The construction of the ICT curriculum in Icelandmennta.hi.is/vefir/namust/allyson_thorsteinn_rift9.doc · Web viewWorkgroups were instructed to prepare sets of final goals for all

Constructing the information and technology education curriculum in Iceland:Is there a rift in the North Atlantic?

M. Allyson Macdonald and Thorsteinn HjartarsonIceland University of Education

Reykjavík, Iceland

Talk presented at the LEARN conference, University of Helsinki, December 2003Paper revised August 2004

Abstract

This study is in progress and is concerned with the social construction of the information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum in Icelandic schools in recent years. It attempts to take up the challenge of finding a coherent approach and resolving tensions within traditional and reconceptualized perspectives in curriculum and exploring some of the tensions in the field. Ideas from curriculum and concepts of culture arising from applications of activity theory and other sociocultural theories will be invoked in the analysis.

Questions of the following kind are asked: How was and is the curriculum being constructed? To what extent can curriculum making in Iceland be traced to approaches in Europe and North America? How are specialists constructed? What cultures are emerging in schools and who holds power? This study forms part of the LearnICT project in Iceland, which is a three-year project funded in large part by the Research Council of Iceland.

Key words: curriculum, social construction, information and communication technology

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M. Allyson Macdonald and Thorsteinn Hjartarson LEARN 2003

INTRODUCTION

One day last winter one of us asked her 13 year old son about the content of his time-tabled 80 minute lesson on “information studies”. His answer was “Nothing”. When asked what he meant, he said that he hadn’t had access to a computer. With further probing it appeared that the task for the day had been to write a step-by-step description of an activity in such a way that somebody else would be able to read the description carry out the same activity. The actual writing took place with paper-and-pen and the description was to be typed into a computer using a word processing facility. This incident is symbolic and provocative. What meanings do pupils attach to such activities? What was the intended outcome of the activity? What constructions of the curriculum are being formed in such lessons?

This paper is concerned with the construction of the information and technology education (ITE) curriculum in Icelandic schools.1 An array of discourses has evolved for understanding curriculum that has brought new understandings to curriculum studies (Pinar et al., 1995, Goodson, 1997). Some contradictions are explored here.

In 1999 a revised national curriculum was presented to Icelandic schools. The previous national curriculum for compulsory schools was released as one book of about 200 pages (MESC 1989). One page was assigned to computers in education and about three to four pages to workshop practice (carpentry and metalwork). Ten years later these topics had grown into a booklet of 84 pages, prescribing a new subject, called Information and technology education (ITE) 2 for compulsory schools, and was one of twelve such booklets. What processes of construction had occurred between 1989 and 1999 and are occurring now?

We will begin by giving an overview of modern Iceland and key events in education, followed by a short discussion of some curriculum issues. Next is a short section on methods used in this study. Interpretations emerging from the interviews and curriculum text are then presented and discussed.

RECENT CONTEXT

National level

Iceland has a gross domestic product per capita of almost US$30.000, a life-expectancy of almost 80 years and a population of almost 300.000 people. It is a high-tech country with its citizens being quick to invest in any new information technology (IT). In 2004, 77% of rural homes and 82% of urban homes had internet connections. In the 16-24 year age group 97% are internet users, in the 65-74 age group 33% and among old-age pensioners 29% use the internet. The overall number of individuals using the internet is higher in Iceland

1 This study is part of a larger cooperative project LearnICT which is still in progress. Its purpose is to consider the nature of the opportunities presented when information and communication technology (ICT) is used in teaching and learning. 2 The abbreviations ITE (information and technology education), IT (information technology) and ICT (information and communications technology) will be used as appropriate for the original Icelandic terms.

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(81%) than in any other Nordic country or in Europe. Internet use is also widespread in the business sector, where 97% of companies have access to the internet, and 70% have their own web-sites (Statistics Iceland, 2004). The Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkur) in Iceland has led the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (MESC) since the early 1990s. This party has been part of a coalition government since 1991, first with the Social Democrats (Alþýðuflokkur) and from 1995 with the Progressive Party (Framsóknar-flokkur).

A governmental committee on education policy set the stage for many of the changes implemented from 1995 onwards when a new Minister of Education was appointed (MESC, 1994). The minister was a keen advocate of using information technology and was in 1995 the first cabinet minister to have his own home-page, including a diary which he updates almost daily. A key policy document The power of information was prepared at his request by a special committee on information technology (IT) (MESC, 1996). Another group prepared at his request a policy document on the revision of the curriculum (MESC, 1997a).

In 1996 the minister initiated his largest project, the preparation of a new national curriculum for pre-schools, compulsory schools and secondary schools, a project which lasted until 1999 (MESC, 1999a). He appointed a project manager in early 1996, subject coordinators were employed from mid-1996, preparatory groups with members from a range of backgrounds were set up to prepare the appropriate overall goals for each subject, and later workgroups to provide aims and objectives. In several cases the chairmen of the preparatory groups were academics from universities. Subject coordinators chaired the workgroups. The preparatory and the work groups worked simultaneously on the curriculum for both compulsory and secondary schools in an attempt to ensure some continuity and progression.

Workgroups were instructed to prepare sets of final goals for all subjects, and measurable aims for 4th, 7th and 10th grades and secondary schools. Objectives for most subjects were also written for each grade. National assessments are carried out in Icelandic and mathematics in the 4th, 7th and 10th grades and in Danish, English, social studies and science in the 10th grade. Pupils in the 10th grade can choose whether or not to take the national examinations; this choice is exercised more often in social studies and science than in the other subjects.

The information and technology education (ITE) curriculum

In August 1997 the ITE preparatory group presented its proposal under the title Goals for information and technology education in compulsory and secondary schools (MESC, 1997b). In all 17 meetings had been held from March to July. Carpentry had become Design and construction (similar to CDT i.e. craft, design and technology in some English-speaking countries) and was to be found in the ITE curriculum and not with the other creative arts and practical subjects. Other innovations were goals for the areas of Library studies (later renamed Information studies) and Innovation and application of knowledge. It was suggested that these two areas be cross-curricular.

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The workgroup elaborated on these goals with some minor changes in emphasis and presented the National Curriculum for Information and technology education in four sections – information studies, innovation and application of knowledge; design and construction, and the prerequisite, computer studies (MESC 1999b). Detailed objectives are presented for the use of computers up to the 10th grade and for information studies up to the 4th grade. Many other workgroups had been given instructions to include the use of ICT in the aims and objectives of other subjects.

Developments at school level

By the late 1990s the transfer of compulsory schools from national government to local authorities had more or less been completed in accordance with a new law from 1995. Many local authorities supported initiatives to encourage the use of information technology: schools country-wide upgraded their computer facilities, school districts were using the number of children per computer as an indicator of investment, and facilities were being upgraded within schools. Teachers were being sent on courses to upgrade their IT skills.

The school system is small with about 45.000 children aged 6 to 15 enrolled in about 180 compulsory schools, of which about half have fewer than 100 pupils and only a handful have over 600 pupils. There are over 3000 teachers in the compulsory system, with average age a little under 40. Nearly 20% do not have teaching qualifications though some are well-qualified in other areas. Each school prepares a school curriculum based on the national curriculum using any number of ways to do this, but new salary agreements with the teachers’ union in 2000 gave school principals more independence and more control over non-teaching time spent in school by teachers and this appears to have influenced approaches to curriculum development.

Some funds available for development projects were used to encourage projects using IT in an innovative way in the late 1990s. From 1999-2002 three primary and three secondary schools were designated development schools by the Ministry and received special funding to try out new approaches in the use of ICT. In the largest local authority two schools were designated mother schools in information technology.

CONSTRUCTING THE CURRICULUM

Curriculum perspectives

There are many ways of approaching the study of curriculum. Understanding curriculum as institutionalized text is what Reid (1998) calls the Dominant perspective. Here we might consider the process of constructing the curriculum as a rational process, from planning to preparation to implementation. Other approaches, for example, historical, political, racial, gender, phenomenological, postmodern, biographical or aesthetic, belong to the Reconceptualist perspective that emerged in the 1970s (Pinar et al., 1995). Put simplistically Reid suggests that the Dominant agenda has been more about the setting of

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aims and objectives and the selection of appropriate learning experiences whereas the Reconceptualist agenda has concerned people and education. What proponents of the Reconceptualist perspective wanted to do was to “put the person back into the curriculum”, their main concern being educational principles, rather than learning experiences. Several tensions exist between the two perspectives.: is curriculum-making a sequential or a simultaneous process? How does the ‘intended’ curriculum become the ‘actual’ curriculum? Whose voices are heard in or above the cacophony of construction?

Reid (1998) and Pinar et al. (1995) suggest that the Dominant perspective has its roots in the late 19th century in the United States, in part as a reaction to curricula based on what it means to be educated, associated with European traditions, though it also involved American philosophers such as John Dewey. Reid (1998) suggests that the geographical affiliations of the two perspectives are in part because Europe has a history of a “collectivist cultural tradition” with high school courses based on disciplines. In America the issues are about individualism and this is evident in high schools where students can pick and choose from a range of credits.

Johannesson, Geirsdottir and Finnbogason (2002) have written about governance discourse in Iceland in the late 1990s, including discourse on the national curriculum. All three have earlier looked at curriculum issues in Iceland (Finnbogason, 1995, Geirsdottir, 1996, Johanneson, 1993). They found that there was the implication in institutional texts that the 1989 curriculum had not been clear enough in its statement of learning objectives. They noted that in the preparation of the 1999 curriculum policy-makers had encouraged an emphasis on the individual and his or her needs, as well as on their independence, the possibility of stronger individuals, the need for a strong base in Icelandic and mathematics, the development of foreign language skills, the diagnosis of special needs and the necessity of ‘information technology’ as ‘a tool in every school subject’. Their study indicates a tension between individualism and common learning objectives in the construction in the curriculum.

Jackson (1992) has suggested two versions of what it means to be a curriculum specialist. The specialist as consultant moves toward or is nearer practice, but Jackson is concerned that no special knowledge or vision is brought to the curriculum task, except perhaps as a deliberator, as one who invites deliberation by others in the system. The specialist as generalist is more likely to be situated in the academy exploring the role of theory in curricular affairs. What was the role of specialists in the revision of the curriculum?

Curriculum forces and pedagogical practice

Robertson et al. (2003) have been carrying out work in the InterActive project in Bristol on what they call “force fields” in educational situations and the way in which using information and communication technology (ICT) can disrupt pedagogical practice (Figure 1). Their analysis is built on theories developed by Bernstein on competing discourses. They say:

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Some of this disruption relates to the specific properties and path dependencies of ICT as it is manifest in pedagogical spaces. Some of it relates to the competing discourses or “force fields” which operate in the context for classroom practices. Once examined these pressures seem to show that the addition of ICT into a learning environment cannot be understood by explanations that suggest we have person plus a tool…… Rather our work suggests that ICT seems to rupture more fundamental arrangements and as a result changes the relationships and relations these dimensions carry. (p. 5)

Their framework offers a means of analysing curriculum construction. Robertson and her colleagues have used it in their classroom studies to consider pedagogical practice involving ICT. In this paper we look particularly at the ‘voices’ of policy and the ‘voices’ of the pupils in the construction of the ITE curriculum. We note at this point though that the Robertson framework challenges the notion of a sequential process of curriculum construction and/or development and gives us the opportunity to consider the views and experiences from outside the classroom which are brought to bear on any curriculum.

Figure 1 Force fields in the construction of the ICT curriculum (adapted from Robertson et al. 2003)

Voice of policy – official Voice of the teacher – professional

initiatives and programmes and curriculum interests

Voice of ICT-interests of Voice of the pupils – out of

software developers school use of ICT

Twining (2002) has developed a Computer Practice Framework (CPF) as a way of looking at the use of computers inside classrooms. He suggests that computers are being used in three ways: to develop information and technology skills, as a learning tool, and for other reasons, such as reward. The CPF allows users to consider the extent to which IT/computer use affects the content and practices of learning. Three categories can be distinguished when the computer is used as a tool for learning: for support (same content, automated process but the task essentially unchanged), for extension (different content and process in the task but neither requires a computer) and for transformation (different content and process, both requiring a computer). What views do policy-makers and pupils

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Pedagogical practice:

classroom use of ICT


have of computer use in schools? Does the ITE curriculum in Iceland demand ‘transformation’?

METHODOLOGY

This study is part of the larger LearnICT research project being carried out on the use of ICT in Icelandic schools. This study builds on work being done in compulsory schools and is also part of the shared component where the national curriculum itself is under study. In the project component on compulsory schools, the work of 18 schools in five different locations is being studied. The data in this part of the study draws particularly on information from policy-makers and from four schools in a well-established urban location3 that were all built in the 1950s. One author (MAM) is involved in both components and is the project director.4 The other author (TH) is preparing a thesis on the views of the future held by school principals and the role of ICT in that vision. Both authors have focussed particularly on this group of schools in their contribution to the project.

Data collection

The national curriculum was revised and developed over the period 1996-1999. Interviews were taken in autumn 2003 with four key policy-makers from that period in order to gain information on the process of developing the curriculum. The interviewees were the Minister of Education, Science and Culture from 1995-2002, the project manager appointed by the Minister, the subject coordinator for ITE and the chairman of the preparatory group on the same subject. All four were immediately willing to participate in the study when approached by us. In three cases the interviews were taken in the respondents’ offices and the fourth was conducted by e-mail.

For this particular study we use the following data from and about pupils. A focus group interview on education and ICT with six pupils aged 13-14 from the three schools was taken in autumn 2003. The interview was taken in the meeting room of one of the schools. The interview elicited views of pupils on teaching and learning, on good examples of these, and on the part which ICT played in their lives and in schools. We asked each principal to select a boy and a girl that would be comfortable in an interview situation and that were currently enrolled in any sort of computer-based optional course in the 9th grade. ICT courses are only compulsory until the end of 8th grade. We ended up with four boys and two girls, one of the boys being in the 8th grade and the others all in the 9th grade.

Field visits were made to eleven classes in two schools, carried out in spring 2004. ICT was being used in some of the lessons and teachers showed us examples of other use. The visits were carried out after the interview with the pupils. We were interested in seeing

3 The other four locations are urban-newly established; urban-all schools in a local authority; coastal-rural and agricultural-rural.4 One of us (MAM) took part in the revision of the science curriculum as a member of the science workgroup from 1998-99.

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the type of activities in which pupils were actually engaged in school and the extent to which ICT was part of these activities. We also heard from teachers in these on-site visits about expectations regarding homework and the use of ICT at home.

Earlier preparation interviews had been taken in the four schools about approaches to ICT, taken with principals (two male and two female) and those members of staff responsible for ICT development in three of these schools (all men). Three interviews were taken in spring 2003 and one in autumn 2003 (Hjartarson and Macdonald 2004).

The largest school has 590 pupils and the smallest has 350 pupils. In 2001 in a survey of self-reported ICT skills of teachers in three of these schools were all very close to the national average based on a sample of 1365 teachers (Lemke, work in progress). The teachers judged themselves to be reasonably competent in word processing, and the use of e-mail and the internet, but much less competent in using spreadsheets, databases or multimedia programs.

Three of the policy interviews were taped and transcribed. The fourth policy interview was a so-called “e-interview” where the interviewee responds to an initial set of about three to five questions, similar to those used to open up the face-to-face interview, and these are then followed by two more sets of questions which build in part on the response to earlier questions. The pupil interview was taped and transcribed. The interviews with three principals and ICT staff members were not taped, but detailed notes were taken and a summary of the interviews written up immediately afterwards. Two other members of the LearnICT team participated in these three interviews with one of us (MAM). The fourth principal was interviewed by the other of us (TH) and was taped and transcribed. All the interviews were semi-structured, with the pupil interview being the most spontaneous. Notes on the field visits were written up immediately afterwards.

Activity theory

We will use some aspects of activity theory in the analysis (Engeström, 1987). The two groups, policy-makers and pupils, operate in different activity systems. Activities are designed to lead to an outcome: each system, pupil and policy-maker, has its own outcome. Activities are carried out by actors on tasks. Tasks can also be thought of as goals which change continually in time as previous goals are achieved. Instruments/tools are used to mediate activities that take place within communities which have distinct social and cultural features. Activities occur according to sets of rules, written and unwritten. A division of labour exists to carry out the tasks within each system.

Now we move to a consideration of the construction of the curriculum. First we will consider the views of policy-makers and the outcome. Then we will consider the pupils’ system and their views and experiences of ICT.

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POLICY-MAKERS AND THE ITE CURRICULUM

Rules and roles

The minister had a clear idea of how he wanted to go about revising the curriculum. Lines of communication were short and direct (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Organisation chart for the review of the ITE national curriculum. (Interviewees shown in bold).

Minister

Assistant to the minister Civil servants

ICT policy Curriculum policy

committee committee

Project manager Department heads

Project management committee Departmental staff

Subject coordinators (8)

(ITE coordinator)

Preparatory

groups

(chairman NATIONAL

ITE group) Workgroups CURRICULUM

The revision was to be managed according to a very tight timetable and a very structured framework. The minister said:

I did not intend to begin again, I intended to carry on. If I had said that I wanted to rediscover the wheel that would not have been a sensible thing to do. Naturally it was the same party…..so there were people on the political scene who had knowledge and a definite attitude (Minister, interview, November 2003).

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The Minister appointed a young man who had direct access to him as project manager. Of the established ministerial staff, three senior department heads5 formed a management committee with the project manager. The committee made final decisions on educational rather than administrative matters, and both the minister and project manager mentioned in interviews how valuable it was to be able to draw on their experience.

Who were the ‘specialists’ constructing the curriculum? The minister, as project leader, was a middle-aged man, newspaper journalist and editor, early IT user and experienced politician. The project manager was a young man from the same party, with graduate studies in politics at Oxford. The ITE coordinator was a young man, a qualified house builder, with a B.A. in sociology and anthropology and some IT training. The chairman of the ITE preparatory group was a young male university professor, with a Ph.D. from USA in electrical engineering and the committee had seven members: one woman, three teachers and four university staff.

We asked the policy-makers about their views on education at the time of the project, and what they considered their own roles to be in the curriculum revision. The minister felt that he had no particular preconceived notions on the role of education and the education system before he became minister. He said:

I naturally had no ideas when I came in as minister, I didn’t know when I went to the party meeting 23rd April that I would come out of the meeting as Minister of Education. (Minister, interview, November 2003).

The minister indicated that his contribution to the curriculum revision was primarily to build a framework for the project: “We knew exactly how wanted to do it”. But the professional content was to come from experts, including the ministry officials and teachers:

And you [the teachers] must come with the content for all of this. (Minister, interview, November 2003).

The project manager attributed his appointment to the task of revising the curriculum to the fact that he did not have an extensive background in the area and could thus bring a fresh perspective to it. He had come home from Oxford shortly before with a view of the difference in English and Icelandic education and had carried out a hsort assignment in the ministry. He felt that education in England required students to develop analytical skills but Icelandic education relied more on descriptive skills. He said:

It is not until the student himself puts an effort into thinking that begins to really understand and it is not until he begins to understand that he starts to learn. So maybe it was with this basic idea that I came into the project and then of course the Minister and I also had a common understanding. (Project manager, interview, October 2003)

The subject coordinator had encountered some curriculum theory through his wife when she was taking a course in special education, and it had reminded him of the history of operations management in the early 1900s. When the project manager advertised for the

5 The department head for compulsory schools died in 2001. He had served in the ministry for about 30 years, for a long time in the development division, and had taken part in curriculum development within the ministry in the 1970s and 1980s. He undertook graduate studies in the USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He oversaw the process of moving compulsory schooling from national to local control.

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post of ITE coordinator, he felt that it was a task he could take on. As a builder he felt he was used to working within an organised framework. The emphasis on meeting the individual needs of the child also appealed to him. He felt that the national curriculum could be some kind of map of knowledge, with different ways of getting to the same destination, and that was the role of educational authorities to map out some of the ways. Subject specialists were brought in, each to plan their own maps, and this resulted in considerable congestion in the final product:

I don’t think it was the intention to build this “Chinese wall”. It was rather the response of a system which believes that there is only one point of departure to certain knowledge, one defined gate. And everybody has to go through this exact gate. I feel that this is the worst consequence of the national curriculum. (Subject coordinator, October-November 2003)

The subject coordinator also ended up being partly responsible for the new subject life-skills and found several connections with the ITE work he was doing:

…there was a certain view of man, which we could call the trinity of body, soul (personality) and spirit. This has a correspondence with the external environment, i.e. nature, society and culture. (Subject coordinator, October-November 2003)

One of the contentious issues was how much the curriculum should reflect reality as it was or serve as impetus for growth and change:

……The extension approach was chosen…. I got criticised for exactly this i.e. because of ICT. The problem was though of a different kind because students could cope with the goals, but it was worse for the teachers, the majority could not cope with them and didn’t even understand them. (Subject coordinator, October-November 2003)

The ITE chairman of the preparatory group worked closely with the ITE coordinator. He felt that his background as an academic and an electrical engineer must have played a part in his selection and that he felt it incumbent upon him to introduce more technology and methodology into the curriculum:

..[my role] was to promote the way engineers think, try to get children to think that way, from the methodology that engineers use, which is just general methodology, define how things should be and then design a process to get there. We also wanted to bring computers into learning,…. We wanted it across [the different subjects] rather than too much of a separate subject…it was also important that children learnt to type properly. (Chairman, ICT preparatory group, October 2003)

Curriculum as object and outcome

The ITE curriculum is available in printed form and on the internet (MESC 1999b). Two periods a week (of 30 to 35) are assigned to ITE up to the 8th grade and it can be offered as an option in 9th and 10th grade. The curriculum booklet itself has four sections, but in the introduction it is stated that ITE consists of three curriculum areas: information studies; creativity and applied knowledge; and design and construction.

The first curriculum area – information studies – is about more than being skilled at computer use:

Information literacy is the knowledge and ability needed to collect, sort, process and communicate information in a critical and creative manner. …. This skill is the basis for lifelong learning. … Information literacy is the core of information studies. It is necessary to

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emphasise very much that each student is capable of collecting information in an independent manner.

The second curriculum area – creativity and applied knowledge – gives readers a glimpse of the type of activities which the curriculum planners envisaged for pupils:

[it] is concerned with engaging the ideas of students to find ways in which the knowledge and skills of particular school subjects can be applied to solve problems, meet needs or create other relevant goods….. [it] is thus both practical education and promotes innovation.

The third area – design and construction – is not considered in this study.

There is a detailed section on computer use and the development of computer skills in the curriculum document. With hindsight it may have been a mistake to have this section at the beginning rather than at the end of book. Competence in computer use is considered a prerequisite for the teaching of the other sections. The section on the development of computer-related skills is detailed and a rationale is given:

The application of information technology and the use of computers is a working technique which influences all aspects of national life. It is thus necessary that such technology and working methods have an appropriate place in basic schools. Teaching and learning in all subjects need to take this into account.

Summary

The minister saw his role as being one of facilitating a necessary change; he wanted to ensure a flexible curriculum though with fixed measurable standards to be achieved by pupils. The project manager had a view of education as being a powerful tool and felt that with his background he could make a contribution to the education system. These two and the management committee provided the framework for the contribution to be made by subject specialists.

The ITE coordinator and the preparatory and work groups provided the content that went into the framework. The coordinator was of the view that curriculum making was the construction of a map of knowledge but was also interested in the individual. Despite his humanistic views he saw advantages in approaching the problem systematically, especially with regard to ITE. The chairman of the ITE preparatory group felt strongly that it was important to encourage a certain way of thinking and working, and wanted to encourage innovation and design.

The key decision-makers, mostly men,6 had short-term appointments and were required to carry out specific tasks within defined time-frames. There is a clear division of labour among key figures; the minister and the manager provided the framework and set deadlines; the coordinator and the chairmen introduced and shaped the content. There is however no sense of rupture; the use of ICT in schools was actively encouraged by the minister from the outset and the project manager saw the project as an opportunity for new ways of thinking in schools. Chapters of the curriculum such as Innovation and the application of knowledge would have been in accordance with those views. 6 The gender issue is one that must still be explored. All the key policy-makers in constructing the curriculum were men. There was one woman in the preparatory group, a typing teacher. Yet the two policy committees that were set up by the minister, one to consider curriculum issues, the other the development and use of ICT, were largely female, the latter being run by the assistant to the minister.

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Twining (2002) suggested three categories where the computer is used as a tool for learning (see earlier): support, extension and transformation. The curriculum of the policy-makers encompasses all three, but it would be fair to say that in the three curriculum areas - information studies, creativity and applied knowledge, and technology and design – they set their hopes on transformation. Here learning would be built on new content and new processes and requiring the use of a computer. The use of computers was expected to be as common-place as pen and pencil use and the skills to be learnt in the three areas of the ITE curriculum were indeed considered the key to both individual and national development.

PUPILS AND THE ICT CURRICULUM

In our interviews with the project manager and the ITE coordinator comments were made by them on whether the ITE curriculum was difficult for teachers but easier for pupils, and possibly already out-of-date because of changes in this field of technology. How realistic were the views of the policy-makers? Had they captured the essence of the information skills wanted or needed by pupils? Would pupils find Information and technology education relevant?

The pupils in the focus group were very relaxed and seemed to enjoy the interview, though one boy said less than the others, perhaps because the girl from his school often answered first. All the youngsters wanted to complete upper secondary school and go to university and they were all involved in a wide range of social activities outside school, ranging from sport to music to computers. Several of them were on the student council. The general view was that their parents did not involve themselves much in their schooling, especially now that they had reached lower secondary, and mostly the parents were basically too busy themselves. This was a confident young group of individuals, taking responsibility for themselves, with a wide range of interests.

The pupils were accustomed to using computers, some having first encountered them in pre-school activities ten years earlier, and were well aware of rapid technological development. All their homes had at least one computer, connected to the internet and at least one of those with a wireless connection. They mentioned though that they knew of homes that did not have a computer. Out-of-school computer activities included talking to others on MSN, working on blogg sites, playing computer games (sometimes at an Internet café), a couple were involved in some programming and the making of websites, and using e-mail. They also downloaded films and music. Their parents generally did not keep track of what they did on the computer. Two of the student councils had websites and the third was preparing one.

Pupils had no trouble when asked what they understood by the term “information and communication technology”:

I understand it as a tool that you use to communicate with others and to collect information - you use the computer as a servant and give it instructions to fetch data for you, and to make a myriad of things. (pupil, boy)

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It seems to me that it is a computer and everything that is possible to do with a computer, look for information, MSN and so on. (pupil, girl)

Opinions were divided on whether there should be compulsory courses in ICT in the 9th and 10th grade or not.7 This view seemed to be related to their experience of earlier computer courses. It had been tedious because everyone had to go through the same material at the same pace, and some children were very slow. The pupils said, for example:

They were mainly teaching those who hadn’t yet learnt it.

We learnt the same thing year after year and we learnt nothing new.

During IT skills course some of them had been allowed to go on to a mathematics web-site to do extra examples when they were finished the task for the day. Very little multimedia material was used by teachers. A couple mentioned that they would like to learn more about programming and working with sound, “something demanding” said one boy. The pupils could envisage more demands being made of them with regard to the development of IT skills:

I think that most people know how to write on the computer and there is no need to teach it year after year... They should rather concentrate on the Internet more and things which are more difficult and all kinds of software which are more complicated

When asked about the use of computers in schools, the general opinion was that they could be used much more than they are being used at present. Only a limited number of computer options are being used to any advantage, with an emphasis on the presentation of material rather than as learning tool. Pupils mentioned that they felt it necessary to learn to make transparency shows with PowerPoint. Using a computer for schoolwork was seen as practical rather than creative:

You can hand in a handwritten essay but that is seldom done and you certainly won´t get a high mark for a handwritten essay (girl, 14 yrs)

There was no access to computers in the school after formal lessons, except for those in distance programs, though the pupils could use computers in school breaks. They saw possibilities for using search facilities, for example in biology:

Sometimes we are not allowed to use references from the Internet or you have to have some from books – I think that is stupid (boy, 14 yrs)

Some optional courses in the 9th and 10th grade are of the distance learning variety, and may involve the use of ICT only as a tool and not as a subject in itself. One school in our sample offers an optional course in creative writing with several other schools, and the two students in our group from that school are taking that course. One of the boys was taking a distance learning course in ….. with a local secondary school, an option which is becoming more popular across the country.

When asked about the characteristics of a good teacher, they mentioned strictness, patience, reliability and caring for individuals combined with fairly traditional methods of direct teaching:

7 We have heard from upper secondary teachers that new students show a wider range of computer competence after the optional courses were introduced. Some are extremely capable, while others that don’t take these courses have not necessarily maintained the skills they might have learnt by the end of 8th grade.

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I think a teacher should explain, do examples on the board, use the overhead projector, control the teaching altogether. (pupil, boy)

The pupils felt that many of their teachers were not able to teach ‘well’, and that some of them needed to be retrained. When asked about the (learning) demands made of them by teachers, they referred only to written examinations. They did not like it when teachers sprung tests on them, nor when work was not returned when promised. Although we observed later that some teachers were trying to use discussion methods, logbooks, portfolio assessments and cross-curricular work, the pupils were not happy on the whole with the kind of teaching they were getting. The group felt though that they had not experienced much cooperative work.

When asked in what way they would like to change schools, one of the first points raised was to re-educate teachers, and as we the interviewers were seen as representatives of teacher education, the remarks were quite pointed:

Why can’t the university make an offer to schools, offer courses for teachers, increase continuing education. (pupil, girl)

It is all so quick to change that one has to keep up. (pupil, boy)

New teaching methods needed to cater more for the individual, said the pupils. One boy wanted to see more experimental work in schools, especially using travel computers, which were easier to carry around than lots of books. It is worth noting that the local education authority has been encouraging schools and teachers through policy documents and courses to develop ways of providing individualized learning experiences for pupils.

School principals organised the programmes for our school visits. In one school the lessons observed all involved the use of ICT. This school has been developing methods of portfolio assessment and some teachers have participated in a project run by another school on the use of video clips. In the other school some lessons did not involve the use of ICT though some of the teachers involved showed us examples of ICT use in earlier topics.

We saw examples of ICT being used in a compulsory foreign language class and in a cross-curricular topic involving science and English. One 8th grade group prepared scripts in Danish for short videos to be shown on the net and then went off to tape the videos. An early-morning 10th grade group had to plan a trip through Europe to sites of scientific interest using a programme (in English) called Autoroute. A third group of 10th grade pupils in an optional course had to prepare a critique of a film as a home-page with video clips. Pupils had a choice of topics, films and routes within these assignments; there was a measure of creativity within the learning demands made by the teachers. All the work to be done was to be done during the school day using school facilities.

One year-class of 6th grade pupils had been preparing essays on an Icelandic historical figure chosen by the teachers. The pupils used a word-processor and had to use at least two printed and two net-based sources. The teachers had provided individual feedback at several points in the writing of the essay, thus exploiting the advantages of word-processing while at the same time getting students used to the idea of getting feedback and the need to respond to it. The teachers reported that they had expected the

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pupils to work on their essays at home and indeed had relied on pupils getting help at home; this had not worked well in one of the three classes, which had then fallen behind the agreed upon time-table. Some of the work in school was carried out in the computer centre, and some in the classroom.

Summary

This group of teenage pupils was articulate and ambitious. They knew what they wanted and were not afraid to say so. They did not feel that they had experienced much by way of individualised teaching and held fairly traditional views of what constitutes good teaching. In school visits we saw examples of teachers trying to develop more individualized approaches.

Out-of-school the pupils engage in a wide range of computer-related activities, using the computer to communicate with friends and keep track of them, and in some cases to create web-pages or music.

Their experience of computer use in schools is of two kinds. On the one hand, they have been through a period of fairly unrewarding IT lessons over the last few years where few demands have been made on the more competent pupils. Basic computer skills have been taught, including touch typing. On the other hand, the most common use of the computer across the curriculum is in presenting slide shows or preparing essays. There is no indication that the advantages of computer work for reviewing one’s return work had been emphasised during their middle-school years but again we saw examples of teachers trying new approaches.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Policy-makers wanted a much revised national curriculum, even a ‘new’ curriculum in some areas. Simola (1998) in speaking of the development of the national curriculum in Finland has spoken of ‘wishful rationalism’ where policy-makers try to put an educational vision into practice in an organised way through the curriculum. The policy-makers in Iceland are similar; they wanted a curriculum that would promote analytical rather than descriptive thinking and that would encourage a methodology that would promote innovation. They hoped for a cross-curricular approach and envisaged topic work across several subjects where computer use, the development of information literacy skills and the creation of new knowledge would be an underlying theme in teaching and learning. Through a project approach, with fixed tasks and deadlines, they set out to create just such a curriculum. The task was not insurmountable, it could be done; it was just a question of doing it.

For better or worse, the outcome was such that the policy-makers produced a curriculum that has been interpreted by many as prescriptive, with long lists of things to know and do within each subject and year, fixed tasks and deadlines. The school curriculum developed on the basis of the national curriculum is invariably characterised by

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a single-subject approach though sometimes the ‘integration’ of computer use with other subjects is sometimes mentioned, indicating that ICT is a ‘subject’ rather than a tool..

Of the three areas which constitute the ITE curriculum only one area (information studies) seems to be implemented to any degree. Considerable time and energy is being put into the supposed prerequisite, computer use. ‘Computers’ or ‘information education’ appear on school timetables, and are still taught separately rather than across the curriculum in the schools we visited.8 Creativity and applied knowledge and design and construction are rarely found in published school curricula; it remains to be seen in further work whether they are found in practice. The ITE national curriculum undergoes a narrow interpretation within schools - as being for IT skills, not for using ICT as a tool in learning nor for the broader vision and rationale of ITE.

What meaning do the pupils bring to ITE? They see the computer as a tool and in their out-of-school activities, their use of ICT is collaborative through games and web-site construction, it is communicative through using MSN and blogg-sites and it is creative through web-sites and in some cases programming.

What happens though when the pupils enter school? They find that they are expected (yet again) to learn how to use a computer and that they will get better marks if they use a word-processor for essays. Many of their teachers are not especially competent in using ICT though some will use slide-shows instead of writing notes on the board; the point is that the students are still expected to write all these notes down by hand. IT or ICT is most often a synonym for ‘computers’ and is taught as a separate subject; rarely integrated into other classes and when it is, computers are used for transmission of knowledge, not for the creation of knowledge. There are signs though, seen in our field visits, that some teachers, often with the support given through participation in projects (examples include developing visual techniques or cross-curriculum work with library staff) are trying out new technologies, 9 but these lessons are not part of the accumulated experience of pupils, four to five years after the introduction of the new curriculum.

The affordances of modern technology are clear to pupils outside school. Yet the skills and understandings they are developing outside school are generally not being considered by teachers as a means of carrying out learning tasks inside school. The pupils are rather matter-of-fact about this situation not least because their own expectations of what constitutes “good teaching” are coloured more by what has been rather than what might be. We could say that their approach to the curriculum is one of ‘tolerant pragmatism’. They may be frustrated with their learning tasks, but accept the situation. They sit through some lessons which they don’t enjoy or are not challenging, but neither they (nor perhaps their teachers) have understood or accepted information skills or

8 One of the four schools will not timetable ‘computer use’ in 2004-2005; the principal wants to encourage a more cross-curricular approach.9 One of the graduate research projects being carried out within LearnICT concerns an understanding of the ways in which teachers become skilled at using IT in teaching and learning.

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creativity and applied knowledge as necessary parts of the school curriculum, the experienced curriculum.

As mentioned early in the paper, the work being reported here is also part of a larger study. Here we have listened to the voices of policy-makers and of pupils and we have found that the dreams of the policy-makers have not become a reality for pupils. On the one hand we have a view of education founded upon a view of the needs of a critical modern society, characterised by creativity and collaboration. On the other hand we have teaching and learning tasks defined for pupils by schools and teachers in terms of school subjects and the progressive accumulation of largely factual knowledge and the acquisition of technical skills. Pupils spend much of their time in school in an apparent time-warp, far from the modern information society of Iceland. We will continue in the LearnICT project to research the voices of teachers and software developers in the construction of the ITE curriculum. Work so far suggests that principals, in decentralised schools, can be heard as a distinct voice as well when it comes to the construction of the school curriculum (work in progress).

The crucial questions with regard to construction concern the tools used in the task of creating and conceptualising the ‘curriculum’ and the community of actors which is using these tools.

Policy-makers in Iceland adopted what Reid (1998) calls the Dominant perspective in its setting of aims and objectives and the selection of a sequence of learning experiences. At the same time they wanted to emphasise the individual and his or her place in society not unlike Reconceptualists who seek to concern themselves with educational principles. We have found here that within the actors themselves and their community of policy-makers there is a tension, a contradiction.

For many hundreds of years the laws of Iceland were decided at the parliament which was held once a year on a site where the North Atlantic rift is both beautiful and visible. The laws were read into being by the speaker. In this modern-day study we have found that in the rumblings between the disciplines and the individual in society, the tools of rationalism and project management led to the disciplinary view becoming the law. The law itself comes in twelve volumes most easily identified by the names of largely traditional school subjects. The law has become the tool for the construction of the curriculum in the Icelandic school system and in its renegotiation the notion of subject or discipline has the upper hand. ITE perforce becomes a ‘school subject’ and not a cross-curricular tool, not a way of tackling life, not a basis for creativity and innovation. The rift is there, hidden in the law; the collectivist disciplinary tradition (Reid 1998) pulls education one way, the notion of the individual, the person in society, pulls it the other way.

The ancient parliament relied on age and accumulated wisdom. The modern parliament of curriculum-making relied on younger men wise in rational modernity. No public servants existed in ancient times, no curriculum specialists were consulted in modern times. The young of the nation were not allowed to interrupt the conversation of

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their wiser elders, took no part in the process. They were and are the recipients of the laws, as interpreted by local chiefs on their return to their districts, far from the rift, in a land shaped by climate and eternity, by computer software and hardware and by an eternity of traditions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank the policy-makers, pupils, principals and ICT supervisors for their contribution to this study. We thank the Icelandic Centre for Research and the Iceland University of Education for their financial support. We thank our colleagues in the LearnICT project for discussions.

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Documents

The construction of the ICT curriculum in Icelandmennta.hi.is/vefir/namust/allyson_thorsteinn_rift9.doc · Web viewWorkgroups were instructed to prepare sets of final goals for all