EduSummIT 2011: Restructuring educational systems to move into the digital age

Niki Davis, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Birgit Eickelmann, TU Dortmund University, Germany

Mariana Patru, Teacher Policy and Development Section, Division for Planning and Development of Education Systems, UNESCO, France

Renate Schulz-Zander, TU Dortmund University, Germany

Peter Dzvimbo, UNISA, South Africa.

Longer draft version, mid May: Introduction

This brief paper has been commissioned to inform the policy and decision makers as well as leading educators attending the EduSummIT11 at UNESCO in Paris 8-10th June 2011.The aim of this brief paper is to set the stage for discussions to identify the most effective policies and strategies to promote transformative and sustainable ICT-enabled changes in educational systems so as to help them meet the needs of digital age learners and the challenges of a rapidly changing knowledge and technology-based global society.

The specific actions of EduSummIT09 Call to Action  covered in this paper are:

• To radically restructure schools to be able to use multiple technology-enhanced pedagogies to address individual needs of students
• To develop and use distributed leadership models for technology use in schools and teacher education programs

The international experts led by Niki Davis aim to promote change of networked educational organisations worldwide in line with UNESCO’s goal of Education for All. Niki Davis who provided a handbook chapter (Davis, 2008) that identified an areana for ecological perspective on change and was rapporteur for the research stream of EduSummiT 20009. Niki led actions within interim events including SITE and the Sydney Symposium and is a member of IFIP WG 3.3.  Birgit Eickelmann whose national and international empirical research is towards the use of ICT as a school innovation and the aquision of computer and information literacy. Renate Schulz-Zander is an expert in national and international educational technology research, has directed various research and development projects and was chair for the teacher and learner stream of EduSummiT 20009. She has been National Research Coordinator for SITES M2 and coopted member of the German PIRLS 2006 Consortium as expert for ICT in education. She is co-author of a handbook chapter on Observation Measures for Determining Attitudes and Competencies Toward Technology (Schulz-Zander, Pfeifer, & Voss, 2008).The reach of our expertise has been extended by Mariana Patru UNESCO education sector with support from Peter Dzvimbo, UNISA, South Africa.

Research update on paper topic

ICT-enabled teaching and learning fit well with constructivist pedagogies and networked approaches to learning and teaching plus professional and organisational development. (Renate's comment: I would prefer not to focus only on constructivist pedagogies. IT also fit well with other pedagogies. Following e.g. Dede (2008)(handbook chapter)). The co-evolution of ICT and schooling lead to increased complexity for organisation and management within and beyond schools, including classes and projects engaged in by learners attending a range of schools. This co-evolution is extremely challenging and it involves many adjustments to educational practices and to resources, such that innovative schools may drop back from the embedding of ICT (Eickelmann, 2011; Law et al, 2010). 

21st century educational organisations are finding some strategies for the following, and more are needed:

• the wide range of students' 21st century skills, including ways to develop information literacy and access to ICT (Renate's comment: There are different terms in use, such as IT literacy, in Germany we use the term "media literacy". Is it common sense that we use information literacy in the context of EduSummIT?)
• continue to evolve improved ICT tools that are accessible to students (e.g. cloud based wikis for teaching and learning, see Eickelmann 2010; Derndorfer 2010)
• promote organisational structures that encourage teachers to use ICT effectively with students and to develop their own competencies
• individualized learning relevant to the individual needs of learners in all learning areas that includes with trustworthy assessment
• student-centred learning that is likely to require student-owned mobile ICT devices for formal and informal learning in mulitple locations.

Renate: Multilevel analysis of the German PIRLS 2006 show that in addition to cognitive skills and the social index teacher cooperation related to the exchange of IT-knowledge had a positive effect on the reading achievement of primary students (Schulz-Zander, Eickelmann, & Goy, 2010).
The required organisational development depends on distributed leadership within and across schools and those who support them, including the communities in which they are embedded (Davis, 2011; Eickelmann, 2011). Distributed leadership is a form of school management in which not one person but a group of persons provide leadership within a school (and across collaborating schools). The necessity of distributing leadership in it tasks and responsibility has special relevance for the implementation of ICT into schools. Studies have shown that the school principal has to be involved in the implementation process along with complementary leadership roles distributed to other people who lead in formal or informal ways and embody the adoption of ICT. This distribution of leadership is necessary to support effective pedagogical integration of ICT, which requires relevant goal-oriented restructuring to fulfill the educational mission of the organisations involved. (Renate's comment: If this statement is evidence-based we should include a citation? Otherwise we should be more careful in phrasing this sentence: "...is necessary to support effective pedagogical integration..." E.g. multilevel analyses of the German DESI (Klieme, Steinert, & Hochweber, 2010)couldn't verify that school characteristics have an effect on achievement and motivation.)'

Research indicates that change within each school counts. School leaders are recommended to take account of the following supportive factors of sustainable ICT implementation to respond to the rapid development of ICT and education (Eickelmann, 2011):

• Principals in successful schools have strong leadership skills: they used their power to promote ICT-use underpinned by a sound understanding of the potentials of ICT to enhance learning.
• Distributed school leadership uses the radius of operation to cope with ICT-implementation challenges on the process level, and avoids lack of action by externalizing problems.
• Establish cooperation with external partners to raise funding, e.g. with companies and the education authorities’ ICT-related initiatives
• Develop intra-school cooperation, e.g. coaching and the de-privatization of classroom practice that integrate better with the school culture drawing on ICT-related and pedagogical knowledge of their teaching staff.
• Strategize to cope with new digital trends, e.g. staff development schemes, private-public partnerships, increase technical support staff.
• Select and continue to support an ICT-infrastructure that goes hand in hand with existing and prospective pedagogical aims.
• Disseminate the value of ICT’s potential to enhance learning within the whole school.
• Closely link ICT-use to existing and prospective pedagogical aims, e.g. language support for student migrants.
• Integrate ICT to enhance compulsory school programs and curricula.

Since 2009 significant restructuring has occurred with networked initiatives including cloud computing such as:

• The One Laptop Per Child initiative has instigated new systems for transforming access to child-friendly computers in many third world countries, while also stimulating other technical and educational developments. The OLPC ‘inoculation’ strategy is an early part of the systemic change in some countries (Derndorfer, 2010) and, with support from all levels in the educational systems, OLPC integration does result in ICT-enabled change.
• Sustained symbiotic partnerships with technology companies to provide curriculum materials, workshop facilities, accreditation and related professional development for teachers and the organisations adopting the curriculum, e.g. Cisco’s 10,000 Network Academies currently operating in 165 countries include secondary schools. Cisco benefits from the increased networking capacity locally and globally.
• The exponential growth of virtual schooling in North America has enabled research involving control groups that confirms the importance of professional development for educators based in ‘brick and mortar’ schools who facilitate students’ online learning. Mexico has its school curriculum in both Spanish and English in an online learning management system studied by migrant workers and their children at home and abroad. A variety of virtual schools and related services have emerged to complement the traditional educational system stimulated by state and federal initiatives and requirements (Davis, 2011).
• Economies of scale that have arisen with virtual schools and educational services enable production of online multiplayer games embedded within the curriculum that now go beyond basic skills, e.g. Florida Virtual School’s real game platform that may now be sold as a service to other schools in addition to provision of the related social studies course(s) to students in schools throughout Florida. However such online distance learning is not commonplace in many education systems. E.g., in Germany it only appears to connect German foreign schools (Global School Project).
• Ubiquitous access to cloud-based computing, although patchy, is emerging worldwide with strategies that blend formal and informal learning within and across age groups. Many countries have launched e-learning platforms for personalised learning by students and teachers where they may collaborate for learning and curriculum development. These include Switzerland and New Zealand with evolving Open Source guidance for organisational and pedagogical change.

...

Issues/Unresolved questions/concerns

Essential professional and organisational developments are dependent upon the engagement of school leaders. However, many school leaders have little knowledge of ICT-enabled 21st century learning (see McLeod Blog ‘dangerously irrelevant’). Research and development of the preparation of leaders for ICT-enabled learning is scarce (Davis, 2010). Even recent guidance for building capacity for ICT in teacher education (Lim et al. 2010) omits leadership of networked organizations.

Synchronising systemic changes prompted by adoption of ICT requires coherent leadership at many levels. ICT is often missing within quality assurance and its integration into standards and procedures by relevant agencies has lagged (Eickelmann & Schulz-Zander, 2010), which may also be linked with lack of 21st century knowledge by senior staff. This applies to both schools and teacher education (Davis 2011). Group assessment and electronic portfolios are examples of challenging innovations for nationwide assessment.

Indigenous cultures and others with minority worldviews find it more challenging to promote transformative and sustainable ICT-enabled changes in educational systems that fit with their worldviews, which decreases equity in educational systems (Gorski, 2009). Although challenging, the philosophy of indigenous people could assist sustainability of such innovations while also working to increase equity (Greenwood et al in Leigh, 2011).

The gender divide is one of the most significant inequalities to be amplified by the digital revolution, and cuts across all social and income groups. Throughout the world, women face serious challenges that are not only economic but social as well as cultural – obstacles that limit or prevent their access to, use of, and benefits from ICTs. UNESCO believes that unless gender issues are fully integrated into technology analyses, policy development and programme design, women and men will not benefit equally from ICTs and their applications. Without such explicit references to gender issues in ICT policy, the chances that women and girls will reap developmental benefits from the digital age are slim. Experience so far has shown that even where policies have been gender-aware, women’s and girls’ needs are likely to be neglected or ignored when it comes to policy implementation. Both in the first phase (Geneva, 2003) and the second phase (Tunis, 2005) of the World Summit on the Information Society countries reaffirmed “that development of ICTs provides enormous opportunities for women, who should be an integral part of, and key actors, in the Information Society. We are committed to ensuring that the Information Society enables women's empowerment and their full participation on the basis on equality in all spheres of society and in all decision-making processes. To this end, we should mainstream a gender equality perspective and use ICTs as a tool to that end.” 

Brief bibliography

• Derndorfer, C. (2010, October). OLPC in South America: An Overview of OLPC in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru. The Educational Technology Debate (ETD). Retrieved April 31, 2011 from http://edutechdebate.org/olpc-in-south-america/olpc-in-south-america-an-overview-of-olpc-in-uruguay-paraguay-and-peru/ 
• Eickelmann, B. (2011). Supportive and hindering factors to a sustainable implementation of ICT in schools. Journal for Educational Research Online,3,(1), 75-103.
• Gorski, P. (2009). Insisting on Digital Equity. Reframing the Dominant Discourse on Multicultural Education and Technology.Urban Education, 44(3), 348-364
• Law, N., Lee, M., & Chan, A. (2010). Policy impacts on pedagogical practice and ICT use: an exploration of the results from SITES 2006. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 465-477. 
• Leigh, P.R. (Ed.) (2011). International Explorations of Technology Equity and the Digital Divide: Critical, Historical and Social Perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press.
• Law, N., Lee, M., & Chan, A. (2010). Policy impacts on pedagogical practice and ICT use: an exploration of the results from SITES 2006. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 465-477.
• Leigh, P.R. (Ed.) (2011). International Explorations of Technology Equity and the Digital Divide: Critical, Historical and Social Perspectives. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Press.
• Plomp, T., Anderson, R. E., Law, N., & Quale, A. (2009). Cross-national Information and Communication Technology: Policies and practices in education. In Research in Educational Policy: Local, National, and Global Perspective. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
• UNESCO (2003). WSIS Gender Issues in the Information Society. Paris: UNESCO.