Changing the Nature of Education: Using Information Systems that Integrate Computers and Communication tools.

What does this mean for Student Participation and Student Learning?

Introduction

The Internet is acclaimed by many as heralding a new era in global information sharing. For this to fulfil its promise as a useful resource, information will have to become much more active compared to the passive nature of the Internet today. Success depends on collaboration, commitment and dedication of many people; those in education, industry, community and government - a collaboration of experts which aims to transform a dream of future life into a vision of today.

Student Participation and Technology

White (1996) states that schools today are often highly text-driven, highly task-driven and organised in very hierarchical and structured ways that are more in keeping with an industrial economy than a global, knowledge-based economy. White is the National Co-ordinator of the National Schools Network, a school reform network supported by the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments and the teacher unions, which is exploring ways that schools can improve teaching and learning by rethinking their organization and practice. White (opt. cit.) suggests the challenge for schools is to actively prepare students to work in flexible, creative, adaptable and innovative ways. ‘Schooling should be about getting kids to engage with their world, and develop their sense of who they are and how they connect with the global community’ (ibid. : 1).

Student Participation as defined by Holdsworth (1995) fosters this ‘active’ sharing by students in decisions about and implementation of education policies and practices and of the key issues that determine the nature of the world in which they live. According to Holdsworth this implies ‘that participation must value the contribution that students make, meet genuine needs, have an impact or consequence that extends beyond the participants (that is, outside the classroom), be challenging to participants, and provide the opportunity for planning, acting and reflecting’ (Holdsworth, 1995 :1).

Let us consider student participation as a central aspect of what we refer to as good learning. We then need to investigate how the Internet can extend the development of student decision making, through schools, about vital community issues. We will examine the range of possibilities for what we mean by student participation (active participation by students) in technology (rather than its passive use).

Essentially the Internet provides a communications tool which can assist students in networking within and between schools. In the past, ‘the tyranny of distance’ has restricted opportunities for students to meet and compare their participatory experiences. Internet technology permits swift student-to-student communication via relatively inexpensive E-mail.

Messages can be sent to a school or to many schools at once. Eudora or Mailsearch are good software programs in this regards. Internet conferencing, using a software package called First Class can enable classroom groups to be on-line simultaneously and to meet in ‘real time’. Internet technology is allowing students access to the ‘real world’ interacting with the workplace as a ‘community participant’ in the wider community (Newmann 1981, 1985). This allows students to ‘live’ the lessons they are being taught (Sawyer 1996).

Newmann (cited in Heater and Gillespie 1981) advocates the ideal of ‘community participant’. This approach gives students responsibility, independence, productive capacity and value suggested by Coleman (1972) and Pearl (1978). It embodies Neill’s exegesis, that given the right to participate in community affairs is for the student both an educationally profitable experience and an important display of adult trust and confidence. According to Newmann (1981) the notion ‘community participant’ emphasises:

Kraft (1967 : 599) also states that: ‘we must strive in every way possible to bring children into direct, real, and non-artifical encounters with the social environment’.

This technology also has implications for decision making and governance within classrooms and schools. The knowledge, familiarity and confidence that students bring to the technology has potential to change power relationships within schools, as students become recognised as skilled curriculum and resource collaborators. In several schools students are largely managing their information Technology Centres, making recommendations on resources, organising facilities and teaching teachers (Holdsworth 1995 : 6). Tom Lewis, Information Technology Manager at Nightcliff High School, Darwin, said that power sharing at Nightcliff High has meant prosperity. Lewis (opt. cit.) has found:

At Mount Carmel College, Hobart, I too was continually besieged by the day-to-day tasks of running an expanding computer network: refilling printers, fixing software and hardware problems, ordering new equipment and installing it and coping with the need to drive the College’s Computing focus further. In addition, I am teaching in a number of subject areas, and the College’s computing facilities are open to all subject departments. This did not stop teachers sending messages via students to my classroom for assistance. My solution, like Nightcliff High was to empower willing student participants in the Year 10 Computers and Information classes with the ‘authority, ability and trust’ to assist with sections of the College’s computing facilities. These students have learnt a lot along the way, not only about computers, but about inter-personal skills, management techniques and responsibility- all of which are part of the student’s curriculum.

The Internet can, of course, be used for essentially trivial curriculum ends. It can provide students with an enormous and rapidly accessible passive library resource and hence be used to research different topics.

This can reinforce models of the student as a passive learner, lacking in knowledge. It can continue ‘teaching’ styles that are basically ‘cut’, ‘copy’, ‘paste’. Student Participation, as defined by Holdsworth (1995), challenges such ‘learning’ as inefficient and unproductive; further, it charges that such approaches continue to place students ‘on hold’ for longer and longer periods, and structurally reinforce students’ images of themselves as irresponsible, dependent and unproductive (Coleman 1972, Pearl 1978, Holdsworth 1986, 1995).

Holdsworth (1995) states that Student Participation has ‘highlighted projects that recognise students as real and valued participants in their communities today and show how learning, responsibility, independence (and interdependence), and productivity are enhanced through such approaches (Conventry 1978, Knight 1980, Cole 1981, Holdsworth 1986, Alder and Sandor 1990, Carey 1995 to mention a few). These projects involve students in research and action, and the creation of community resources. They have outlined how students negotiate curriculum in these areas, and how they test possible projects and their outcomes against criteria of:

• student decision making- they are seen as valuable by the students;
• community relevance- they provide something of value within their community;
• academic integrity- they meet curriculum and learning requirements’(Holdsworth 1995 : 4).

According to Holdsworth (1995 : 5-6) the Internet technology is providing students with possibilities for teaching/tutoring, publication, research and action.

Students have used the Internet to teach about areas in which they have knowledge and skills. Such approaches also encourage students to develop their own learning in order to teach. For example, web-based projects on Australia have developed interactive methods to reach out to students and adults through the world and to teach them something about which the students know or can learn.

For example when Camden Primary School in South Australia joined the TechNet School program, they had no idea that they would be communicating and exchanging ideas with a school in California. The school has set up personal links with Rancho Cucamonga Elementary School’s computer co-ordinator, and asked him if he would be interested in collaborating on a social studies project. John Massie, a teacher at the Californian school, approached Camden Primary School’s computer co-ordinator Don Bull via eWorld and asked him if he would be interested in such a project. John Massie was teaching a year 12 class in California, interested in discovering how children in Australia lived. He asked his students to write the questions that they really wanted to know about growing up in Australia.

These questions were then passed on to Jenni Jenkins at Camden Primary School and her year 5/6 students who were given the task of researching the answers and replying. Jenni Jenkins said ‘for our students it was an interesting exercise in paragraph writing. They had to construct articulate answers- not just yes and no answers so that the American students could really get a feel for life in Australia’. Don Bull said ‘we are now growing our relationship with the Californian school and next term our 5/6 will reverse roles and ask them the questions’.

Student Participation using Information Systems that integrate computers and communication is allowing students to share different perspectives, personal knowledge and experience via conversation, argument, debate and spontaneous or structured discussion with other students and adults ( McWhirter 1996, Buzza 1996, Thompson 1996).

In the past, students have used the public media of newspapers, radio or TV to convey information and opinions. Some have had a limited audience and deal with limited issues of Student Participation while others are widely available within their community and concerned with community issues.

The students at Mount Carmel College Hobart have also used the medium of newspaper in their publication of the MCC News to convey information and opinions within their community and about community issues. Present technology has enabled this participation to be extended. The Year 10 Computers and Information classes at the College have assisted in the construction of the College Home Page. The Internet technology; the World Wide Web in particular- has provided this further medium for publication. The College Home Page can be read anywhere by anyone, and this in itself has created a positive challenge for the students to consider the needs of their audience.

In using technology as a tool for this project the students have used relevant and current information and learned to access, manage, process and communicate information in a variety of ways. They have made use of the ‘connectivity’ to great advantage, learning within context and including technology very naturally as part of the learning process.

The students have learnt to manage personal time and resources more effectively as well as to apply the knowledge/skills gained in a meaningful context. Higher level thinking skills, so necessary to communicate information precisely and clearly to the intended audience, has also developed steadily. Apart from making friends world wide and contributing in a very meaningful way into cultural understanding, the students involved have:

• grown personally, developing greater self confidence;
• learned more about themselves and willingly given of their own personal time;
• worked co-operatively as members of a team;
• taken the initiative to make things happen;
• become more self-reliant and shared in decision-making more constructively;
• come forward with imaginative and innovative ideas;
• developed friendships with students at their school whom they may not otherwise have got to know; and
• developed a higher level of sensitivity towards the experiences of others.

The use of Information Technology has encouraged the development of:

• productivity;
• clarity and conciseness of expression;
• ability to develop well-supported arguments;
• a greater awareness of their audience;
• greater interest in world affairs/environment/people;
• greater respect of cultural differences;
• joint projects with students in other countries; and
• increased student involvement.

Internet technology has also provided us with possibilities for rapid communication and comparison of information- enabling student/student and student/adult global collaborative research and action programs:

Our challenge is to continue to discover ways to develop even more meaningful participation within these examples. The TechNet School program, introduced by the Technology School of the future in South Australia, involves 12 schools throughout South Australia. The National School Network Testbed schools are among the leading schools in USA integrating technology into the curriculum and working with their communities. Their network connections offer unique opportunities to model new linkages between school and community.

The TeachNet School program has a special Web page focused on http://www.teachnet.com/ that features pointers to NSNTestbed projects and products related to the ‘America Goes Back to School’ themes.

Community participation projects (CPP) are enabling teachers and students to work together in different parts of the world at very low cost through a global telecommunications network (the Internet and video conferencing). The purpose of CPP is to provide the means by which participants can undertake projects designed to make a meaningful contribution in their lives. Students can go beyond simply being 'pen-pals’, to use telecommunications in joint student projects designed to 'make a difference' in the world as a part of the educational process.

International E-mail Classroom Connections (IECC) seeks patron classrooms for international and cross cultural electronic mail exchange. The community participation project site like I*EARN looks very closely at international partnerships that already exist to see if adding telecommunications would enhance and deepen relationships. Towards this end, they work with international service and youth organisations to explore how telecommunications can bring larger numbers of young people in contact and meaningful work with each other using organisational infrastructures. Examples of such youth and service groups include Save the Children, World Scouts Environment Network, Partners of the Americas, street children's organisations in Brazil and elsewhere, the United Nations Environmental program (UNEP), UNICEF, international student exchange programs etc. I*EARN has recently partnered with the Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN) for international watershed education networking.

Student participation in education is the key to the growth and use of the vast information resources available over the Internet. The Internet technology enables students and teachers to work together in different parts of the world at very low cost through a global telecommunications network to undertake projects designed to make a meaningful difference in the wider community. Collaborative projects like those accessible at the Global School House require more planning, more involvement and produce greater opportunities for broad learning. These projects are at the core of what the Internet offers in terms of extending the classroom. These projects are seen as the prototype for the future of education.

Students can become involved in real world research, collaborate to change their environment and learn skills, which are difficult to teach in the traditional classroom. These activities can be the answer to the question, "Why are we doing this?" They can also extend students into areas not possible in the traditional classroom; include the skills of other adults; encourage students to become more active and independent learners. The emancipatory potential for students will be limited, if students are not actively participating. Such interaction will bring students into direct, real and non-artifical encounters with their social environment and allow students to question the human values and the psychological processes of human interaction, which relate to social justice issues. The projects work best when they are integrated into the standard teaching process, where students still use standard research techniques, class discussions and essay writing, but include the Internet in each of these activities. While Information Technology must be maintained as an important optional subject to provide code, programming, data and product production we must also challenge schools to make strong connections between converging technologies and such learning areas as Health and Physical Education, The Arts, Technology and Enterprise and Society and The Environment. If we do away with Information Technology as a separate field of study in schools and likewise if we ignore cross curriculum approaches we do our students a disservice. Collaborative Internet projects do not replace the teacher or the classroom. They work best when integrated with other traditional teaching methodologies and act as a focus for a project. When students are encouraged to extend their classrooms and examine their learning, real benefits can result. However, constraints of time and lack of any co-ordinated support can make involvement in collaborative projects difficult. Current curricular constraints and timetabling will need to be altered to take advantage of all the Internet has to offer. Then we will see the start of what could be the biggest change in the history of teaching. There are many examples of collaborative projects to look at.