January 21, 2006

Information Communication Technology (ICT), to borrow a phrase coined by the British former education secretary Estelle Morris, is the current “combustion engine” of education. And while the MP for Yardley has departed high office, British schools are continuing to experience a rapid acceleration of technological change that her time as head of department helped create.

Last year £252 million was invested in ICT in primary and secondary schools. And, according to Gordon Brown, there’s plenty of gas left in the treasury’s tank.

The last few years have seen something of a shiny cavalcade of new technology being driven into a lot of schools in the West. Most of it has been imaginatively seized on by teachers and educationalists and, most passionately, by the children themselves.

But while the schools are wired with interactive whiteboards, plasma screens, laptops, palmtops and touch-sensitive tablet PCs, it is, according to ordinary primary teachers such as Lois Gunby of Brampton Ellis Junior School, the less complicated things that have the biggest impact.

“It’s actually the simple things you can do with technology that make it so effective,” explains the ICT coordinator of the C of E school near Rotherham. “Many teachers are worried that they’ll be expected to do amazing wiz-bang lessons once their new (interactive) Smartboards are in, and, while this is possible, in some lessons it’s the simple things that you can do that make the difference.”

While the important work by Nesta Futurelab dreams up a brave new worlds, it’s actually the creative use of ‘everyday’ pieces of software, like web browsers, spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, that teachers like Gunby are using to transform the delivery and management of school lessons.

Because introducing ICT into regular lessons such as history, science and music doesn’t have to be complicated, even the mundane can be utterly transforming with a little imagination. Giving primary children a few hours on a simple typing tutor (the blast-a-zombie computer game Type of the Dead is particularly popular) will probably be one of the most economically productive sessions the children will ever experience.

It will also better prepare them for life after school, explains Paul Gardiner who teaches electronic products at GCSE at Finham Park School, a designated computing and mathematics college in Coventry. “Electronics is one of the most fruitful parts of the curriculum for computer applications,” he says. “I aim to capitalize on this. Students see day-to-day computer use as a natural way to work in the modern world.”

Moreover, Finham Park’s experience shows that schools don’t even need super-duper new computers to make ICT come alive in the classroom. Its PCs — one per pupil — come second-hand, donated by a local university.

But it’s not just computers that form this classroom revolution: mobile phones, wi-fi connected palmtop devices and iPods are becoming part of the technological arsenal currently being deployed by the UK’s teachers.

Gaze into the crystal ball and you see computer games, virtual technology and lots and lots of interactive whiteboards coming into schools. At least one interactive whiteboard each is already in use at half the schools in the country and, in October, Gordon Brown promised a whopping £1.67 billion to put big, touch sensitive boards in all the rest.

What lies behind all this wiring of the classroom is that the technology is also subtly shifting the style of teaching away from the old linear approach. The current emphasis is based on the notion that we learn more by doing than by merely listening.

And so, by introducing interactive software, the structure of lessons will change into more interactive structures, as there’s little point standing at the front of class and expecting all your students to learn at the same pace. With greater access to computers, those days are now gone.

There are fears. Mostly that this new approach is too easy and, essentially, lacks discipline. But then again, most teachers will point out that graffiti in most school ICT rooms is conspicuous by its absence. And while there is a lack of hard evidence that the vast amounts of money being spent on technology is having positive results, not yet at least, the anecdotal evidence is that its effect is profound.

Indeed, at its current stage of implementation, ICT is seen as a technological panacea to cure our educational ills. It has been touted as a cure for truancy, it can improve homework and even correct the current gender imbalance that has seen boys fall behind in recent years.

That could be just a load of hype. But, try as you might, it is very difficult to find many teachers who would argue against a greater use of technology right now.

Time and time again you here the words “engaging”, “motivating” and “active not passive learning” as if some techno fairy godmother had waved her wand — most likely in the form of a stylus for an interactive whiteboard — and all the class had fallen under the spell. They probably even stopped talking at the back.

Of course, it’s not quite as easy as buying a load of kit and plonking it in a class. Technology after all can facilitate change, but you still need an imaginative lesson plan to make it all work. In the classroom, as much as ever, content is king. — Dawn/The Guardian News Service