Az információs társadalom eszközrendszere

The National Academies Press

Information Technology Based Educational Materials:

Workshop Report with Recommendations¹

During times of immense changing in the economy, society and therefore education new ideas, new ways of thinking are necessary to be considered. Though the workshop I wish to write about was held in 2002 its message is still (even more) important now. Governments are forced to balance their budgets and unfortunately education seems not to be the most important field.

The recommendations which were stated then (besides with other policy papers and researches) can be used for other communities as well. Therefore resources (time, human-resource, money) can be saved. We should not forget the fact that some recommendations valid for one situation may not be suitable for an other community. In this respect these recommendations were developed in a totally different social and economical environment. I will try to find the still-valid lines and make them to be accurate for the present Hungarian educational environment.

Before I start the analysis of the main document I would like to emphasise that the EU defines the digital competence as one of the 8 key-competence which the lifelong learning, knowledge-based society is based on². Therefore we cannot afford to ignore these policy recommendations.

In this term it will be interesting to see if these recommendations are overlapping each other or direct to two different directions.

One of the first sentences grabbed my attention. They examined the situation of the STEM education and found that instead of overall changing separated “islands” evolved. This might be true for Hungary today (some schools, or rather teachers are keen on using IT tools in their methodology, though the rest seems to use the old methods, materials, and there is rarely cooperation between teachers and IT-teachers, schools, institutions).

Recommendation 1. A precursor committee should be appointed in order to coordinate national programmes and this organisation should develop a national strategy to achieve the IT-based educational aims. A body appointed by this organisation should have a long-term oversight in order to coordinate future activities and initiations. In the present quickly changing legal background of the Hungarian educational system it seems (personally for me) impossible to sign a body which is politically independent, and works alongside long-term policies. Though I think if there were a body like this it could coordinate the new policies to be harmonised with long-term aims, national, international (e.g. OECD) and EU recommendations. As well as it could serve as a coordinator between different involved organisations, bodies and boards.

Recommendation 2. It refers to the continuity of the first workshop. This could be the task of the precursor organisation. This should not be aimed to verify the ongoing activities rather to evaluate and assess the activities. The keywords for the workshop are the following: interoperability, sustainability and wide dissemination. Hungary has many thing to do in this field. There are few initiations to introduce IT-tools into everyday education and they are often separated. Of course many teachers and headmasters are constantly working to change this, and the effects of their efforts could be multiplied by connecting them.

Recommendation 3.

It goes in details about the task of the precursor committee. (As the system of the financial support is totally different in Hungary therefore it would be necessary to identify methods based on the local legal background.)

Recommendation 4. It involves a very important aspect, namely the copyright issue. As Creative Commons are working in Hungary so all initiatives could be build on CC framework. This might raise some resistance as we are tend to insist to our rights (as well this can negatively influence the sustainability of the whole initiation but with proper project development we can avoid negative trends in financing).

Recommendation 5. We all know that pilot projects are important. Here they recommend a national laboratory to be established. Not for the whole project but to pilot test for the IT-tools, resources and practices. This would represent the proper scientific background for the tools.

(In Hungary where the connection between labour market and education is emerging it could be proper tool for the representatives to meet their expectations, needs and possibilities. This could make co-financing – sustainability- possible. This is a difficult and sensitive topic to be discussed and I may not be the proper person to evaluate this, though it seems to be a good idea for me – and the EU also recommends these kinds of cooperation)

Recommendation 6. Not only present aims are important but the assessment and evaluation of the implementation as well. Therefore it suggests that a targeted research agenda should be established for the development of social, educational, and economic models for improved STEM learning in an IT-enabled context.

Though the researches in this field are not very common in Hungary cooperation and international best-practice workshops could help us.

The EU does not recommend institutional structures for reaching the aims. Therefore we only could compare the aims (improve IT tools in education, and not only in education. In many of the 7 flagship initiation IT has a central role). For Hungary most of these would be new, and hard to adapt to the Hungarian possibilities but I think we can grab the good points and turn them to our development. These recommendations are made for STEM education and teaching, though think all subjects can find positive directions in it.

I liked this document because it had clear aims, and considered several aspects. It is not about one single project but rather a programme framework where good projects can be developed. Therefore it seems to be flexible to react on economical changes. This framework might be good to connect people who are committed in the development of education.

We still should not forget the innovative aspect as the EU expects as adults the young generation has to work more, better and longer. Reaching this enhancement in productivity (while keeping in mind environmental, energy-efficiency, energy- conscious behaviour) we have to see that (IT) innovations have significant role in this aspect and teaching has a primary role in preparing the next generation for the next era's challenges.

Abbreviations:

EU: European Union

IT: I used it for Information and Communication Technology

STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

1http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10768.html

2RECOMMENDATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 18 December 2006 on key competences for lifelong learning (2006/962/EC)