ICT in Education

Prananath Barui

Gangadharpur Sikshan Mandir

Email Id – prananathbarui@gmail.com

Introduction

Information and communications technology (ICT) is an accepted element in all our lives and
has a central role to play in education. Since the appearance of the first Government policy
on ICT in education in 1997, a substantial investment has been made in ICT facilities and
training in Irish schools. In Ireland, as in other countries, the debate about ICT in education
concentrates on the potential impact of ICT on teaching and learning and on the measures
that need to be adopted to ensure that the potential of ICT to enrich students’ learning
experience is realised. This Inspectorate report presents the findings of a major evaluation of
the impact of ICT on teaching and learning in both primary and post-primary schools in
Ireland. The evaluation set out to establish the extent to which ICT was used in the schools
at both levels and, more importantly, to assess the impact ICT had on teaching and learning,
including the ways in which ICT is used to facilitate the learning of students with special
educational needs. The views of principals and teachers about their own ICT skills, and their
opinions about the impact and future role of ICT in education, were sought during the
evaluation.

ICT in the curriculum

The revised Primary School Curriculum was launched in 1999. The introduction to the
curriculum states: Technological skills are increasingly important for advancement in
education, work, and leisure. The curriculum integrates ICT into the teaching and learning
process and provides children with opportunities to use modern technology to enhance their
learning in all subjects (Department of Education and Science, 1999, p. 29). As this
statement suggests, ICT in the primary curriculum is seen primarily as a tool for facilitating
teaching and learning throughout the curriculum, rather than as a subject in its own right.
The teacher guidelines that accompany the curriculum document for each area provide
detailed suggestions on how ICT can be used to best effect in the teaching and learning of
the particular subject.

Investment in ICT in education

Since the introduction of the ICT in Schools Initiative in 1998 the Government has made a
substantial investment in the integration of ICT in teaching and learning. As manifested in
the NCTE census described later in this chapter, this investment has resulted in significant
progress in the development of ICT infrastructure in schools.

ICT Infrastructure

ICT infrastructure census in schools (2005) Beginning in 1998, the NCTE conducted a
number of censuses of ICT infrastructure in schools. The most recent of these, the fourth
since 1998, was carried out in May and June 2005. The previous census was carried out in
2002. The report of the 2005 census gives a valuable insight into the development of the ICT
infrastructure in schools at both primary and post-primary level (Shiel & O’Flaherty, 2006). In
so doing it presents an overview of the results of Government investment in ICT while at the
same time providing an indication of the need for further investment in the future. The
census report provides a comprehensive overview of the ICT infrastructure in schools. The
remainder of this section gives a summary of the salient features of the report.

ICT Equipment in School

ICT equipment in schools The NCTE census gathered data on other aspects of schools’ ICT
infrastructure as well as computers. The most commonly found ICT equipment after the
computer was a scanner. This equipment was found in more than 80% of schools across all
sectors, with close to 90% of post-primary schools reporting having a scanner. The next
most commonly found items of equipment across all sectors were printers and digital (still)
cameras. While printers were commonly found across all sectors laser printers were much
more common in post-primary schools, with almost 90% of those schools having a laser
printer, compared with 38% of primary schools.

ICT and assessment

Schools should develop strategies for evaluating the impact of ICT at different levels in the
school, so that staff members are confident in assessing its influence on teaching and
learning. Schools should exploit the benefits of ICT in their assessment procedures and
practices beyond purely administrative functions. This could include using ICT to assess,
track and analyse students’ progress through the use of appropriate software. Consideration
could also be given to assessing students’ ICT skill levels at particular times during their
schooling.

Reference

Accenture (2004). ICT—the Indispensable Sector in the Knowledge Based Economy. Dublin: ICT
Ireland.

Barton, R. (1997). “Computer aided graphing a comparative study.” Journal of Information

Technology for Teacher Education, 6(1), 59-72.

Barton, R. (1998). “IT in practical work: assessing and increasing the value added.” In J. Wellington
(Ed.), Practical work in school science: which way now? London: Routledge.

Department for Education and Skills (2004). DfES Annual Survey of Information and Communications
Technology in Schools. Retrieved 5 March 2007, from

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000480/SFR27-2004v6.pdf

Conclusion

Currently, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in education does
not conclusively demonstrate signi fi cant effects on learning. However, not all ICT usage
models are designed to affect student outcomes. Therefore, to accurately study the impact
of ICT, the concept of an educational programme supported by ICT must first be defined.
The authors propose the ICT for Education (ICT4E) programme, an evidence-based
framework to determine a model ’ s ability to produce improvements before having to
evaluate its results. The framework has four components: implementation, intervention,
transference and total cost. Based on an explicit definition of the outcomes pursued by a
given programme, this framework supports the design of its activities to promote sustainable
changes in pedagogical practices in schools and calculate the programme ’ s total cost. The
authors illustrate this with a programme implemented in six countries. In Chile, the ICT4E
programme forms part of the policy for educational technology, evaluating the effectiveness
and scalability of such initiatives.