IT and education: a steep learning curve

With the exception of physical education, every lesson that British schoolchildren now attend relies on computers and information technology to aid the learning process. There are mixed opinions as to whether this is a good or a bad thing, however, with some parents expressing concern that computers, not children, end up doing all the work.

In this feature, we examine where and how information communications technology (ICT) is being used in primary and secondary schools today, both by pupils and teachers, and consider in what ways it helps children learn and teachers teach.

We also look at how parents can use IT in the home to help with children's education, assessing CD-Rom-based software and online resources designed to help pupils boost their coursework marks and exam results.

An upcoming feature will explore plagiarism: the stealing of other people's work and passing it off as your own. We will assess how bad a problem this is, whether students' use of computers and the internet makes it easier and what teachers can do to prevent it.

Senior school computing
The past few years has seen the government pour money into the British education system, and a substantial part of that cash has been invested in school ICT equipment. Figures from the ICT in Schools Survey in the UK for 2003 indicate that the average number of computers per school is now 192.7, or one PC for every 7.9 pupils, although the numbers vary considerably from school to school.

Witchford Village College, a secondary school in Cambridgeshire, currently has three IT suites housing 80 computers. It is planning to build a fourth containing another 30 within the next year, and will buy a small number of notebook PCs for student use, as well as installing a Wi-Fi network.

Students primarily use the computers to research information on the internet and access local content on the school network. Most students also say that using the PCs for projects and assignments helps improve the presentation of their work.

"I prefer using computers because it's much easier to type than to write and you can use search engines instead of having to flick through thousands of books to find what you want," said 13 year-old student Jessica Grant, who also uses spreadsheets to add up totals during maths lessons.

Witchford vice-principal David Taylor explained: "All of the students follow the national curriculum in ICT using the internet and standard applications such as Word, Excel, Publisher and PowerPoint. On top of that, lots of other subjects like science, art and design and technology use their own applications as well."

Adrian Mee, a lecturer at the Institute of Education, part of the University of London, does not believe that pupils are using computers to do all the work, and denies the suggestion that handwriting is starting to deteriorate because of the increased use of word processing and other software applications.

"By the stage that students are spending significant amounts of time using a word processor, it is late on in their school career and their handwriting is already well formed," he said.

And while the pupils themselves may prefer to use the keyboard for composing written work, outside ICT lessons the vast majority of exercises are still done using pen and paper, according to Taylor.

"If pupils are asked to do a particular coursework assignment or longer project they do use IT, but during day-to-day lessons they still write things down in the old-fashioned way," he stressed.

Primary school computing
There can be no doubt that using computers tends to improve pupils' motivation; ask any child what they like about using computers at school and they will invariably say that they are 'fun'.

This is especially true in primary schools, where drawing and painting are particularly suited to IT, as they are less messy than powder painting and changes can easily be made or undone. Many schools now intersperse traditional art lessons with computer-based drawing packages such as Silica Software's Dazzle. Other applications help younger pupils with their spelling, reading and writing skills.

Philip Edwards, a teacher at Cwmaber Junior School near Caerphilly in South Wales, explained that the widespread use of interactive digital whiteboards in the classroom makes it much easier for a class to read together, for example. He has also been surprised by how simple music lessons have become since the school started using appropriate software.

"All teachers are expected to teach music at Key Stage 1 and 2 yet most have no skills in this area. Having a fully interactive music lesson available at the click of a mouse is a really powerful tool," he said.

In addition to the one or two desktop PCs now found in most of their classrooms, many primary schools also provide IT suites for general usage and internet research.

What's in IT for teachers?
Computers have also changed the way that teachers work, with large numbers using notebook PCs to prepare lessons before presenting them in class using whiteboards or multimedia projectors. These PCs are provided either by the school or sourced through the Laptops for Teachers buying scheme.

Having a portable computer also gives them access to the vast wealth of resources available to help them do their job on school networks and the internet, as well as email, discussion forums and bulletin boards.

For all its advantages, IT usage in schools does have its drawbacks. Hardware and software maintenance remain the biggest complaints, with printers the most common culprits, followed by PC component failures. Teachers also say that the interactive whiteboards which have increasingly replaced the old-fashioned blackboard frequently break down and bulbs are expensive to replace.

Management problems such as password-protection can also frustrate children. "Computers crashing stops all the work but other annoying things are password management," said 14 year-old student Rachel Singh.

Teachers also complain that they don't get sufficient training to use new technology to its maximum advantage, although Mee claims that the training courses provided for teachers by the Institute of Education are always full and attendants are always keen to learn.

"There is still some apathy between some teachers and IT. Technical training for those not familiar with computing is definitely required," said Peter Jones, a teaching assistant at a Merseyside primary school.

The home computing front
Home computers can also play an important role in children's school education, although teachers agree that parental supervision is a must. Left to their own devices, children often spend too long playing games and browsing the internet when they should be working. As such, parents must take pains to encourage children to use the computer as a learning resource, rather than just for games or entertainment.

"Children can waste hours on computers when really they need to be outside kicking a ball or walking the dog," said Edwards.

However, not all computer games are a complete waste of time from an educational perspective. Blasting the living daylights out of unsuspecting alien hordes may be of little use, but strategy games often teach elements of history and geography, for example.

"The main thing is to take a positive attitude to kids' use of the computer. Things that might seem trivial to parents can be quite demanding for children," explained Mee.

Internet safety
Where parents have to be especially vigilant is in the control of internet usage, both to protect children from accessing unsuitable content and stop them from spending long hours in chat rooms or gossiping to friends using instant messaging.

"Parents need to make sure they know what their children are doing online, as kids can get into all sorts of trouble. At my school we had our very first case of cyber-bullying just last week," said Edwards.

Even children themselves agree that internet access must be controlled to prevent them from accidentally accessing disturbing or adult-only material, or leaving themselves vulnerable to dangerous influences.

"Parents should supervise access to the internet, especially given all the news items about paedophiles and rapists using it," said 14 year-old Alex Bingley.

A wide range of content-filtering, firewall and parental control software is available to help block certain sites and words, both as freeware and commercial packages. But it is important to remember that no software is ever 100 per cent watertight.

Mee claimed that schools have largely bolted down their internet access, but there is no equivalent system for home use. This leaves parents to employ purely practical measures like making sure that kids can only access the web from computers in shared locations rather than bedrooms, where someone can always keep an eye on the sites they visit. Practical advice on internet safety for parents is available from a government website here. Two examples of parental control software can be found here and here.

Online resources
The list of online educational resources is vast but only a few meet the universal approval of teachers and pupils. The BBC's educational content, which ranges from GCSE revision notes and advice on coursework and homework to online 'Bite size' tests, is widely recognised for its excellence, and also includes tips for parents on how to assist children with their education. Channel 4 offers a similar, though not quite so comprehensive, resource.

"We looked at buying revision software and the government provides CDs containing past SATs papers free of charge. But we found the BBC site to be the best resource of all of them. It offers nice easy little tests free of charge," said Taylor.

GCSE and SAT students are well catered for by an extensive range of revision aids and mock exams covering almost every subject available on CD, although some are better suited to the software format than others, according to teachers.

The multiple choice elements of maths, science or language examinations, where there is usually one absolutely correct answer, work well for instance, while English titles concentrate on spelling, punctuation and grammar. But subjects such as history, where the accuracy of any one answer is much harder to quantify, are more difficult to accommodate, although model answers are provided.

Global Software Publishing publishes a range of GCSE revision aids under the Letts brand covering all the core national curriculum subjects as well as languages such as Spanish and German, for instance, whilst Europress offers similar testing-based software for English, maths, French, Spanish and German. Similar titles are available to help primary school children with Key Stages one, two and three learning and SAT tests.

The common complaint with these types of applications is that the content is limited in terms of the number of questions and answers it provides, while more comprehensive material can often be found free of charge on school networks or online.

Sites favoured by those we spoke to include www.gcse.com, www.s-cool.co.uk, www.projectgcse.co.uk and www.revision-notes.co.uk, where you'll find plenty of course information, revision tips and advice on how to cope. S-cool also offers resources for teachers.

Outside software based on national curriculum content and grading, it gets harder to recommend specific titles. Many packages claim to support Key Stage learning topics but it is largely a matter of trial and error in finding out which are both useful and enjoyable for children.

The digital education divide
The increased use of computers in the home to aid learning also raises the question of whether children from families that do not have a PC in the house are losing out on their education. Witchford's Taylor concedes that this is a possibility, but points out that schools can put measures in place to make sure it doesn't happen.

"We would not set work where the pupil would have to have a computer to do it, but only where they could use a PC if they wanted to. Also, we have late buses three times a week when the computer resource centre is open until 4.15pm, providing plenty of free out-of-hours access to our machines," he said.

Mee added: "The potential development of a digital divide is one of the barriers to the use of ICT outside school hours, and many teachers feel uncomfortable about setting homework on PCs as a result."

Free internet access is now available from more than 6,000 local libraries and other community centres, although many believe that the government has not yet done enough to make public internet access a more widespread national resource.

However, falling computer and broadband prices are making technology more affordable, even to low-income families, as long as the motivation to use it is there.

"Less well-to-do parents have managed to buy or build their own computers, but others sadly fail to see any importance in using the technology," said Edwards.

Lesson learnt
What is clear from our conversations with teachers is that worries about computers devaluing education by doing students' work for them are based more on myth than truth, a theme we will explore in more detail in our article on plagiarism in the next feature.

Computers in education help users to do exactly what they did before, but in less time and more efficiently, just as they have in the business environment. In terms of the processes involved, there is actually no difference between going to the library and searching through three or four books for the relevant information, and typing the exact term into an internet search engine to find the same data in a fraction of the time, provided the information exists somewhere online in the first place.