The construction of the ICT curriculum in Iceland: is

there a rift in the North Atlantic?

The construction of the ICT curriculum in Iceland: is

there a rift in the North Atlantic?

Allyson MacdonaldIceland University of Education

LEARN conferenceHelsinki, 4-5 December 2003

The national curriculum 1999

The national curriculum 1999

Compulsory and secondary school produced at the same time

Two new subjects – IT/ICT and life-skillsCompulsory schooling 1st – 10th grade

Final goals 10th gradeAims 4th, 7th and 10th gradesObjectives for every grade in most subjects

Activity theory - contradictions

Activity theory - contradictions

Mediating tools

CONTEXT OUTCOME

Subject or actor Object or task

Rules Community Roles

Curriculum perspectivesCurriculum perspectives Dominant perspective

Institutionalised textAims and objectives Learning experiences

Reconceptualist perspectiveOther approaches: historical, biographical, postmodernEducational principles

Individualism or traditionalism

The construction of the

ICT curriculu

m

Voices of teachers – professionaland curriculum interests

Voices of policy – official initiatives and programmes

Voices of ICT – interests ofsoftware developers

Voices of pupils – out of school use of ICT

Disruptions in pedagogical spaces

Robertson et al., 2003

Data sourcesData sources Documents – policy reports, preparatory

reports, national curriculum, school curriculum Four semi-structured interviews, one of them

an e-interview Schools (four, urban, established)

On-site interviews with principals, ICT coordinatorsFocus interview with six studentsAnalysis of school curriculum

Part of the larger LearnICT study – student survey, teachers’ self-evaluation of skills, observations, interviews, document analysis

The new national curriculum

The new national curriculum

Previous curriculum 1989Prepared 1996-1999

Project manager Managament committeeSubject coordinatorsPreparatory groupsWorkgroups

Two policy committess – curriculum and IT

Minister (NC1)

Project manager (NC2)

Project management committee

Department heads

Departmental staff

Curriculum policycommittee

ICT policycommittee

Assistant to the minister

Subject coordinators(NC3, ICT coordinator)

Preparatory groups(NC4, Chairman

ICT group)

Work groups Revision of national

curriculum

Ministry

Newspaper editor,early ICT user

Graduate studies in politics, Oxford

Project management committee

Educationspecialists

Departmental staff

Curriculum policycommittee

ICT policycommittee

Assistant to the minister

House construction, B.A. in sociology

and anthropology, some IT training

Ph.D. from USA in electrical engineering:

University and school teachers

Schoolteachers

Revision of national

curriculum

Ministry

Four chapters in the curriculum

Four chapters in the curriculum

Computer use (cross-curricular) Information studies (technological,

cultural and information literacy) (new subject)

Creativity and applied knowledge (cross-curricular)

CDT (radically altered subject)

The minister The minister

I did not intend to begin again, I intended to carry on. If I had said that I wanted to rediscover the wheel that would not have been a sensible thing to do. Naturally it was the same party…..so there were people on the political scene who had knowledge and a definite attitude (NC1)

The minister The minister

Yes we [the project manager and I] were in agreement. We went to teachers not to ask whether it should be like this or like that but to tell them that it would be like this and that and we said that we want you to be on the team with us so that this will work. If you don´t join us then this approach will not work….. But you must come with the content for all of this… (NC1)

The project managerThe project manager

It is not until the student himself puts an effort into thinking that he begins to really understand and it is not until he begins to understand that he starts to learn. So maybe it was with this basic idea that I came into the project and then of course the minister and I also had a common understanding (NC2)

The subject coordinatorThe subject coordinator

In the first place I was very attracted to individualised learning, since all curriculum theory in special needs is adapted to meet this. For me the purpose of the national curriculum was to be some sort of map of education. In that way we could think of each subject or disciplines as being located somewhere on this map (NC3)

The subject coordinatorThe subject coordinator

In fact there were discussions that we could not set the curriculum “too far away” because then the teachers would simply not follow the curriculum And I got exactly this criticism e.g. with ICT. The problem was that the students could easily achieve its aims, but it was worse with the teachers, the majority couldn’t cope with them and maybe even didn’t understand them. (NC3)

The chairman of the peparatory group

The chairman of the peparatory group

..[my role] was to promote the way engineers think, try to get children to think that way, from the methodology that engineers use, which is just general methodology, define how things should be and then design a process to get there. We also wanted to bring computers into learning,…. We wanted it across [the different subjects] rather than too much of a separate subject…it was also important that children learnt to type properly. (NC4)

Policy makers – the objectPolicy makers – the object Wanted a curriculum for analytical thinking

and for promoting a way of working Wanted a cross-curriculum approach Produced a curriculum which has been

interpreted as prescriptive, with lists of things to know and do;

Creativity and applied knowledge and CDT are rarely found in school curricula or in practice

This curriculum is interpreted largely as being for IT skills, not for ICT as a tool in learning

Computer skills and information skills

Pupils – the computer as a tool

Pupils – the computer as a tool

Out-of-school ICT activities Collaborative (e.g. games, web-sites)Communicative (e.g. MSN, blogg)Creative web-sites (e.g. programming, web-sites)

I understand it as a tool that you use to communicate with others and to collect information, you use the computer as a servant and give it instructions to fetch data for you, and to make a myriad of things. (boy, 14 yrs old)

Pupils – the taskPupils – the task In-school use of ICT

TechnicalTransmissiveTedious

We were learning things we knew already (boy, 14 yrs)

The were mainly teaching those who hadn´t yet learnt it (boy, 13 yrs)

We learnt the same thing year after year and we learnt nothing new (boy, 14 yrs)

Pupils – the taskPupils – the task

I think that most people know how to write on the computer and there is no need to teach it year after year... They should rather concentrate on the Internert more and things which are more difficult and all kinds of software which are more complicated (girl, 14 yrs)

Pupils – the computer as a tool

Pupils – the computer as a tool

You can hand in a handwritten essay but that is seldom done and you certainly won´t get a high mark for a handwritten essay (girl, 14 yrs)

Sometimes we are not allowed to use references from the Internet or you have to have some from books – I think that is stupid (boy, 14 yrs)

Conclusions – motivationConclusions – motivation

Voices of policy makers – the task“Wishful rationalism” (Simola 1998) – were trying to put a vision into practice in an organised way through the curriculum

Voices of pupils – the taskTolerant pragmatism – disappointed with their learning tasks, but willing to stick it out; they have their dreams too.

Conclusions – specialisationConclusions – specialisation

Voices of policy makers – division of labour

Limited use of curriculum specialists – did not seek advice outside the ministry and only in a limited way inside the ministry

Voices of pupils – division of labourSkilled ICT users in spite of the school – are learning ICT in spite of what they are offered in school; learn from each other, not from teachers

Conclusions – rulesConclusions – rulesVoices of policy makers – ICT was to be

a cross-curricular tool, creativity and applied thinking to be found across the curriculum

Voices of pupils – IT taught as a separate subject; rarely integrated into other classes and when it is, it is used for transmission of knowledge, not for the creation of knowledge