Subject: An ICT role in key sectors of development of society. Standards in the field of ICT.



- What is ICT?

- Areas of ICT

1. Executive summary

2. Introduction

3. Teacher training for ICT in education

4. Teacher usage of ICT in education

5. Teacher training and usage of ICT in education and gender

 

What isICT?

ICT is the systematic study of the feasibility, structure, expression, and mechanization of the methodical processes (or algorithms) that underlie the acquisition, representation, processing, storage, communication of, and access to information, whether such information is encoded in bits and bytes in a computer memory or transcribed ingenes and protein structures in a human cell. The fundamental question underlying all of computing is: what computational processes can be efficiently automated and implemented?

To tackle this seemingly simple question, computer scientists work in many complementary areas. They study the very nature of computing to determine which problems are (or are not) computable. They compare various algorithms to determine if they provide a correct and efficient solution to a concrete problem. They design programming languages to enable the specification and expression of such algorithms. They design, evaluate, and build computer systems that can efficiently execute such specifications. And, they apply such algorithms to important application domains.

What ICT Is Not…

ICT is not just about building computers or writing computer programs! Computer Science is no more about building computers and developing software than astronomy is about building telescopes, biology is about building microscopes, and music is about building musical instruments! Computer science is not about the tools we use to carry out computation. It is about how we use such tools, and what we find out when we do. The solution of many computer science problems may not even require the use of computers—just pencil and paper. As a matter of fact, problems in computer science have been tackled decades before computers were even built. That said, the design and implementation of computing system hardware and software is replete with formidable challenges and fundamental problems that keep computer scientists busy. Computer Science is about building computers and writing computer programs, and much much more!

 

Executive summary

Information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to transform teaching and

learning processes. However, most countries face challenges in measuring the impact of investments in infrastructure, massive roll-outs of teacher training initiatives, and usage in the classroom. The lack of a comprehensive set of indicators can partly explain current challenges. Moreover, there is a growing recognition that added focus is needed to measure teacher training and usage holistically within a systems perspective whereby indicators are not viewed in isolation but reflect a complex pattern of how teachers are prepared and how teaching activities with pupils, in and out schools and the classroom are executed (Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development, 2010).

Following a technical advisory panel (TAP) meeting that brought together a diverse group of

statisticians and subject matter experts in the area of ICT in education from 9 to 10 December 2014 in Paris (France), this paper has been developed to help strengthen the conceptual framework of ICT in education with specific reference to the importance of collecting data relevant to teacher training in relation to ICT and its usage in the classroom. This paper is complementary to a paper authored by Broadley et al. (2015) on ‘Evolving Learning Paradigms’as well as another by Twining et al. (2015) on ‘Developing new indicators to describe digital technology infrastructure in primary and secondary education’. These three papers were commissioned by UIS to inform the planning of new ICT in education data collections and identifying core indicators for the post-2015 developmental agenda.

The UNESCO-UIS Guide to Measuring Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Education, Technical Paper No. 2 (UIS, 2009), put in place a common set of standardized internationally agreed indicators on ICT in education including a number related to teachers’ professional development and usage, which are drawn from administrative sources. This paper however argues that a more holistic approach, as per example the ICT Education 2013 Survey (CETIC.br, 2013) on the use of ICT in Brazilian schools, may be useful for shedding additional light on teacher dimensions of ICT in education.

More specifically, this paper attempts to asses current indicator gaps in teacher professional development and training by asking basic questions, including who is being trained in the use of ICTs, where and how are teachers trained, what kind of ICT training is provided and based on which certification standards, and finally, when and for how long are teachers trained? Based on an analysis of these issues, additional indicators are suggested. This paper also examines teacher usage of ICT in delivering instruction and makes a case for including cross-cutting elements that point to teachers’ usage of ICT-enhanced pedagogy, digital curriculum and assessment, ICT in education policy, ICT infrastructure, and ICT used for for administrative and organizational purposes. The teaching of basic computer skills and computing is also addressed. Finally, the importance of obtaining better gender-related data regarding teacher training and usage of ICT in education, including indicators disaggregated by sex, is highlighted.

Introduction

As information and communication technology (ICT) plays a greater role across society including public and private education, countries around the world are more than ever in need of high quality internationally comparable statistics on ICT in education. In particular, indicators areessential for measuring and tracking the integration of ICT and its impact given investment canconstitute a significant portion of national education budgets, for many, if not most countries. In the United Kingdom (UK) alone, an estimated £567.8 million was spent on ICT in schools, excluding software (Twining and Henry, 2014).

This particular investment takes into account special attention given to teachers in providing them with the necessary policy environment, digital curriculum, skills, infrastructure, and professional development to make effective use of ICT in the classroom. Given the substantial size of investment in many countries, other literature sets targets for spending on teacher training suggesting that 30% of funding for ICT integration into schools should be devoted to professional development to ensure that ICT is used effectively (Twining and Henry, 2014). This target is based on the firmly held belief that teacher training and ongoing relevant professional development are essential if benefits from investment in ICT are to be maximized (Infodev, 2015).Meeting international goals (e.g. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs], Education for All (EFA], World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)) by 2015 and beyond requires substantial investment in teacher training institutions so that adequate pre-service and inservice training can be delivered (UNESCO-UIS, 2006).

The Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2013/ 2014) states that an education system is only as good as its teachers. While the introduction of ICT in education plays a role in shifting responsibility for learning from teacher to student, ICT does not however remove the need for classroom leadership, nor does it invalidate related traditional teacher skills and practices (Infodev, 2015). Developing teachers’ capacity to enhance the quality of learning remains essential and evidence shows that education quality improves when teachers are supported and deteriorates if they are not (UNESCO, 2014a).

While ICT has been used in various ways to support teachers, some of the literature points to the fact that little evidence exists supporting the claim that digital technology has transformed education (Twining and Henry, 2014). It is thus only by capturing better data on the integration, usage and impact of ICT in education that improvements to data collection processes can occur and best practices be scaled-up and rolled-out more effectively in countries.

International ICT in education assessments recognise the importance of measuring teacher training and usage in regards to ICT. However from a policymaking perspective, it is widely recognised that information needs differ amongst countries depending on the level of ICT penetration in the education system. For example in countries where ICT penetration levels are higher, there may be significantly more need for renewed training cyclically given the high turnover in digital technology. In contrast in countries where ICT penetration is less whereby fewer schools have ICT in place, training demands will also be significantly less (UNESCO-UIS, 2009). Data collection efforts should therefore aim to reflect relative needs.


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