When integrating ICT into the curriculum,  special attention must be given to the teachers in the school. There are those who will be early adopters, those who are fairly conversant with ICT use but choose a wait-and-see approach, and those who are not familiar with ICT and are probably worried about its use in the classroom.It the second and the third categories of teachers that we mus be more mindful of. They can make or break any ICT implementation program in a school.

For the second category, the wait-and-see group, they must be convinced about the importance and the usefulness of ICT use. Teachers are in general a fairly pragmatic group of people. They have been inundated with all kinds of fads that has been introduced into the teaching profession. They have seen fads come and go. A (un?)healthy scepticism becomes part of the outlook of such teachers. To convince them, they must not only be told of the importance of ICT use, they must also be convinced that the school is serious in believing that ICT use is important to achieve the curricular goals set for the school; and very importantly, that ICT really works for their students and the teachers.

Such teachers will watch to see if the school is serious about ICT implementation. By “serious” here, I do not mean that, for example, that the school makes it compulsory for teachers to have a certain minimal percentage of their lessons with an ICT element in them. By “serious”, I mean that the school would actually take into consideration, for example, the kind of assessment that the students would undergoing. If the only assessment that matters are the high stakes examinations where students can be drilled to do well in the traditional way, teachers will see little point doing “extra” since no measurable value is attached to the use of ICT in the classroom. In the face of a heavy work load and responsibilities and the perceived lack of time to “cover” the syllabus, ICT use in the classroom will not be given any importance by these teachers. This is made worse if teachers know that the appraisal of their performance is heavily weighted towards how well their students perform in the pen and paper examinations. A whole lot of serious convincing is needed.

For the non-ICT savvy teachers, not only they must be convinced but additional assistance is required if they are going to adapt successfully to using ICT in the classroom. Some of these additional assistance may include even bringing them to an acceptable level of basic ICT skills. It may mean for them to just learn to use word processing or spread sheet software for their own personal use. The training should be of the just-in-time nature.

Getting them to use ICT in the classroom would require a gradual process beginning with the familiar software they already know. Here again school administrators must not set unrealistic expectations of these teachers. I have already mentioned in a previous posting how some school principals banned the use of PowerPoint. For the new users of ICT among teachers, asking them to try something beyond PowerPoint may be asking too much in too little time. Better for them to learn the finer points of using PowerPoint and other simple ICT tools then be stressed out by unrealistic expectations.

The stress of learning to use ICT for these teachers can also be reduced if they are given adequate demonstrations and also a lot of hand holding by more ICT-savvy teachers. This is to give them confidence that someone is helping them and ready to assist. All they need to do is to try and master the simpler ICT tools.

Perhaps, the last important thing is that ICT tools take time to learn and master. Time is needed for teachers to feel confident to use them in front of an audience of usually ICT comepetent students. Rushing it will only lead to unsuccessful lessons in the classrooms.

In short, an ICT integration programme must be people friendly. It is about people first and technology second. The gates to ICT integration will not open unless we do imitate Gandalf at Moria and “Speak Friend, and enter”

Another way of how ICT is being put to use inappropriately is when it is included as components of larger courses with little regard for its place in the bigger whole. This may come in two forms.

The first is commonly seen not only in Indonesia but also in Singapore as well. When schools hire external trainers to teach students the use of various software like DreamWeaver, CorelDraw and others, it is usually done for a few reasons. Firstly, it is done because parents clamor for the use of ICT in schools. For this reason, software courses are introduced as separate and ad hoc additions to the school activity. If asked why teach software, the usual answer would be that these software are useful for the students.

It is perhaps true that it may be good to learn something additional and in the name of “usefulness”. But how many of us have asked how useful it is really to teach primary and secondary school students specific software. Are the students going to use their knowledge of these software meaningfully once the course is over? Will the software be the same as what they will be using when they enter the work force which may be many years down the road which is the equivalent of several generations of software evolution?

It is true that the future work force should be ICT literate but is this the same as learning specific software at such an early age? Do the students need to know such in-depth knowledge of software at that point in time? They would if we are certain they are going to be professionals in some IT-related line. But are they? And even if they are, will they have to re-learn everything by the time they reach that age as the software and hardware will probably have changed by then? Would it be useful then for them when they enter the workforce?

The ICT literacy that is required by the future workforce is not about learning specific software. It is about being able to use ICT to connect and collaborate with all stakeholders, store and retrieve data and to seek new information.

The usefulness of teaching specific software is also questionable from another point of view. While it may be “good” to know something additional, to what extent should schools teach additional “good” things? We can go on and on for many other good things to be introduced to the school. But where do we draw the line as to what should be in the school’s agenda? A school must not be adding activities which have little relevance to its main agenda.

A second example of inappropriate use happens at the tertiary level. My son, who is attending a diploma course in accountancy at a local polytechnic, came home one day and said that part of the course requirement was that he had to build a web page using a specific web authoring tool (I won’t name which). He was really at a loss as to why he had to do that when he is doing a course in accountancy. He asked me if I knew how to use a certain web authoring tool. I told him no and I asked him why he needed to use that particular web authoring tool anyway to make a web page. He said that it was also a course requirement and he was not allowed to use another web authoring tool for that purpose.

He said that all his course mates had questioned the lecturer why such a project was needed. The answer was a flippant, “It is important for you to know.” The students clearly could not see the need for them to learn web page design, and to be done only with a specific software. While often students are not the best judges of what is needed in a course, I believe they are correct in thinking that way here.

It just does not make sense for accountancy students to be learning web page design. What is the relevance of it with regards to the main learning objectives of the course concerned? The lecturer told them that they may have to set up a web page themselves when they start work. This is similar to asking someone aspiring to be chef in a restaurant to be asked to do a computer programming component as part of his course requirement.

This is not the only example I have heard of. I know of someone else doing a diploma course on building and estate management being ask to do a computer programming project as part of the course requirement. He too is given the same reasoning when he asked why there is a need for such a component.

Such ridiculous and irrelevant course additions could be due to a few reasons. In both examples, what probably happened was that again the institutions concerned saw the need to show that their courses were keeping up with the times (read ICT development). Therefore, there must be an ICT component to the course. Furthermore, they had told parents that it was compulsory to buy laptops for their children who have enrolled in the polytechnic.

However, the ICT component would not be done by the department that is running the course. For example, if my son is doing an accountancy course, his course is probably run by the department running the business and accountancy courses and it is not the department responsible for developing the polytechnic’s ICT courses. The ICT component is therefore farmed out to the polytechnic’s ICT department. The ICT department would only be given some vague guidelines by the first department because they would not know much about ICT anyway. The ICT department would make some minor changes to an existing ICT course. Very little thought is given if the ICT component that is to be taught for accountancy students is relevant for them. It is probably the same as that for the Media or ICT department students. Come to think of it, I will not be surprised if it is the same for the whole polytechnic. To be fair to the ICT department, even if they ask the requesting department what aspect of ICT ought to be prepared for the ICT component, they will not be given a clear answer as the requesting department will not know what to tell them either since they are not trained ICT people. In such a scenario, it is not surprising then that students would find the ICT component irrelevant. I also wonder why the lecturers from the department running the business and accountancy department were unable to come up with an ICT course themselves since learning ICT is “definitely useful”, as they often claim.

They probably also insist on the students using a specific web authoring tool because that is the only one that the polytechnic has license to use. Never mind if it is not even the most widely used web authoring tool in the real world. Never mind if there are now lots of free and excellent applications on the web that allows you to set up very sophisticated web sites with all the e-commerce ability that you can think of. The important thing to the polytechnic is that, that is the web authoring tool that the polytechnic has a license for, so that will be the one that the students would have to use.

It seems that convenience is the only criteria used here for deciding on course component design. It is convenient to just pad a course with an ICT component that “does not need” much re-working of the course materials. At the same time, the polytechnic is seen as progressive and up-to-date. What about relevance? Who cares as long as we are in the IT Age!