpret. Studies reported in academic journals tendto give sketchy accounts of the exact nature of the software, and of its management within the wider learningcontext. This makes it difficult to isolate the variables that result in some studies appearing to show an impact,and other seemingly similar ones, failing to do so. Currently research actually leaves the question of whetheror not, and how, specific uses of ICT can impact on certain kinds of learning largely unanswered. Thethresholds of use associated with time and levels of familiarity identified by the Impact Study in 1992 remainill defined (Watson 1993), and little firm theorisation of the pedagogies surrounding ICT uses has beencompleted. Promising early findings from the SITES M2 studies show some progress here however (seewww.sites2.org, final report expected Spring 2003). Furthermore genres of educational software remainpoorly defined, and what differentiates an effective package to support a specific set of learning objectives,poorly understood (McFarlane and de Rijke 1999).

Understanding the roles of ICTIn trying to theorise how various applications of ICT might impact on learning it is perhaps helpful to drawon socio-cultural theory and Wertsch’s notion of a cultural tool, or set of tools, with various ‘affordances’(Wertsch, 1998). Where the tools are computer based, the main affordances seem to fall into six categories;feedback, the representation of dynamic processes, multiple representations, the ability to edit, automationand the sharing of a common communication space. In the case of the first five there is clear evidence thateach can contribute to learning when applied effectively. The last is so new that clear evidence is as yetunavailable, but there are intriguing possibilities.

Feedback can be very simple, such as a colour change when a correct answer is offered to an arithmeticproblem, or more complex, such as when an incorrect answer invokes an explanation of the correct answerand even a diagnosis of the original error. Given that the learning of certain skills and content is supportedby drill and practice, drill with feedback which prevents the learner from practising her own error, thusreinforcing her own misconception, is likely to be more effective than a paper based exercise where thelearner completes a page of problems incorrectly before they receive any feedback. However, if the softwareis badly designed, for example forcing the student to use an idiosyncratic rubric e.g. 9*8 rather than 9×8, orgives unhelpful hints, perhaps in language way beyond the reading age of the learner, or the tasks are

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presented in a haphazard order with no clear development (all problems which can be found in variouscommercial software) the benefit of feedback may be reduced, or even reversed. Moreover, in the case ofidiosyncratic syntax in particular, the knowledge gained using the software may not transfer to anothercontext. In other words if too many constraints are introduced through poor software design or technicallimitations, then the advantage may be reduced or lost. Examples of the differences between systems witheffective feedback and progression and those without were shown clearly in the extensive evaluation ofintegrated learning systems (McFarlane 1997, Wood 1998).

The value of dynamic representation is likely to reside in the rendering of the abstract as concrete. For example,it is possible to see, and interact with, a representation of the molecules in a gas, or a model of the UKeconomy. By experimenting with the behaviour of these virtual systems it is possible to infer, and understand,the principles underlying often complex and otherwise abstract systems. However, if the model behind thesimulation, or any of the algorithms driving its manifestation, are inadequate then the virtual system will notbehave as the real system and learning may be impaired. This is unfortunately common in sciencesimulations, where the model may oversimplify the reality, or even misrepresent it (McFarlane and Sakellariou2002). Dynamic representation can also help to make the abstract concrete and so aid understanding(McFarlane et al 1995, Friedler and McFarlane, 1997).

The ability to transform knowledge so that we can bring it to bear in novel situations is considered a ‘higherorder’ achievement, and a key element of successful problem solving (Ridgway 1990, O’Neil 1999). This maybe aided by digital systems which give a learner access to multiples forms of information, and the ability to moveeffortlessly between them. For example, it is possible in seconds to move between tables of data and graphsof many forms of those same data, thus enabling an understanding of the various patterns in the data, andthe best ways to represent them. In contrast, the manual equivalent of this exercise is rarely if ever undertakensince it is highly time consuming, and may involve a lot of effort to produce a range of plots only to dismissmany of them as meaningless. It is also possible to gather together multiple examples of a particular entity,idea or expression so that they may be compared and contrasted. For example it is possible via the internetto view a vast range of examples of a particular genre of painting or manuscript– more than could be foundin a single location even within a specialist world-class university department. And whilst this is a very differentexperience from, and cannot replace, experience of the actual artefact, it adds an extra dimension to thestudy of the subject. Indeed the research from the ESRC funded Virtual Society? programme suggests that anincrease in such virtual encounters leads to more equivalent real world experiences, as for example visits toweb based museum collections seems to encourage trips to see the actual artefacts (Woolgar 2002).

One of the most powerful, and often overlooked, affordances of digital technology is the ability to edit datasets, from a word processed document to a digital video, with an ease that is unmatched in the equivalentnon-digital or analogue media. The ability to work with ideas, evolving and honing one’s expression orinterpretation of them, until a personal understanding and accurate articulation of that understandinghave been achieved, is at the heart of the constructivist view of learning. It is also the mechanismunderpinning the creative process (QCA 2002). Furthermore, working iteratively in this way, individually orcollaboratively, with review and comment from peers or experts, is at the heart of the process of formativeassessment – which has proven power in the improvement of learning (Assessment Reform Group, 1999).It is perhaps surprising then, that this use of digital technology – to support learners’ production ofcontent – is given less prominence in policy models of pedagogies with ICT than an alternative that seesthe learner as consumer of content. This content is conceptualised as vast, ‘individualised’, curriculumrelevant and supplied online (see for example the Curriculum Online consultation paper from April 2001http://www.dfes.gov.uk/curriculumonline/genin.shtml and DfES 2002). Perhaps the reasons are purelypragmatic; the routine use of digital devices to generate personal content requires a level of access tocomputers in schools which is far in excess of that currently available. Computing devices would need tobe as readily available on demand as paper and pen. Realistically, this level of provision from central fundsis unlikely, and such routine use will have to wait until the majority of learners do carry with them somekind of personal device, most likely a consumer product which is the descendent of today’s handheldcomputer and phone combined. An alternative, and more worrying possibility is that policy is stillpredominantly informed by a view of learning that sees the learner as consumer of knowledge rather thanbuilder, and a belief that learning can be delivered to learners as if it is a commodity. Woolgar (2002)points to the discourse that equates learning to activities such as shopping within the literaturesurrounding e-learning, which suggests that such a view of learning is widely held.

Automation can operate in one of two ways, either to hide complexities and enable a learner to operate beyondtheir capacity, or to automate routines which are already understood in order to move more quickly to more

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demanding work. An example of the first is illustrated in the use of automatic graphing systems by youngpupils which allows them to ‘play’ with line graphs that they could not have constructed themselves(McFarlane at al 1995), the second where older pupils use a spreadsheet to construct a formula that they canthen apply automatically in more complex manipulations.

A final area of impact of digital technologies on learning is that of the provision of a virtual space in whichsocial interactions connected with learning might take place. Such systems might range from a simple emaillist used by a group of learners and tutors, to a virtual learning environment (VLE) product that adds to thisa series of virtual notice board and filing cabinet equivalents, where course information and resources,including work generated by learners, can be posted in a common space available to all. These systems aregenerating much interest in education at all levels, and we are only just beginning to understand thetheoretical and real affordances and constraints of these systems. Some aspects are reasonably accessible,having direct equivalents in the non-virtual world e.g. posting a course timetable, but others such as threadeddiscussions, are perhaps a new form of communication, the comprehension and distillation of which can behighly problematic. Currently it seems that the keys may lie in the combination of a shared recording of manyexchanges that might otherwise go unrecorded, or be recorded as an individual note e.g. a group discussionor a commented assignment proposal to which tutor and peers may contribute, and the extension ofopportunities for formalised group interaction beyond the temporal and geographical constraints of atimetabled event. Indeed as the various members of a group struggle with ideas and develop theirunderstanding, the stages of their thinking and questioning may be made accessible to others in the groupto an extent not previously seen. This can then offer extended opportunities for vicarious learning (see forexample Mayes et al 1996). All of this relies on contribution by a significant proportion of the group, whichmay not be forthcoming as recent work on virtual communities for professional development has shown(McFarlane et al 2002, NCSL 2003).

The danger lies is a conception of education as existing largely, or wholly, in the acquisition of domainknowledge, without the broader skills of personal knowledge development, which requires the developmentof personal belief through the consideration of evidence and involves the commitment of the learner. AsBonnett (2001) remarks, ‘Something like this concept of knowledge has also informed long-standingtraditions of education such as liberal education, which value the (eventual) freedom and capacity forcriticism and autonomy of learners, as against their continued subservience to unquestioned orunquestionable authority of whatever source. The intimate relation of such a conception of knowledge andeducation to a democratic way of life hardly needs stating.’

An examination of the statutory curriculum documents in England and Wales suggest that such personalknowledge building might survive as a practice. The realities of a test driven school culture, where the worthof the whole institution, and the only evidence of ‘raised standards’ that has any political credibility aremeasured externally in terms of test scores, means that in practice cramming for tests tends to dominate theschool culture (Galton et al 1999). The fact that it has been deemed necessary to constitute a special workinggroup on ‘creativity’ within the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency (the government agency responsiblefor the curriculum and assessment structures in England and Wales) to try and promote extended knowledgebuilding tasks within the curriculum is testament to the lack of such opportunity within the currentcurriculum. But unless the tests – or some alternative form of assessment – begin to give credit for such work,there is little prospect of change in the classroom.

The majority of current assessment systems, particularly those administered on a national scale rely heavilyon testing the memory of pupils and their ability to produce certain facts on demand. Already this is ofquestionable value, given the rate of growth of knowledge. The ability to find, interpret and evaluateinformation is far more important, as are the skills relating to problem-solving and critical thinking. Thisskills-based, child-centred approach to learning was of course at the heart of primary education in the UKfor some decades. Recent legislation has forced schools away from this towards a more ‘traditional’curriculum, which is governed by tests of students’ knowledge at regular intervals. The apparentprominence given to skill development has been undermined by the relatively minor role it plays in theformal assessment process. It seems that the political and technological tides are running in conflictingdirections, and it is hard to see how this will be resolved. One thing is certain, however, the technologicaltide will not go away. It is driven by international commercial forces far greater than national politics oreducation policies.

An interesting set of aspirations for the use of ICT in learning and teaching is encapsulated in the Singaporegovernment’s Masterplan 2 (http://www2.moe.edu.sg/apeclinks/sesiong/html/singapore2.asp).

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Clearly, here ICT is being used to support a move from teacher-centred to pupil-centred pedagogies, butexactly what this would mean in practice, and the precise mechanism for doing this are not yetarticulated.

Table 2 The Singapore Masterplan 2

Today Tomorrow

Use of IT to support existing curriculum Seamless integration of technology at the planningstage of curriculum design

Largely static content in print form A repository of dynamic digital content

One size fits all approach Mass customization and ability-driven approach

Teachers demonstrate basic skills andcompetencies in the use of IT for teaching

Teachers demonstrate a range of competencies inthe use of IT for teaching

Phased approach in the implementation oftechnology in schools

Schools have greater ownership and accountabilityin technology implementation

Standard technology provisions for all Flexible technology provisions for all

Predominantly practising teacher-centredpedagogies

Predominantly practising pupil-centred pedagogies

Contrasts between school and out-of-school accessWidening access to ICTs means that the experiences of learning through technologies vary significantlybetween school and out of school for a majority of children in the UK. Some 75% of upper primary, and90 + % of upper secondary pupils have access to a computer outside school. Approximately 2/3 of these areconnected to the internet. These computers are used for a variety of purposes; over half of the primary agecomputer users have their own email address, 67% of 14–16 year olds have created their own web pages.Mobile phones are also very popular, with 60% of upper secondary students owning them. (All data are fromImpact 2 preliminary findings (Becta, 2001) gathered in 2000 so they are points on a rapidly rising curve).The way in which these phones are used illustrates one way in which access to ICTs influences culture. Voicecalls remain expensive, short message service (SMS or text messaging) remains relatively cheap. The inclusionof this function of the service was an afterthought, and it received no marketing or promotional effort. Andyet it has become a very significant form of communication among young people with a syntax and vocabularyof its own. Reactions to this among adults vary, with some educators seeing this as an inventive and innovativeuse of language and others that text messages, as with email, represent a degradation of standards of writtenEnglish.

Young people used to a level of access to technology in the home way above that in school can quickly becomefrustrated. Imagine the constraints placed on an internet user when they are restricted to a textbook or a fewlibrary references to research a topic, or on a word processor user when they have to write a significant textby hand. Such experiences are becoming commonplace for young people in our schools and there is agrowing body of evidence that this is impacting negatively on their school performance (Russell and Haney,2000, Levin and Arafeh, 2002). Perhaps the deciding factors that ultimately force change in the school systemwill be a combination of the facts that the traditionally most able students will begin to fail within theframework of formal education, and that those people who will find gainful employment in this century willbe the ones who are flexible, independent learners capable of finding the information they need andapplying it to the problem in hand. All these skills have been shown to be enhanced through the judicioususe of information technology in the classroom. The school leavers who can simply write neatly, spell, andrecite their tables will be joining the ranks of the unemployed and unemployable.

These factors combine to present a pressing agenda for educational research. There are major questions tobe addressed concerning exactly how the curriculum and the methods of assessment should change in order

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to produce an effective and meaningful educational experience for the future citizen of the 21st Century. AsPapert and Caperton (1999) point out:

[There has been] a chorus of pronouncements that the information society both requires and makes possible newforms of education. We totally agree with this. But we do not agree that tardiness in translating these declarationsinto reality can be ascribed, as it often is, to such factors as lack of money, technology, standards or teacher training.Obviously there is a need for improvement in all of those areas, but the primary lack is something different – ashortage of bold, coherent, inspiring yet realistic visions of what education could be like 10 and 20 years fromnow.

If education research is to contribute meaningfully to this vision, then there is a need to address two questionswith some urgency:

– What should we recognise as educational attainment – and how should we record this?– What are the implications of the wider context of school based education?

Until we better understand the implications of, and answers to, these questions, it will be impossible to offerthe bold yet realistic alternative to the present curriculum that is clearly called for by those who will inheritthe information age.

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Teacher Education, 39, 6–8.Deem, R (2002) The knowledge worker and the divided university – Inaugural Lecture. Available from

University of Bristol, Graduate School of Education.DfEE (1998) Open for Learning, Open for Business – the NGfL Challenge. London: Department for

Education and Employment.DfES (2002) Transforming the Way We Learn. (www.dfes.gov.uk/ictfutures)Friedler, Y and McFarlane, AE (1997) Data logging with portable computers, a study of the impact on

graphing skills in secondary pupils, Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 16, 4,527–550.

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Biographical noteProfessor Angela McFarlane, BSc, PhD, PGCE. Angela has designed and directed national research andevaluation projects on ICT and Learning, and is part of the team that designed the longitudinal study of theimpact of networked technologies on home and school learning – Impact2. As Director of the Centre forResearch in Educational ICT, Homerton College, Cambridge, she managed a number of major softwaredevelopment programmes and her research involved evaluation of the impact of networked technologies onlearning. She was a member of the OECD expert group on quality in educational software and a director ofthe UK government agency for Education and Communications Technology (Becta). Angela currently holdsa chair in education at the University of Bristol, is a director of the TEEM project on evaluation of digitalcontent in the classroom, and is on the steering committee of the FutureLab project, and the educationcommittee of Nesta (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts). Her current researchaddresses the use of networked technologies for learning and computer games.

Address for correspondenceProf Angela McFarlane, University of Bristol, Graduate School of Education, 35, Berkeley Square, Bristol BS81JA. Voice: + 44 117 928 7103, Fax: + 44 117 927 7269; e-mail: A.E.McFarlane@bristol.ac.uk

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