Are young teachers more ICT savvy?

In March 2008, edna commissioned market research into ICT use by Australian educators.

The graph above shows how a sample of 1167 Australian educators have assessed their capability into the use of ICT to support their teaching. Each band shows the percentage of educators with similar levels of teaching experience who fall into one of the 4 categories. Findings include:

• ICT proficiency is much greater for teachers with over 2 years experience than those in the first 2 years of their career
• overall ICT proficiency levels are similar for educators of all experience levels after 2 years practice - 68-70% compared to 43% of those in their first 2 years (proficient or transforming practice)
• a greater proportion of teachers who are further into their career (10-20 years plus) rated their proficiency as transforming practice
• late career teachers also use the Internet more frequently - 89% use the Internet daily compared to 74% in the first 5 years of their practice
• the sample group is likely to be slightly biased towards those with greater ICT knowledge
  

This research appears to dispel conventional wisdom that new teachers are more ICT-savvy than their more experienced counterparts. 

The 4-scale ICT capability rating loosely maps to ICT capability frameworks developed by Australian education systems - see edna  ICT professional learning frameworks and resources theme page

edna is currently investigating the specific ICT needs of beginning teachers and how ICT support and service may better support their needs. We will report on this research shortly.

Rating	< 2 years	2-5 years	5-10 years	10-20 years	> 20 years
Foundation	22%	7%	5%	8%	6%
Emergent	35%	25%	24%	23%	27%
Proficient	38%	43%	44%	40%	33%
Transformational	5%	25%	26%	29%	33%
Use of the Internet every day	74%	74%	90%	84%	90%

Which of the following statements best describes your current use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in your current work or teaching practice? 

Foundation - developing my ICT skills
Emergent - using ICT to support  teaching and learning
Proficient - confident  in use of ICT to support learning outcomes
Transforming practice - new ways of engaging students within and beyond the classroom/learning environment

Tags: market research
Posted at 04:37PM Nov 01, 2008 by Mark Tranthim-Fryer  | 

Stakeholder advice and recommendations

  Advice and recommendations from national consultation (excludes higher education):

• education.au and edna are well placed to extend their national leadership and brokerage role in areas including:
   
  
• national and international innovations and trends in ICT in learning - digital pedagogies, content, standards and architectures
   
  
• ICT in education policies, exemplars, cost-benefits and risks - communicated in an accessible and timely way to enable informed decision-making at the local level
   
  
• Support national knowledge sharing - convene forums on key challenges and point to lessons learned in other jurisdictions or internationally
   
  
• Advocacy for reforms in access and pricing of broadband provision for education
   
  
• Greater focus on communication strategies with education practitioners (eg professional learning support or provision of tools) with a parallel strategy to stakeholders on benefits and risks of national services (eg employee productivity gains, lessons learned from innovations that may be applicable to jurisdictions)
   
  
• Provide ICT and educators market research data disaggregated by sector
   
  
• Bring edna and other national services closer to the point of delivery - through links on local portals, embedded web services (eg targeted RSS feeds), modules or code that can be integrated into local systems
   
  
• Enhance  the presentation layer of edna to improve usability and appeal (a priority in 2008-09 edna work plan)
   
  
• Review the collection focus and points of difference of edna repository services and more recent collection initiatives such as The Le@rning Federation (schools), Learning Object Repository Network (VET), Australian Learning and Teaching Exchange (higher education) and public search tools and repositories
   
  
• Reform the governance structure of edna to achieve greater engagement of stakeholders in determining service priorities (underway in 2008-09 edna work plan)

Tags: consultation edna2010
Posted at 12:32PM Sep 12, 2008 by Mark Tranthim-Fryer  | 

Support for current edna and education.au initiatives

Common feedback on  edna and education.au intiatives include the following:

• Widespread support for the www.me.edu.au professional networking initiative as both a professional resource and potential as a teaching tool
   
  
• High levels of support for edna community spaces (especially Groups) where they supplement local provision of support for educators, and particularly where they facilitate collaboration and networks across borders, sectors and jurisdictions. An exception to this view was expressed by one schooling jurisdiction that Groups should be provided on a fee-for-service basis
   
  
• Support for upcoming web conferencing facility (Wimba Classroom) albeit with strategies to manage demand
   
  
• High value placed upon safe and spam-free places for educators to experiment and evaluate emerging technologies for learning  - most jurisdictions are not well-placed to provide these types of sandpit environments themselves

• Widespread support for the development of tools and services that can be provided locally and/or integrated into jurisdictional and institutional infrastructure
   
  
• High levels of support for facilitation of collaboration across sectors and jurisdictions where common issues relating to using technologies to enhance teaching and learning require national and strategic conversations.
   
  
• Strong support was expressed for leadership in the use of emerging technologies to support educational delivery and professional learning and for provision of evidence based research into the value and use of technology in learning.
   
  
• Provision of seminars and leading speakers was strongly supported.

Tags: edna2010 education.au consultation
Posted at 01:01PM Sep 11, 2008 by Mark Tranthim-Fryer  | 

Common Australian ICT issues and challenges

The following are some of the key issues and challenges faced by education jurisdictions from consultation forums over the last two months. Note that the needs of higher education will be canvassed in October and November. Subsequent posts will include feedback on edna and education.au intiatives and further advice and recommendations on future actions for edna and education.au.

• Learning needs and appropriate pedagogies must be the driver of change rather than tools and technologies in themselves
   
• Strategies to mainstream digital pedagogies, services and content for educators are required to reach beyond the small proportion of early adopters - more effective professional learning is crucial
   
• Limited system and institution readiness exists for significant reforms in digital content and pedagogies and low visibility of effective policy and practices elsewhere
   
• Inadequate, patchy and costly broadband access is a major impediment to reforms in digital education
   
• Significant variation exists in content filtering and blocking policies between states, particularly in the school sector and a consequent need for more sophisticated filtering strategies
   
• Carbon reduction considerations is looming as a signifant issue - both potential ICT benefits (eg reduced travel) but also environmental costs such as the impact of decommissioning hardware

Tags: edna2010 consultation policy
Posted at 05:46PM Sep 10, 2008 by Mark Tranthim-Fryer  | 

Forum 11: South Australia, August 8

Wide ranging dialogue with representatives e-learning administrators and practitioners from DECS (schooling), DFEEST / TAFE SA, eworks and private RTO

Issues and challenges

• One-size-fits-all content filtering in schools significantly limits potential of the internet for learning
• Critical nature of quality professional development to realise learning and productivity benefits, recognising that ICT capability is a shared responsibility of both the employer and the educator taking charge of their own career development
• Limitations of current learning spaces - classrooms off a corridor may not represent 21C learning
• Digital Education Revolution - immediate need for practical information in computer roll-out, eg cost-benefits of laptops, desktops, thin clients
• More sophisticated debate required on use of mobile devices with focus on education possibilities not just the risks 

Advice and recommendations

• Provide data and lessons learned on collaborative spaces for educators - eg cost-benefits, facilitation strategies, productivity improvements
• Explore wider access to Scootle - the PDF learning plan is particularly useful
• Explore 'federated identity' provision using open standards such as OpenID
• Provide visibility of colleagues 'following me' in me.edu.au
• Investigate pre-service needs of VET practitioners when conducting the upcoming pre-service teacher review
• Explore models of career recognition and reward for contributions to professional networks
• Advocate the business case for investment in professional development (leaders, practitioners, support staff) fully integrated with teaching and learning

Tags: sa consultation edna2010
Posted at 03:10PM Aug 18, 2008 by Mark Tranthim-Fryer  |  Comments[1]