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Principles and Priorities of ICT Research for the Knowledge Economy

Dr Glenn Finger and Dr Glenn Russell

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, UniversityCollegeDublin, 7-10 September 2005

Key terms: knowledge economy, information and communication technology, public policy, school education, educational change

Abstract: The knowledge economy is inextricably bound to government public policy about education. In turn, questions of future economic prosperity, improved workforce opportunities and more efficient economies are related to decisions about schools and teachers. This paper examines Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in education from an Australian perspective, where we maintain that identification of research priorities and learning possibilities with ICTs are critical. The skills and understandings that school students contribute as they enter the workforce are related to their school experiences, and in particular, to their interaction with teachers. We conceptualise two modes and three stages of ICT implementation in schools, and draw on related debate and research which we argue has international significance. It is not sufficient to do the same things in schools that have always been done, and we argue that transformative notions of ICT use need to be informed by theorising about pedagogy and curriculum, by proposing and critiquing new ways of teaching, and by allowing us to rethink accepted ideas of educational practices, together with their relationship to the economy and society.

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Principles and Priorities of ICT Research for the Knowledge Economy

Dr Glenn Finger and Dr Glenn Russell

Dr Glenn Finger

Centre for Learning Research

School of Education and Professional Studies

GriffithUniversity. Queensland. Australia.

Email:

Dr Glenn Russell

Centre for Educational Multimedia

Faculty of Education,

MonashUniversity. Victoria. Australia.

Email:

Introduction

This paper aims to provide insights into developments in Australia in relation to the interplay between the knowledge economy, information and communication technologies (ICTs), and educational research. Our intention, in doing this, is to provide a perspective that will inform debate and implementation in other countries and educational systems. In this paper, we commence with the premise that the knowledge economy is inextricably bound to government public policy about education. Questions of future economic prosperity, improved workforce opportunities and more efficient economies are related to decisions about schools and teachers. Our particular focus is on ICTs in education, where we maintain that identification of research priorities and learning possibilities with ICTs are critical.

The skills and understandings that school students contribute as they enter the workforce are related to their school experiences, and in particular, to their interaction with teachers. It is our view that teaching and learning in the 21st century requires future teachers and practising teachers able to meet the transformational challenges associated with ICTs. We identify two modes and three stages of ICT implementation in schools. The first of the three stages, Skill Acquisition, deals with entry level adoption of ICT-related skills. The second stage, Enhancement of Teaching, occurs when students become more confident in the integration of ICTs in the existing curriculum, while the final stage, Transformation, occurs when ICTs are an integral component of broader curricular reforms. This transformational stage reflects changes in what students learn, and how learning takes place. Students in this stage encounter changes in their schooling, including alterations in the organisational structure of schooling. However, the Transformational Stage is not a natural evolutionary step through which students automatically pass as computer technologies become more sophisticated. Classroom practices using ICTs and, arguably, contingent outcomes for the knowledge economy are related to teachers' views of the world. Teachers' experiences and theories therefore constitute a key area for research.

To explore these issues, we draw on debate and research in Australia, which we argue has international significance for discussions on government public policy on school education and the knowledge economy, because it has parallels to challenges that face governments and educational authorities in other countries. Indeed, the European Commission (2001) has emphasised the need to move to a knowledge-based society by emphasising the role of e-learning in speeding up changes in educational and training systems. It is one consequence of a networked, globalized economy that Australia and Europe, although separated by distance, culture and history, should face similar challenges.

In Australia, the model used has relied on consultation rather than the alternatives of an imposed top-down policy or the emergence of separate bottom-up policies. The

research strategy developed by the ICTs in Schools Taskforce (MCEETYA, 2003a) has involved consultation with all State and Territory jurisdictions in Australia, the Australian Research Council, the Australian Association for Research in Education, the Australian Council for Educational Research, and the Department of Education, Science and Training. The resulting research strategy has established two pivotal priorities. Firstly, there is a need to establish research principles and priorities, together with a framework for evaluating ICT research. Secondly, ICTs should be used to make all school-related educational research accessible to teachers, students, parents, educational leaders, politicians, and the community.

In our view, ICTs should move on from 20th Century conceptualisations where attention was often focused on technical issues, the provision of necessary infrastructure, and utilising ICTs to enhance largely traditional approaches to the construction and dissemination of knowledge. Increasing availability and capacity of ICTs reflects ‘new times’ which holds implications for changing contexts of teaching and learning. It is not sufficient to do the same things in schools that have always been done, and we argue that transformative notions of ICT use need to be informed by theorising about pedagogy and curriculum, by proposing and critiquing new ways of teaching, and allowing us to rethink accepted ideas of educational practices, together with their relationship to the economy and society. ICT permits radical conceptualisations of school education, including the virtual schools that have been developed in Queensland Australia, (Virtual Schooling Service, 2005), and the European Schoolnet (2005),

Links between the Knowledge Economy, ICTs and Education Policy – the Australian Context

An Internet search using google of the term ‘Knowledge Economy’ revealed 563 000 results. A further search of ‘Knowledge Economy’ and ‘Australia’ produced 115000 results. Interestingly, those searches took 0.37 seconds and 0.34 seconds respectively. The power to access information to gain knowledge is markedly superior than in times before the Internet and before being able to google. Associated language emerged from those results, such as information society, information economy, knowledge society, knowledge village, knowledge management, and knowledge workers. For the purposes of this paper, the knowledge economy is referred to as “the use of knowledge to produce economic benefits” (Dictionary.Laborlawtalk.com, 2005). We differentiate between knowledge economy and information economy by utilising Karmarkar’s (Sanz, 2004) broad definition of information economy as referring to every industry that addresses the eventual production of information goods and services. Karmarker’s view therefore includes a diverse range of pure information goods, knowledge-based professional services, and the means to transfer information.

Skyrme (1997), from his analysis, notes that there are three interlocking driving forces which are changing the rules of business and national competitiveness, namely globalisation, information and knowledge intensity, and networking and connectivity. Of interest here is the networking and connectivity driver. Elsewhere, for example, Brown (2005) indicates that ICTs are the digital lubricants of globalisation, and Lynch (2004) observes that ICT has a direct effect on productivity. In relation to globalisation, Skyrme relates that there’s global branding with examples such as Nike and Virgin known globally, and many companies are global in the sense that they have positioned their software development through outsourcing in countries distant from their headquarters. Skyrme sees the development of the Internet as bringing “the global village nearer”.

In Australia, Dellit (1998) indicates that, throughout the late 1990’s, the Australian Government produced a number of reports indicating Australia’s direction in relation to electronic commerce (ATO, 1997; Cutler, 1997; ECEG, 1998; ACCC, 1997; Goldsworthy, 1997; DFAT, 1997a; 1997b; Mortimer, 1997; NOIE, 1998a; 1998b). It was during that period when the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) was established to support the work of the Ministerial Council for the Information Economy. According to Dellit, a discussion paper produced by NOIE (1998a) outlined the Australian Government’s strategic commitment to place Australia to be able to move into the information economy.

Dellit goes on to argue that, implicit in the formulation of official Government policy was the implication for educators to move beyond the concept of an Information Age to conceptualise and internalise the notion of a Knowledge Age. There is a glimpse here of the role of ICTs, and changes in teacher education in this move, whereby Dellit states that:

We need university courses on knowledge management for educators. Programs could look at pedagogical issues, such as the changes in conceptualisation occurring in young children as they experience multi-media.

…The education profession will choose the term ‘Knowledge Age’ over ‘Information Age’. It is the profession that must create the knowledge society. (Dellit, 1998, pp. 12-13)

Importantly, Dellit (1998) identified issues for educators relating to intellectual property, privacy, freedom of expression and content control, telecommunications access, and globalization. Similarly, White (2003), in examining the moves to e-learning in schools, highlighted the national strategies and policies which facilitated the establishment of a national information infrastructure with the aim of “harnessing the powers of the information and communication technologies to derive unparalleled benefits for teaching and learning” (White, 2003, p. 1). White provides a summary of some of the key reports such as Learning for the knowledge society: An education and training action plan for the information economy (Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA), 2000a), which emphasized action areas of people, infrastructure, online content, applications and services, policy and organisational framework, and regulatory framework. White notes that ICTs and education initiatives followed through the implementation of that action plan with priority areas being:

  • Facilitating and promoting collaboration in the education and training sector to improve ICT awareness and skills;
  • Ensuring that teachers and students have the necessary ICT skills;
  • Monitoring the equity implications of ICT developments, including the effective use of ICT by disadvantaged groups;
  • Pursuing the connectivity and telecommunications needs of the education sector including affordable high speed Internet access;
  • Ensuring a coherent national approach to interoperability and common standards. (White, 2003, p. 2)

Therefore, in Australia at the turn of the 21st century, there had been clear policy settings established which linked the knowledge economy, ICTs, and education. The report launched in 2001 called Backing Australia’s ability: an innovation action plan for the future (Commonwealth of Australia, 2001) was accompanied by substantial Commonwealth Government funding through the investment of $3 billion over five years to 2005-2006. Subsequently, in 2004, a new package totalling $5.3 billion over seven years for Backing Australia’s Ability – Building our Future through Science and Innovation was provided. Therefore, together those two packages represented a ten year and $8.3 billion commitment through until 2010-11.

Nested between those packages in 2001 (Commonwealth of Australia, 2001) and 2004 (Commonwealth of Australia, 2004) was the report by the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), titled Australia’s Teachers: Australia’s Future: Advancing Innovation, Science, Technology and Mathematics (DEST, 2003). That report argued that schools and teachers are central to an innovative knowledge economy. The relationship between the knowledge and education is apparent with almost one third of the 281 page report devoted to Learning needs for the knowledge economy. Moreover, there is an emphasis on the importance of research and education:

There are two principal engines or drivers of the innovative culture which lies at the heart of the knowledge economy, namely, scientific research and education. Research of many different kinds yields new knowledge. Applied research, also of many different kinds, puts this knowledge to use in the economy and society through a continuing cycle of innovation. Education provides the flow of knowledge workers—for basic research, applied research and—no less important—for all the numerous and varied spheres of economic and social life in which knowledge is put to active use. (DEST, 2003, p. 5)

Having established the connectedness of the knowledge economy, ICTs and education through examining the policy settings and implications in Australia, we continue with discussion about the transformation story suggested in the DEST (2003) report that draws on Caldwell’s definition of transformation as “change that is significant, systematic and sustained. Transformation means that the school of the future will look quite unlike the school of the present” (see DEST, 2003, p. 217).

The Transformation Story and Modes of ICT adoption

Elsewhere (see, for example, Russell and Finger, 2004), we have written that it isbecoming increasingly clear not only that, as highlighted by the Australian Council of Deans of Education report New Learning a Charter for Australian Education (ACDE, 2001) in their Proposition 5, that “Technology Will Become Central to All Learning” but that the “Technologies of digitization have the potential to transform learning relationships” (ACDE, 2001, p. 3).

Understandings of the ways that ICT affects the transformation of teaching and learning can be related to both the modes and stages of their operation. We identify two interactive modes in which ICT operates to transform learning in schools. These modes are presented in figure 1.

Figure 1: Modes influencing ICT adoption on schools

The conceptualisation in Figure 1 draws on the observations by Heim (1993) and Cornu (2003). Heim argued that technology transforms the way we know and think, and that technology can be understood as a mode of human existence, while Cornu maintained that ICT transforms society and the teaching profession. The societal and public policy modes in figure1 are interactive. Hence, governments and education authorities may develop policies relating to such issues as teacher training or the ways that ICT should be used in schools, but in practice such policies are dependent on the contexts in which they are to operate or the expectations of those involved. For example, students, parents and teachers will hold beliefs about what can be achieved through the use of ICT that are derived from their use of online technology in daily life, and these beliefs will ultimately affect the implementation of public policy. The European Commission (2003) has observed that:

The use of technology in classrooms is found to be socially contextualised, interacting with the institutional and organisational cultures of schools and reflecting elements of the prevailing social relations in and around the context of use. Research demonstrates that educational organisations are social organisations that both influence the ways in which an innovation can be adopted and are influenced by that innovation (p. 4)

This perspective is not new, as more than seventy years ago, Maciver (1931) stated that:

...the arts and crafts...are all embedded in the social system. The bow and the arrow are not merely utilitarian instruments by which men [sic]hunt animals or fight enemies, they are also the objects of tradition and ceremonial, symbolic objects around which myths and magics gather...Every object has in short a social as well as a technical significance. It belongs to the total culture of the community...(pp. 316-317).

In recalling this observation, it is important to remember that attempts to transform education through the introduction of policies relating to ICT are likely to meet resistance grounded in traditional notions of school education and cultural norms.

The Transformative Stages of ICT Use in Schools

The transformative stages involving ICT use in schools can be conceptualised through drawing on the work of Dwyer, Ringstaff and Sandholtz (1991), and Kraver (1997) as three overlapping stages as displayed in Table 1 below. We believe that conceptualisation tends to mirror the developments of teacher education programs in ICTs.

Table 1: Stages in the Implementation of ICT in Teacher Education

Stages of ICT Implementation / Example of Implementation / Conceptualisation
1. Skill Acquisition / Students learn basic computer components and functions and gain skills in applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and databases. / (Dwyer et al, 1991)
  1. Entry
  2. Adoption

(Kraver, 1997)
Wave 1: Early Adoption – “End of the beginning”
2. Enhancing Teaching and Learning / Students learn how to integrate ICTs within the existing curriculum. / (Dwyer et al, 1991)
  1. Adaptation
  2. Appropriation

(Kraver, 1997)
Wave 2: ICT Integrated Curriculum – “Buildup”
3. Transformative / Students are prepared for the ways in which schooling is changed by ICTs. / (Dwyer et al, 1991)
  1. Invention

(Kraver, 1997)
Wave 3: Research based learning technologies are released and transform education – “Final Push”

Importantly, Stage 3 relates to the transformative power of ICTs. In identifying this stage, we have drawn on the conceptualisation of the dimensions of ICT use whereby ICTs hold the potential to be an “integral component of the reforms which will alter the organisation and structure of schooling itself” (DETYA, 2000b). However, despite the potential and promise of transforming teaching and learning, the DEST (2002) report noted that:

to date, this potential has not been realised in any significant way, particularly the potential to transform how, what, where and why students learn what they do. While there are only limited examples of the transformative power in the educational sector, experience from industry and other sectors clearly demonstrates that new times need new approaches, and that the nature and application of ICT enable that transformation. (DEST, 2002, p.3)