Educational Development Through Information and Communications Technology

Rakesh Bhanot, Stephen Fallows

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN: 9781135727031
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has proved to be one of the key drivers of change in education. In higher education particularly, ICT is enabling educators, educational developers and institutions to 'reach out' to learners, using innovative approaches based on the flexibility, accessibility and diversity that it offers. This book is based on the experiences of expert educational developers from the UK, United States, Canada, South Africa and Malaysia. It considers the ways in which ICT can be used to enhance learning both on and off campus, and how educators and institutions have tackled the issues associated with the adoption of new approaches and technologies. However, as the development of new technology is relentless, the book recognizes that ICT is not a panacea in itself -- good teaching remains crucial to good education. With this in mind, the contributors address issues beyond 'technology', looking at the importance of teaching and at the skills of teachers themselves if ICT is to be truly successful. Coverage is grouped into four key themes: *strategic issues for ICT initiatives *introducing ICT into the classroom *using ICT in practice *using ICT in learning and educational support International in scope, and written by educators and educational developers rather than by technologists, this book is intended to be accessible to anyone with a critical interest in improving education through the use of ICT. It will be of particular interest to staff and educational developers, ICT coordinators, course leaders and course developers.

1
Educational development and ICT: an introduction

Stephen Fallows and Rakesh Bhanot

SUMMARY

The uses of information and communications technologies (ICT) provide us with some of the latest examples of the way in which technological developments have been taken up and used by educators. In the past hundred years alone, educators have adopted, to some extent or other, developments such as film, radio, television, video (recording and/or playback); each has been utilized as an adjunct to the established practices of face to face lectures, seminars and tutorials. Now it is the turn of ICT. This chapter provides a short introduction to the use of ICT in higher education and is intended to give a lead into the series of detailed chapters that follow.

THE MEANING OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

An ‘educational development’ can, for the purposes of this book at least, be considered as any novel action taken with the intention of either enhancing the teaching of a particular subject or enhancing of the students’ learning of the subject. Many educational developments seek to achieve both of these objectives. In addition, it is increasingly the case that educational developments take place with a view to increasing the efficiency or productivity of teaching and learning. Often the institution, department or individual teacher is seeking to increase the educational outcomes while maintaining the direct face to face teaching at a constant level. A push for efficient and ‘more productive’ education has often been a feature of ICT based initiatives.

The concept of a ‘novel action’ needs a degree of clarification, since for most educators it is novelty within a particular context or set of circumstances that is important, rather than the absolute introduction of that which has never been tried before. Indeed, within the context of education, there is little that is absolutely new; most educational developments rest upon the adaptation of existing approaches and skills to changed circumstances.

Within the context of this book, the ‘changed circumstances’ centre upon a series of technological developments that have been taken up by educators around the world. The examples cited in the book are by no means unique; rather they offer illustrations of practice in a range of higher education institutions. We can note that technologically driven/supported educational developments may take place within the teaching of a single class by a lone pioneer educator or, as is increasingly the case, they can form the basis of strategic institution-wide teaching and learning initiatives that can have profound impact.

THE MEANING OF ICT

The term ‘information technology’ (IT) was adopted some years ago as a global term designed to include all matters relating to computers and the software that was utilized by these computers. The term was sufficient when each computer was essentially a stand-alone entity. More recently, increasing numbers of computers are interconnected in order that communication can take place between them. Initially, this interconnection was limited to local networks within organizations, but nowadays it has become the norm for communications to reach out worldwide using the international network referred to variously as the Internet, the World Wide Web or simply the Web or Net. In recognition of the addition of communications technologies, the term IT has evolved into ICT (information and communications technologies). (C&IT is used as an alternative configuration of these initial letters.)

It is the use of computers as communications tools (as well as aids to learning, teaching and assessment) that presents the key educational development upon which this volume is centred.

A BRIEF HISTORY

It is worthwhile for us to reflect briefly on the speed with which developments in the use of ICT in education have taken place. This reflection is by no means a definitive history text; it is not intended to be so. Rather, it serves to remind us of the multiplicity of changes that have taken place over recent years. The story illustrates the progression that has taken place within IT- and ICT based education with movement from the domain of the enthusiastic technologically driven pioneer to (almost) universal acceptance within some institutions. We are moving to a domain in which the basic usage of the technology is established, and what still requires further development is the broad raising of awareness of the educational benefits that can be achieved through effective use of ICT. Raising awareness of the potential is the first step; subsequent steps will realize this potential. The key trick will be to steer these steps in the direction that is most appropriate for the institution, teacher(s) and student(s).

It should be remembered that computers have been used in universities and other higher education establishments since the dawn of electronic computing in the late 1940s/early 1950s, but for the first 30 or more years they were essentially research facilities used for calculations and analysis rather than educational tools.

The introduction of personal desktop computers during the 1980s stimulated major changes within education, as elsewhere in the economy. The introduction of IBM’s first PC on 12 August 1981 at a price of $1,565 (without monitor) was a major step: the desktop PC had gained respectability.

Computers were no longer simply remote and mysterious devices that required special locations and skilled operators and programmers; they rapidly came to be everyday productivity tools to be used universally for a range of tasks. While the first generation personal computers still required the use of programming skills, by the mid-1980s the early ‘off the shelf’ commercial software such as word processing packages and spreadsheets had begun to make their way from the business world into education.

By the 1980s pioneer enthusiasts were beginning to develop items of software that had specific educational functions. These were usually programs that provided specific instruction in a small element of the curriculum. Most of these pioneers were science based, and many of the early learning packages provided mathematical simulations of (for example) chemical reactions, physical situations or ecological interactions between different species. Such pioneers were distributed widely through education, from early years specialists through to university teachers.

Also in the 1980s, the business world was beginning to explore the use of computers in staff training, and a number of courseware development tools became available for the production of computer based training (CBT) materials. The early courseware development tools were often highly restrictive, very expensive to license and limited in their educational utility. Similarly expensive at the time was the delivery technology. Most commonly, CBT was adopted within large commercial organizations that needed to train large numbers of staff quickly (for instance a national bank introducing a new style of account could use CBT to train counter staff nationwide using the local office technology).

At the time, the economies of scale did not carry forward into higher education, in which each institution (and generally each teacher) maintained autonomy and flexibility in curriculum development. The fixed nature of early CBT material was sufficient for dedicated training in relatively mundane matters but lacked the sophistication needed for large scale adoption within higher education.

The serious development of computer-assisted learning (CAL) from the mid-1980s onwards began with enthusiasts preparing materials for their own students. Materials were often very specific and not cost-effective (in view of the development time that was required and low levels of usage). On reflection, the hours spent developing course materials (at that time) never had a direct payback.

There was a strong suspicion of material ‘not invented here’, and the majority of courseware remained confined to single institutions or even in many instances to a single educator. In the UK, the establishment of the discipline-related Computers in Teaching Initiative (CTI) Centres was a direct publicly funded attempt to encourage the sharing of expertise and course materials between institutions. More recently the CTI Centres have been replaced by the Learning Technology Support Network (LTSN), with a similar but updated mandate to stimulate the efficient and effective use of learning technologies.

Further support for the more efficient development of CAL materials came (in the UK) with the Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) which has largely supported the operation of consortia to produce teaching and learning materials that are specifically intended to be used in several institutions. This initiative has undergone three funding phases. Although the educational return on the financial investment of public moneys into TLTP remains open to question, there can be no doubt that the initiative made significant steps in the development of usable and useful teaching packages that were appropriate for the university curriculum. Moreover, the collaborative nature of the programme has improved the degree of take-up away from the home institution, but in practice each university teacher has retained control of delivery as students have largely been directed towards ‘fixed’ subject specific learning packages. A study undertaken in 1998 provides a useful review of the take-up of TLTP materials (University of Edinburgh, 1999).

All the early CAL initiatives were essentially local in nature, with the ‘educational products’ being delivered via disk (later CD ROM) to a particular location for organized and controlled delivery. Over time, single machine courseware has been replaced by networked equivalents, with the courseware held on a central server, but the general controlled delivery concept remains. As CAL developed through the 1980s and 1990s it did so in a context of rapidly moving developments in personal computing. The personal experience of one of the editors of CAL development at the end of the 1980s was characterized by delivery ambitions which largely outstripped the capabilities of computers available for general student use. During the following decade computers became much more powerful and perhaps more importantly, more affordable. ‘More powerful’ meant that the aspirations of the CAL pioneers could begin to be achieved technically on everyday computers, rather than requiring specialist equipment. The ‘affordable’ issue was similarly important since it allowed institutions to offer greater availability on campus. At the same time, the supply of personal computers moved from specialist suppliers to high street retailers. With their ability to supply ‘bundles’ of computer systems and associated software at discounted prices, this meant that significant numbers of students (or their parents) were able to purchase their own systems.

In parallel with the developments in CAL summarized above, the 1990s were characterized by the development of the Internet. The Internet per se, the now global interconnection of millions of computers via a mix of direct hard-wire connections and telephone modem connections, grew from a US initiative, the ARPANET. The ARPANET originated from military concern in the late 1960s about potential security of the computer linked communications of an America under nuclear attack. The ARPANET provided a solution: the system connected every station to every other through whichever route was most effective and quickest. The key idea was that if one message route became out of action then one or other of the other connections would be used to derive an alternative route for that crucial message. Michael Hauben of Columbia University provides a useful history of the ARPANET (Hauben, 2002). The principle of multiple routes from source to solution was carried forward into the development of the Internet which nowadays links both organizations and individuals worldwide.

The Internet is ‘simply’ the communications system that connects millions of computers through a worldwide web of connections. What are important are the benefits that can be achieved through use of such a communications system, and the associated issues.

In its first iteration, the Internet (like ARPANET before it) was concerned with the transmission of messages (whether simple text messages or more complex data streams) either from a single source to a single recipient or from a single source to multiple recipients. This is, of course, the basis of electronic mail (e-mail). The e-mail model continues and is today available to all and not confined to the ‘techie’ pioneers and their acolytes.

Later iterations of the Internet have shifted the balance of innovation from the active sending out of information to the provision of systems through which information is made available (generally freely) to others who wish to access it. Using earlier communications tools to provide an analogy, this is the shift from sending a private letter to posting a note on a notice board or placing a book or other document in a library. In principle, the Internet generally makes the notice board (or library) available world-wide to anyone with the necessary technology.

In practice, just as with a physical notice board or library, access to certain sites may be restricted to a particular group of users. Restriction can be based on membership of a particular organization or group. In educational terms this could be students of a particular institution or even of a specific programme of study. In the commercial sector access to many information sources (Web sites) is restricted to those willing to pay the required fee. The material available ranges from the contents of academic journals (generally purchased by universities and the like) to hard core pornography.

Finally, the range and quantity of materials available via the Internet is increasing exponentially. This has profound implications for education as students now have the possibility of selecting from and utilizing an incredible wealth of information.

THE IMPORTANCE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

We begin by looking quickly at the nature of education from its earliest origins to the Internet age.

In the ancient and distant past the student learnt from a ‘master’, and the extent of the master’s knowledge set the limits of available material. The skills of the master set the degree to which transfer of knowledge could take place. The good master not only ‘knew his stuff’; he could also communicate it in a manner that not only held the attention of his students, but also communicated the message and motivated the students to learn. This basic principle remains fundamental to teaching today, but now there is also much more. (The use of the masculine in this paragraph is intentional to denote the male predominance in early education.)

With the introduction of writing, and in due course books, information and other aspects of knowledge could be transferred from place to place. The direct link to, and dependence upon, the local knowledge base (of the master) began to decline and has continued to do so ever since.

The range of knowledge available to the learner initially increased to also include all that was available in the local library: with sufficient time and patience, the learner could read all the books and (at least in theory) accrue all the knowledge.

This model of education remained the essential norm until the late 1990s. True, the local library (even in the more modest institutions) now contained thousands of volumes, but the students’ access to materials was generally physically limited to that available on the premises (either personally from the teacher or in the library). Some institutions held vast collections, and systems of inter-library loans (in theory at least) extended the range of material to everything published, but for most students the practical level of access was limited to the local collection.

‘Local’ collections remain important for almost all students; after all, we all know that students are not renowned for the forward planning necessary physically to locate and access materials held at remote sites in time for the completion of the required learning and/or assessment activities.

The Internet moves matters to a new level. The college library is now just the local hands-on starting point. The true resource base is now world-wide, with the Internet providing an easy route to a previously untold range of sources. The concept seems perfect on first look, but re-examination reveals a number of potential issues.

• What is the provenance of the materials that students are actually accessing?
• Are the students sound in their analysis and evaluation of these materials?
• What was the motivation of the information provider (governmental, scientific, commercial, campaigning, or even pure mischief)?

Previous ‘library’ systems provided a degree of screening that is not found with Internet resources.

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Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• 1: EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND ICT: AN INTRODUCTION
• 2: IMPLEMENTING AN INSTITUTION-WIDE ICT STRATEGY FOR UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
• 3: INSTITUTION-WIDE IMPLEMENTATION OF ICT IN STUDENT LEARNING
• 4: THE IMPACT OF UBIQUITOUS LAPTOP COMPUTING
• 5: MANAGING ACTIVE STUDENT LEARNING WITH A VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
• 6: VIRTUAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS AS TOOLS IN LEARNING AND TEACHING
• 7: MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS IN STUDENTS’ ONLINE LEARNING
• 8: COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION: IMPACT ON LEARNING
• 9: ICT FOR WORLDWIDE COLLABORATIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
• 10: USE OF THE INTRANET TO DEVELOP STUDENTS’ KEY SKILLS
• 11: STUDENT ASSESSMENT USING ICT
• 12: THE USE OF ICT IN EDUCATION FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
• 13: ICT IN SUPPORT OF PROJECTS AND DISSERTATIONS
• 14: FROM CHALKFACE TO INTERFACE (ABSOLUTE NOVICES TO ICT ENTER UNIVERSITY)
• 15: INTRODUCING INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES INTO THE CLASSROOM: THE ‘MöBIUS METAPHOR’
• 16: APPROPRIATE USE OF INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN TO MAXIMIZE LEARNING
• 17: STEP-BY-STEP APPROACH TO PEDAGOGICALLY BASED WEB DESIGN
• 18: ICT: A THREAT TO THE TRADITIONAL UNIVERSITY?
• CONTRIBUTOR CONTACT DETAILS