Nordic 2006

What characterises teachers who experience the
greatest or the least impact of ICT on pupil performance
and the teaching and learning processes?
What characterises teachers who experience the greatest or the
least impact of ICT on pupil performance and the teaching and
learning processes? To answer that question, Ramboll Management
carried out a cluster analysis grouping the teachers into
three different clusters, each representing a level of impact from
ICT:
• Teachers, who experience no impact of ICT
• Teachers, who experience a moderate impact of ICT
• Teachers, who experience a great positive impact of ICT.
The results of the cluster analysis show that the teachers who experience
a moderate impact of ICT, are the largest group, representing
almost half the teacher population. 30% of the teachers,
experience a great positive impact of ICT and the teachers, who
experience no impact of ICT, constitute the smallest group (23%).
Hence, the great majority of teachers experience a positive impact
of ICT on their pupils’ performances and on the teaching situation.
See Chapter 6 for a presentation of the characteristics of the
teachers in the different clusters.


The impact of ICT on knowledge-sharing, communication
and home-school co-operation

ICT is a very powerful tool, however the use of the tool organisationally
has not yet fully matured. The preconditions for using ICT
for knowledge-sharing, communication and home-school cooperation
are at hand, and ICT is indeed being used for this in
many schools, however the positive impact is as yet only moderate.
• The preconditions for using ICT for knowledge-sharing,
communication and home-school co-operation are in place.
The technical ICT infrastructure (such as computers and
internet) and the organisational ICT tools (such as home
pages and intranets) are available in schools and among
teachers, pupils and parents.
• Many schools, teachers, pupils and parents use the ICT infrastructure
for informational and collaborative purposes.
But the results show that the tools are mostly used for
communication among teachers, while the use of ICT to
support dialogue between teachers and pupils, and to improve
home-school co-operation is more limited.
E-learning Nordic
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• In spite of high volume of ICT-based communication within
the teaching staff, the positive impact on co-operation and
knowledge-sharing is assessed only to be moderate.
• About 50% of the parents use ICT in their communication
with their children’s school. Generally these parents assess
that the communication with the teachers/school to a large
degree has become easier. However, the parents report
that they only to a moderate degree feel better informed or
find that this dialogue has improved.
• At home, the pupils use ICT as a collaborative tool; they
use e-mail, chat and mobile phones to communicate with
classmates, giving and receiving help when doing their
homework.
• Finally it must be noted as positive that despite the wide
use of ICT to support home-school collaboration, the majority
of teachers and headmasters do not at all or only to
lesser degree perceive that the home-school collaboration
has become more time-consuming.
A more in-depth presentation of the results of the impact of ICT on
knowledge-sharing, communication and home-school co-operation
can be found in Chapter 7.

Conditions for the use of ICT in schools

Conditions at the individual schools are an important factor that
influences the actual use and impact of ICT. However, many of the
results about what makes an impact are based on old data. The Elearning
Nordic 2006 study shows a very interesting development
in terms of the kinds of conditions that have an impact on the use
of ICT.
• Does the ICT infrastructure have an impact on the use of
ICT? Yes it does, according to E-learning Nordic 2006.
• Do written objectives for ICT ensure the integration of ICT?
For many years, much work has been put into the development
of ICT strategies and the majority of schools also
have written ICT strategies. However, this study shows that
no special impact can be seen in schools with written objectives
for ICT compared to the ones without.
• What impact does teachers’ participation in competence development
have? Many resources has been put into developing
the teachers’ ICT competences, however, the study
show that even though two out of three teachers have participated
in competence development regarding ICT within
the last three years, only one in three of these teachers feel
ICT-confident, and no special impact on the use of ICT can
be registered.


• Is ICT used more in schools that have participated in an ICT
project? In many countries, ICT projects have been initiated
to give teachers some hands-on experience with the use of
ICT and inspire others to use it. However, comparing
schools that have participated in ICT projects with those
that have not, there is no difference between how the
teachers and pupils use or experience the impact of ICT.
• What are drivers and barriers for achieving a greater impact
of ICT? This study shows that there is still a great focus on
access to the technology and competence development as
both the drivers and barriers for the integration of ICT.
In Chapter 8, the conditions for effective ICT use in schools are
presented.

Posted in: Nordic 2006