The need for visionary policiesfor teaching and learning for an ICT revolutionizing Society

Victor van Rij Far horizon working dinner2 December, 2010 Brussels

Teaching and learning for an ICT revolutionizing world

Communicative revolutions in human society

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10

5

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4

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2

10

1

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Oral communicationthrough language

Picture and symbol communication

Writing

Book printing

Mass educationMass media

Total interconnectivity

Years ago

Commonalities

• All these communication(r)evolutions had in common that they accompanied large innovative changes in society

• Speech made it possible to coordinate action (during hunting) and to teach the fabrication of tools

• Written language made it possible to have commerce and to keep record of possessions and to create proto science that was needed for effective agriculture

• Book printing coincides with what we nowadays call the age of enlightment and made it possible to create industrialisation and the modern state with its famous paperwork

• The present revolution allows us to communicate world wide and can be seen in the frame of the globalisation that takes place

• All of the revolutions not only had great impact on society but also on what we needed to learn to survive in the transformed world from speaking to writing and reading to typing and peresenting through different audio and visual means as well as computerssimulations ,websites , weblogs and so on

The characteristics of the ICT revolution

• Speed and range of communication• Global immediate communication and data transfer from many people to many people, Giga

bytes per second • Multimedia• Written information but also symbolic, audio and visual (real recordings) • Real mass communication• Almost everyone can send and receive

• Storage an full communication over time• Information including real audio-visual recording built up over time, communication to next

generations • Processing and Translation • Programming gives continuously new ways to process and visualize information in useful ways

• Interconnectiveness of people, computer-systems, datacollections , real time measurements and observation systems – and manufacturing systems - the internet of things

Clear relation educational output and Economic growth

Table taken from OECD report: The High Cost of Low Educational Performance THE LONG-RUN ECONOMIC IMPACT OF IMPROVING PISA OUTCOMES, OECD 2010

PISA

ICT and Economic growth

But what about the relation of education and ICT and Economy

• Will the effects multiply?? What do we know about this?

• What about the combination of high ICT investments and high basic PISA skills in upcoming economies?

• Especially if these skills are also focused on ICT use and development and deployment in society?

• What are actually basic skills/competencies of the coming decades

ICT competence will become a basic competence

• ICT literacy or even fluency is seen as one of the basic competences in the future decades

• Without this people can hardly survive in an ICT saturated world

(Inspired by Technology, Driven by Pedagogy A Systemic Approach to technology-Based School Innovations , OECD 2010 )

But what about the relation of education and ICT and Economy

In the report : The Future of Learning: European Teachers’ Visions. Report on a foresight consultation at the 2010 e Twinning Conference, Sevilla, 5-7 February 2010 we read:

Based on the results of the group work, the workshop participants considered the followingcompetences as very important for 2025:

Digital competences. This includes the competence to efficiently, confidently and critically use the technologies of 2025 in an efficient and targeted way. Information skills, such as searching, sifting, organizing, managing and evaluating information; judging the relevance and trustworthiness of sources and avoiding knowledge overload are considered a crucial part of future digital competences. Creating digital content was also considered important.Communication. Both mother tongue fluency and competences in foreign languages are very important, but the emphasis will be on using them as a means for communication with other people, not on grammatical correctness per se.Global citizenship. This is a versatile competence of understanding and being able to analysz the surrounding world, being social and part of the society, and assuming responsibility for taking care of the environment, also for future generations.Learning to learn. Being motivated to pursue one’s own learning progress and knowing how to process information, assigning meaning to it and converting it into knowledge, are important. People need to be able to set their own goals, strategies and evaluate risks. Theyneed to live their lives as a continuous learning experience.Working collaboratively. Collaboration was seen as a crucial skill that needs to be learned and practiced from early on in education, and remains an important form of working and interacting for all employees – including teachers. People need to learn to listen to others,

negotiate and accept others’ ideas, understand and work in different roles in teams, andparticipate in communities.Continuous skills updating. All employees, and especially teachers, need to be committed to continuous updating of skills related to their work. They need to be prepared to do this in their initial training and supported during their working lives. This skill includes autonomy, lifelong learning, flexibility and preparedness for continuous change and development,innovation and creativity.

Not everyone will achieve these competencies

http://www.21stcenturychallenges.org/focus/the-reasons-for-digital-exclusion/

It is clear that ICT and ICT literacy and fluency will make us more competitive. But there is another side of the ICT revolution coin which is exclusion of ICT and everything which is connected to this

Using the internet is now a daily activity for most people both at home and at work. But 17m people in the UK still do not have access to the web.

Exclusion projection UK : http://research.freshminds.co.uk/files/u1/shminds_report_understandingdigitalinclusion.pdf

Especially elderly will stay excluded

PRESENT PERCEPTIONS OF HIGH + MODERATE NEED OF ICT SKILLS DEVELOPMENT BY EXPERIENCE AND SEX OF TEACHER S

Teachers need to be thaught

Graph: With many thanks to Francesc Pedro of OECD

Schools need to be equipped and updated

ATARI 64Kb , HD 720 Kb,computer classroom exception

COMPUTE! ISSUE 40 / SEPTEMBER 1983

Desktop PC, 2 GB , HD 500 GB,

many classrooms - 2010

virtual classroom and new tools and gadgets to observe, learn and work,Create and communicate in www

30 yrs OS development

30 yrs Moore’s Law

Curricula and visions on what has to be learned need to change

• Curricula need to take into account what need to be learned in the fast changing ICT environment

• ICT changes not only the societal and economic dynamics in fundamental way but also professions and disciplines

• To develop curricula and learning material as well as teaching strategies incorporating the fast developing ICT, school and government have to develop common visions on the approach of these changes and the way to implement these in curriculum, learning environment and teaching practice on a continuous basis

What needs to be done

• Awareness of government, teachers , school management and teacher training has to be raised. Digital literacy and fluency need to be part of the basic educational objectives

• Training of teachers and implementation of new curricula that prepare people on the ICT (or Digital) revolutionizing world need not only professional support but require continuous high levels of additional investment

• These investments should come from additional Private and Public funding from the ICT industry which will pay back itself through innovation and higher national productivity in combination with increased use of ICT in society but probably to a far lesser extent by productivity increase of education itself.

• The level of this investment need depends on the speed of change of hardware and software , and their user friendliness which needs to be traded off to the investments required

What needs to be done

• To prevent a further widening of digital gaps between countries and different groups within the population special attention should be given to digital analphabetism as well as sex- and age related differences in uptake of the new technologies as well as differences between countries and regions

• To acquire competencies school but also households need all to be connected to the internet

• To realize successful policies, joint efforts are needed from different policy areas as employment, innovation , social policy and education