ICT is widespread use overall in New Zealand schools, but the uses to
which they are being applied to date do not exploit the powerful
potential of the technology. The most common areas of use are purely
in the areas of providing students with technical familiarity and
basic functional skills, or in ways which speed up or somewhat extend
the scope of existing approaches to learning. Some early adopters are
exploring the boundaries and experimenting with applications which
transform, or have the potential to transform, what schools do and how
they do it, but such uses are still scattered and tentative.
Conversely there still appear to be many in schools who do not believe
that computers are significant or important, while others believe that
computers should be avoided because they undermine traditional
scholarly verities. Next to no schools, and even very few researchers,
are yet addressing the fundamental issues of cognition and pedagogy
which are raised by the educational tool use of ICT. All of the
foregoing represents a profile of an early transitional phase in
technology uptake, although some would maintain that it is
representative of a passing educational fad.
All of the foregoing suggests that strategic planning by schools is
confronted by the twin difficulties of uncertainty as to purpose and
scope, and a constantly shifting technological target. These problems
lead to generally ill-formed approaches to strategic planning, or else
highly constrained instrumental approaches to is. These may well be
the most appropriate approaches given the current situation. Certainly
many of those projects generally admired as successful seem to have
been planned as an iterative exercise in evolutionary prototyping - an
approach which is rapidly becoming standard in the private sector.
Teacher capability is also constrained by the uncertainties and
complexities described in the previous two paragraphs. Teacher
confidence, capability and commitment is essential to any successful
and meaningful uptake of ICT, but the transitional circumstances lead
to differing opinions as to whether simple technical competence or
consideration of fundamental educational issues should take precedence
in professional development programmes for ICT. Lack of clarity on
this question, and the apparent failure to link professional
development to systematic needs assessment within individual schools,
appears to be leading to the mistargeting and misuse of much
professional development investment.
All of the foregoing calls into question the effectiveness of current
school spending on ICT. Our scoping data suggests that this whole
field is blighted by a fundamental and widespread misconception, which
we think of as the `just a tool' approach to the use of ICT. Tools are
not value-free inert objects. Values and assumptions are embedded in
their design, and in the ways users perceive them. The design of tools
impacts on the behaviour of the users, and the users manipulate tools
according to the values and assumptions they hold. This interactivity
between tools and users is a dynamic non-linear feedback loop which
transforms the activity the users of the tools are engaged in, with
the transformation capable of being tacit and unplanned, or explicit
and planned. When the tool is as latently powerful and flexible as is
the whole ICT family, then the potential for the transformation of
learning processes seems to us to represent a gathering storm of
change which schools and those in them are ill-prepared to weather -
if our scoping data is accurate.
In such transitional circumstances `success' in projects is a relative
concept. Satisfaction with what is introduced to schools seems to be
dependent largely on the capacity to align what is done to the
capabilities and perceptions of the day to day users, and that this in
turn depends on the quality of leadership and professional development
more than on the technical quality of the equipment. The most
significant practical issue is that of access, while community
suspicion - especially about the Internet - requires clear acceptable
use policies. It appears that New Zealand schools are well aware of
the former, while devoting little or no thought to the latter to date.
Phillip Capper
Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business (WEB Research)
PO Box 2855
7th Floor 142 Featherston Street
Wellington
New Zealand
Ph: (64) 04 499 8140
Fx: (64) 04 499 8395
pcapper who-is-at actrix.gen.nz