Innovative use of ICT in schools in Denmark, Norway, Sweden,

Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom

Ulf FredrikssonCentre for Research on Lifelong Learning, Ispra, Italy and Mid Sweden University, Sweden

Tjeerd Plomp University of Twente, the Netherlands

Gunilla Jedeskog Linköping University, Sweden

Elsebeth Sorensen Aalborg University, Denmark

Maria Rasmusson Mid Sweden University, Sweden

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Innovative use of ICT in schools in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom

• The ELFE project – a short presentation

• Findings from the project

• Findings from the Nordic countries compared with findings from the other three countries

• Discussions and conclusions

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The ELFE project

• Initiated by ETUCE

• 2 year project financed by the EU

• allow ETUCE and the wider society to get a better understanding of the strengths and the weaknesses of using ICT in primary and secondary education

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The ELFE project: aims

Aim 1: Analyse and share good experiences and identify good practices in using ICT

• Aim 2: Study the possibilities of transferring these good practices to other schools and countries

• Aim 3: Create a debate on how the European policy on eLearning and use of ICT in education should be developed

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The ELFE project

• Cooperation between researchers and teacher unions

• Denmark, Germany, Norway, Portugal and United Kingdom

• Three schools from each country

• An additional study in Sweden (three schools)

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The ELFE-project: selection of schools

• normal’ as opposed to schools that receive extra budgets and support as part of a specific project

• a mixture of primary and secondary schools including some vocational schools and some isolated and/or rural schools

• the use of ICT is aimed at pedagogical innovation

• ICT is intensively used in teaching and learning processes in the school as a whole

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The ELFE-project: selection of schools

• selection of school was done by the national trade union representative of the participating countries in the ELFE Steering Committee

• only three days were available for the three school visits in a particular country (one day per school, during that day the ELFE team also had to travel from one school to the next)

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ELFE instruments

• Principal: interview and questionnaire• Innovative teachers (i.e. teachers deeply

involved in using ICT in their teaching and in implementing ICT in the school): interview

• ‘Other’ teachers: interview• Students: interview• ICT coordinator (staff member responsible in the

school for the ICT infrastructure): questionnaire• collect school level documents relevant for the

topic

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Three questions

1. What factors influence the intensive use of ICT?

2. What difference does the use of ICT make in schools where ICT is intensively used for instructional/pedagogical purposes?

3. How are the students influenced by this different way of teaching as compared to the traditional classroom education, both individually and as a collective?

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What factors influence the intensive use of ICT?

• Vision on teaching and learning• School’s involvement in other innovations• Leadership style of the principal• Integration of ICT in the school’s culture• Teachers’ professional development• Teacher collaboration• External policies and linkages relevant for ICT

use and pedagogical changes

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What difference does the use of ICT make in schools where ICT is intensively

used for instructional/pedagogical

purposes?

• Interaction between teachers • Interaction between teachers and students • Better communication with parents • Other type of interaction with local community • Influences on teaching and learning • New physical arrangements • Increased efficiency of school administrations

and effectiveness of school management

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How are the students influenced by this different way of teaching as compared to the traditional classroom education, both

individually and as a collective?

• What students do with ICT• How students experience working with ICT• No hard evidence of what impact the intensive

use of ICT in subjects and/or in projects and independent learning tasks has on students

• New competences such as being able to work independently and in projects, to search for information, to collaborate and communicate, etc

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How are the students influenced by this different way of teaching as compared to the

traditional classroom education, both individually and as a collective?

• Students show more confidence and have better learning motivation

• Students have no ‘instrumental’ problems in working with computers and more general with ICT

• In general students like working with computers

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Findings from Denmark, Norway and Sweden

Country / school (grades) Student:computer ratio

DK (1-9) 4.4DK (10 – 12) 5.7DK (10 -12) 4.8NW (1 – 10) 3.7NW (11 – 13) 2.8NW (11 – 13) 1.9SW (10 – 12) 2.4SW (10 – 12) 1.7SW (10 – 12) 1.7

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Findings from Germany, Portugal and the UK

Country / school (grades) Student:computer ratio

EN (1 – 6) 3.6EN (6 – 12) 5.9EN (6 – 12) 3.7GM (1 – 4) 1.9GM (11 – 13) 12.8GM (5 – 13) 33.6PT (1 – 9) 15.3PT (10 – 12) 12PT (5 – 9) 13.7

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Findings from Denmark, Norway and Sweden

What factors influence the intensive use of ICT?

• Vision - yes• Leadership style – yes (autonomy of the

schools)• Integration of ICT in the school’s culture - yes• Teachers’ professional development – yes

(based on local needs and local decisions)• External policies - yes

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Findings from Denmark, Norway and Sweden

What difference does the use of ICT make?

• Interaction between teachers and students

• New physical arrangements

• Increased efficiency of school administrations and effectiveness of school management

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Findings from Denmark, Norway and Sweden

How are the students influenced by this way of teaching?

• All students use ICT

• Students ability to work independently?

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Comparison between the three Nordic countries and the other

countries • All the schools seem to have much in common • The schools in the Nordic countries and in

England seem to have been working more with teachers’ professional development than in the other countries.

• Students use computers in all involved schools, but the schools in the Nordic countries and in England seem to have more access to computers than the German and the Portuguese students

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Discussion and conclusions:

“Time” is an issue(Fullan, 2001)

• Three stages:

– Initiation:

• Being informed

– Implementation (change):

• Fear, risk, etc.

• Pedagogical imagination

• Competence

– Institutionalization

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Discussion and conclusions: The teacher as the key

• The appropriate role of technology depends on the individual educational designer’s/teacher’s views and perception of the goals of education

• A conscious choice

• Time

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Discussion and conclusions:

A set of questions for reflection

• The role of the teacher/student?

• How to balance student initiatives and teachers’ need to control?

• Dialogue/collaboration?

• How to use ICT to foster collaboration?

• Imagining appropriate assessment models?

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Discussion and conclusions

• The findings from the ELFE project are not possible to generalize.

• Comparing schools that are supposed to be in the forefront may give some hints about the directions of developments in the involved countries

• The differences between the schools in the project seem to reflect the differences between the countries.

More information about the ELFE- project

http://www.elfe-eu.net/

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Merci! Danke!

Gracias!Tack!

Kiitos!

Grazie!

Takk!