Many educational institutions are in favor of incorporating the use of ICT in education. However, not many have a good understanding of the appropriate use ICT in education. In a series of articles, I will illustrate this through some examples that I have come across. I will then suggest why these approaches are inappropriate.

One of these examples occurred when I was a teacher in a secondary school in Singapore in 1999. My school principal decided one day that the school together with the other schools in its cluster should hop on a web-based video conferencing system to be shared for use among the schools in the cluster. He told me it would cost S$40 000 which was quite an investment then and I think it still is even now. He was the Coordinator for the cluster’s ICT program. He had heard the sales pitch from the salesperson of the system and he he felt it was a great idea. He also added that the vendor had told him that another cluster of schools had already bought the system and had begun using it. He wanted to know what I thought of his idea.

I asked him how did he envisage using the video conferencing system? He told me that it would be a useful thing to have as principals of the schools in the cluster would not have to drive to a meeting place for their regular meetings. The same would apply to the head of departments and teachers. Bear in mind that we are talking about Singapore, a very tiny nation state. The schools in the cluster are also grouped geographically so they are not too far off from one another.

He also gave another example of the use of the video conferencing system. He said that if a teacher for Tamil Language is absent in one school, the students would in that school would be able to “attend” through video conferencing another lesson by a Tamil language teacher elsewhere (note: Not all schools in Singapore have resident Tamil language teachers).

After hearing his response, I asked him was it really necessary to get all the principals to move to video conferencing since the distance and time involved in traveling to the meeting place was not far at all. I knew it would at most take 10-15 minutes for them to get to any of the member schools. So I asked him if the benefits of using video conferencing really justifies the costs of the system?

Secondly, it may seem easy to just connect students from one school to another lesson through videoconferencing. However, this assumes among other things that the same lesson would be conducted at the same time in both schools. How likely is this going to be? Furthermore, the difference in preparing lessons for videoconferencing and for a typical classroom setting is not considered yet. As I pointed these out to my principal, I could see that he was still not able to see my point of view. I was always seen at the teacher who is keen on using IT for teaching. I think it surprised him that I didn’t share his enthusiasm for the videoconferencing system.

Anyway, he felt that the cluster should acquire the system. I thought that buying the system would be waste of money and would not bring about the benefit as he saw it. I suggested then that he and his team visit the other cluster who had already bought and used the system to ask them how it was used, how regularly it was used and what were the problems they faced using it. My principal agreed to it and said they would do what I had suggested soon.

Weeks went by and I did not hear any news about the planned study visit. In the mean time I had not head anything further about the video conferencing system. I then asked my Head of Department if the visit had been done. She told me that they have visited the other cluster and asked them about the video conferencing system. She seemed reluctant to go further so I probed and asked what was the feedback that they had received. She said that they were told that it was “challenging” to use the system. When I heard that, I dropped the subject. It was never broached again by anyone and I assume that the idea was dropped.

There are a many lessons that can be gleaned from this example but I will only highlight a few points here. School administrators should not be taken in by the latest technology available that is being peddled to them without thinking through carefully how it would be used in school. Many vendors of ICT products will try and sell their product to schools by highlighting only the positives of the product. However, it would be good for those involved in ICT implementation to always try to see from the school administrator’s point of view and also from the point of view of the teaching process. The vendor or salesman is unlikely to know much about how teaching actually takes place. The school administrator responsible for procuring ICT products or systems for a school must be more critical about how these products or systems are to be used.

There is also a tendency to try and fill schools with ICT hardware and software in an ad hoc manner because schools are under some pressure to show their stakeholders, like parents of their students, that the school is not outdated. ICT implementation in schools must always conform to the school’s need for good administration and also good teaching and learning. This implies that a school must have a clear plan about ICT use for an educational institution. ICT must help the school to be run better and also help better teaching and learning to take place. If it does not then it should not be used.

Stumble! for WP