The National
Academies Press
Information
Technology Based Educational Materials:
Workshop
Report with Recommendations1
During times
of immense changing in the economy, society and therefore education
new ideas, new ways of thinking are necessary to be considered.
Though the workshop I wish to write about was held in 2002 its
message is still (even more) important now. Governments are forced to
balance their budgets and unfortunately education seems not to be the
most important field.
The
recommendations which were stated then (besides with other policy
papers and researches) can be used for other communities as well.
Therefore resources (time, human-resource, money) can be saved. We
should not forget the fact that some recommendations valid for one
situation may not be suitable for an other community. In this
respect these recommendations were developed in a totally different
social and economical environment. I will try to find the still-valid
lines and make them to be accurate for the present Hungarian
educational environment.
Before I
start the analysis of the main document I would like to emphasise
that the EU defines the digital competence as one of the 8
key-competence which the lifelong learning, knowledge-based society
is based on2.
Therefore we cannot afford to ignore these policy recommendations.
In this term
it will be interesting to see if these recommendations are
overlapping each other or direct to two different directions.
One of the
first sentences grabbed my attention. They examined the situation of
the STEM education and found that instead of overall changing
separated “islands” evolved. This might be true for Hungary today
(some schools, or rather teachers are keen on using IT tools in their
methodology, though the rest seems to use the old methods, materials,
and there is rarely cooperation between teachers and IT-teachers,
schools, institutions).
Recommendation
1. A precursor committee should be appointed in order to coordinate
national programmes and this organisation should develop a national
strategy to achieve the IT-based educational aims. A body appointed
by this organisation should have a long-term oversight in order to
coordinate future activities and initiations. In the present quickly
changing legal background of the Hungarian educational system it
seems (personally for me) impossible to sign a body which is
politically independent, and works alongside long-term policies.
Though I think if there were a body like this it could coordinate the
new policies to be harmonised with long-term aims, national,
international (e.g. OECD) and EU recommendations. As well as it could
serve as a coordinator between different involved organisations,
bodies and boards.
Recommendation
2. It refers to the continuity of the first workshop. This could be
the task of the precursor organisation. This should not be aimed to
verify the ongoing activities rather to evaluate and assess the
activities. The keywords for the workshop are the following:
interoperability, sustainability and wide dissemination. Hungary has
many thing to do in this field. There are few initiations to
introduce IT-tools into everyday education and they are often
separated. Of course many teachers and headmasters are constantly
working to change this, and the effects of their efforts could be
multiplied by connecting them.
Recommendation
3.
It goes in
details about the task of the precursor committee. (As the system of
the financial support is totally different in Hungary therefore it
would be necessary to identify methods based on the local legal
background.)
Recommendation
4. It involves a very important aspect, namely the copyright issue.
As Creative Commons are working in Hungary so all initiatives could
be build on CC framework. This might raise some resistance as we are
tend to insist to our rights (as well this can negatively influence
the sustainability of the whole initiation but with proper project
development we can avoid negative trends in financing).
Recommendation
5. We all know that pilot projects are important. Here they recommend
a national laboratory to be established. Not for the whole project
but to pilot test for the IT-tools, resources and practices. This
would represent the proper scientific background for the tools.
(In
Hungary where the connection between labour market and education is
emerging it could be proper tool for the representatives to meet
their expectations, needs and possibilities. This could make
co-financing – sustainability- possible. This is a difficult
and sensitive topic to be discussed and I
may not be the proper person to evaluate this, though
it seems to be a good idea for me – and the EU also recommends
these kinds of cooperation)
Recommendation
6. Not only present aims are important but the assessment and
evaluation of the implementation as well. Therefore it suggests that
a targeted
research agenda should be established for the development of social,
educational, and economic models for improved STEM learning in an
IT-enabled context.
Though
the researches in this field are not very common in Hungary
cooperation and international best-practice workshops could help us.
The
EU does not recommend institutional structures for reaching the aims.
Therefore we only could compare the aims (improve IT tools in
education, and not only in education. In many of the 7 flagship
initiation IT has a central role). For
Hungary most of these would be new, and hard to adapt to the
Hungarian possibilities but I think we can grab the good points and
turn them to our development. These recommendations are made for STEM
education and teaching, though think all subjects can find positive
directions in it.
I
liked this document because it had clear aims, and considered several
aspects. It is not about one single project but rather a programme
framework where good projects can be developed. Therefore it seems to
be flexible to react on economical changes. This framework might be
good to connect people who are committed in the development of
education.
We
still should not forget the innovative aspect as the EU expects as
adults the young generation has to work more, better and longer.
Reaching this enhancement in productivity (while keeping in mind
environmental, energy-efficiency, energy- conscious behaviour) we
have to see that (IT) innovations have significant role in this
aspect and teaching has a primary role in preparing the next
generation for the next era's challenges.
Abbreviations:
EU:
European Union
IT:
I used it for Information and Communication Technology
STEM:
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
1http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10768.html
2RECOMMENDATION
OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 18 December 2006 on
key competences for lifelong learning (2006/962/EC)