Educational policies on ICTs and educational innovation: Analysis of the programme Escuela 2.0
(this symposium, coordinated by Manuel Area Moreira, is framed in the research project Las políticas de un “ordenador por niño” en España. Visiones y prácticas del profesorado ante el Programa Escuela 2.0. Una análisis comparado entre Comunidades Autónomas.)
Manuel Area Moreira
An introduction to Escuela 2.0
Escuela 2.0 is a 1-to-1 or one laptop per child project that aims at:
- Offering social equity.
- Develops a national industry in the Knowledge Economy.
- Breaks the isolation of the school.
- Prepares the student to be a XXIst century citizen.
- Enables the innovation of teaching-learning methodologies.
But is technology changing the way we teach and/or students learn? What is being the impact of this project at the methodological level?
Juan de Pablos Pons (Universidad de Sevilla).
Educational policies and good practices with ICTs.
Beyond the typical issues related to infrastructures, it is still difficult that the teachers accept ICTs as an educational tool. And only after this has happened we will be able to talk about producing and/or reusing educational content.
To foster this adoption of ICTs in teaching, a good practices project was started so that actual implementations were shared and, after them, critical elements of success be identified. Good practices, to be qualified as such, must generate a transformation and cause a change.
Good practices were chosen in the field of training, pedagogical guides, teaching innovation, usage of the LMS and international projection.
As an overall conclusion on how the Andalousian teachers felt about Escuela 2.0, they are happy to have more infrastructure, quite well on being able to be trained on the use of instructional technology, but not very confident on the impact of ICTs on teaching.
Cristina Alonso Cano (Universitat de Barcelona).
Policies and practices around ICTs in compulsory education: implications for innovation and improvement.
The consolidated research group “Esbrina, Subjectivitats i Entorns Educatius Contemporanis” (2009SGR 0503) is dedicated to the study of the conditions and current changes in education in a world mediated by digital technologies and visual culture
. The research group has a clear goal to acknowledge the potential of ICTs in education.
What should change in policies, schools and people so that the potential of ICTs in education can be realized?
- Questioning policies is a healthy exercise to be able to tell what is causing an impact and what not.
- It is very different to speak about Information and Communication Technologies and Learning and Knowledge Technologies, which ones are we talking about when we speak about technology and transformation in the learning process?
- Local and educational leaders and the community are normally banned from participating in ICT for education policies.
José Miguel Correa Gorospe (Universidad del País Vasco).
Eskola 2.0 Programme: What is it bringing to the educational change in the Basque Country?
(Eskola 2.0 is the Basque version of the Spanish state-wide Escuela 2.0)
Teacher training has been one of the most important flaws of the Eskola 2.0 programme. The programme was also imposed to the Basque school system, ignoring the dynamics of the centres, causing several tensions within the educational system and within schools.
Jesús Valverde Barrocoso (Universidad de Extremadura).
Escuela 2.0: unlearning and transformation vs. continuity and tradition.
During 2002, the region of Extremadura began introducing computers at school, on a one-computer-per-two-children basis. This happened in a much broader initiative (LinEx project) in the region to opt for free software and technological autonomy for the government as a whole, and for the educational system in particular.
Escuela 2.0 had several (and sometimes opposing) goals:
- Academic performance.
- Economic development of a local IT and digital content industry.
- Equity and fight against the digital divide.
- Digital competence.
- Quality of teaching.
Reality in schools: 1/3 of teachers use computers in the classroom on a daily basis, 1/3 use it occasionally, 1/3 never use it. 4/10 teachers use often the interactive digital whiteboard in the classroom.
Related to the methodologia, lectures are still the norm and there is few collaborative work. Indeed, the textbook is the pedagogical resource per excellence, even if there is an increasing demand of digital content.
The role of the IT coordinator is highly valued.
What are the effects of ICTs in the classroom? Above all, engagement. Then, digital competence. And at a distance, some minor improvements in academic performance in general or in some specific tasks.
Hints for the future:
- Flexibility in the kind of resources at the students’ reach.
- Adaptability, getting rid of the syllabus, use of Personal Learning Environments.
- -kess teaching, more learning.
- Sociability, teamworking, networking.
- Creativity.
Ángel San Martin Alonso (Universidad de Valencia).
Educational policies on ICTs and educational innovation: Analysis of the programme Escuela 2.0
When we foster innovation, is it to solve an emerging problem or because we need to keep the wheel of innovation moving and some innovation niches be fed?
Discussion
Teacher training appears on and on during the discussion. There is a total agreement that teachers have to be trained on the application of ICTs in education, on changing curricula, on adapting and transforming learning methodologies. But ICT for Education policies keep on insisting and spending most of the resources in infrastructures.
