Information technologies in teacher education : issues and experiences for countries in transition

Technological developments and new training paradigms have a strong influence on society. Information technology (IT) is evolving toward an integrated communication and information technology (CIT). Training is evolving from a separately planned external activity toward an integrated learning-working activity. Education and the teaching profession have to take such developments into account. As a consequence the teaching pro fession is evolving from an emphasis on delivering information to an emphasis on creating learning environments. 1. Need for teacher education There is a critical need to train more and better teachers. As Rawley (1992) indicates: "Throughout history, teachers have been held in high regard. But today teaching holds a low status. The teaching profession is generally not well paid, conditions are poor, and career paths are uncertain. In particular, it is difficult to attract qualified and highly motivated people to the profession at the primary level" (p.2). Recently the Dutch Parliament discussed the recommendations of a report prepared at the request of the Dutch Minister of Education about measures to improve "the attractiveness of the teaching profession in the Netherlands" (Commissie To e k o m s t Leraarschap, 1993). The main recommendation was to bring more variation into the profession and to provide explicit career perspectives. Specifics related to the creation of more differentiation in the career of a teacher and of extra efforts in terms of inservice training. 14 Part I. Jef Moonen (The Netherlands) attractiveness of the teaching profession in the Netherlands" (Commissie Toekomst Leraarschap, 1993). The main recommendation was to bring more variation into the profession and to provide explicit career perspectives. Specifics related to the creation of more differentiation in the career of a teacher and of extra efforts in terms of inservice training. Perhaps information technology can help to come to grips with these problems. But first of all, we have to be sure that information technology even deserves a place in the educational system. 2. Information technology and education Preparing pupils for their future occupations, translated into the process of passing on knowledge and skills, is the main force that drives the engine of instruction. How to do this most efficiently and most effectively is 'the' central question to be solved. Introducing technology into schools has been one of many reform suggestions to deal with this problem. 2.1 Disillusionment with technology In his book "Teachers and machines: The classroom use of technology since 1920", Cuban (1986) sharply analyses the introduction and use of technology in education. T he following quotes illustrate his thinking: 'Many educators have dreamed of making instruction both productive and enriching: wishing that children somehow could learn more and faster while teachers taught less. This dream has persistedfrom the invention of the lecture centuries ago to the early decades of this century when re formers sought eff ciency through f am, radio, and television. The dream persist into the 1980s with promoters boosting desk-top computers for each student. ' (Cuban, 1986,p.3). 'The promises implied in these aids caught educators' attention: in dividualized instruction, relief of the tedium of repetitive activities, and pre sentation of content beyond what was available to a classroom teacher. ' (Cuban, 1986,p.4) 'Claims predicting extraordinary changes in teacher practice and stu dent learning, mixed with promotional tactics, dominated the literature in the initial wave of enthusiasm for each new technology. Seldom were these innovations initiated by teachers.Reformers, more often than not, were foundation executives, educational administrators, and wholesalers who saw solutions to school problems in swift technological advances. ' (Cuban, 1986,p.4) 'Marring the general favor and scientif c credibility enjoyed by the inno vation, however, would be scattered complaints from teachers or classroom observers about the logistics of use, technical imperfections, incom patibility with current programs, or similar concerns. At a later point, sur veys would document teacher use of the particular tool as disappoint 15 Communication and Information Technologies as Change Agents ingly infrequent Such surveys would unleash mild to harsh criticism of administrators who left costly machines in closets to gather cobwebs, or stinging rebukes of narrow-minded, stubborn teachers reluctant to use lear ning tools that studies had shown to be academically effective. ' (Cuban, 1986, p.5) Although Cuban's book was published in 1986, his remarks are astonishingly actual and accurate in 1994. The following references are recent illustrations of Cuban's statements. • A world wide inventory (Pelgrum & Plomp, 1993) illustrates that the introduction of computers in education has clearly flourished over the last 12 to 15 years . • Among many others, Collis (1988) has explored, argued and illustrated the potential advantages of computer use in the teaching/learning process. • However, at the same time, many researchers have reflected about the reasons why the introduction of computers in education has not been as successful as expected. According to Hannafin and Saveney (1993) the main reason for the failure to maximize the potential of the innovation is teachers' inability to adapt their teaching styles. Moonen and Stanchev (1993) relate the disillusionment that is being expressed to the lack of organizational flexibility within the educational system and a lack of theory about how interactive teaching-learning environments should be designed. 2.2 Reasons for the disillusionment Cuban is right. But, how did this happen? Maybe investigators and reformers thought too much about technology so that computers became solutions in search of a problem. Maybe the teachers' expertise, built upon a 'pool of craft wisdom about children and schooling', was not sufficiently taken into account. Often, introduction of computers in education has not started from an obvious educational need or a request by the teachers. Looking back to school reform over many decades, a pattern can be seen to occur whereby the governance and the curriculum of school changed considerably and regularly. However, changes in classroom practice have been much more modest: (a) in classroom organisation (more diversity in forms), (b) in teacher-student relationship (less formal), and (c) in instructional methods (a broader perspective). More significant is the observation that a persistent core of practice that teachers have found to be efficient and effective--traditional teacher-directed instruction, has not changed at all. 2.3 Reconsidering "change" A part of the misinterpretation of what seems to happen or does not happen in schools occurs because the concept of 'change' is taken in too narrow an interpretation. Change is often measured in its direct relation to a specific reform-initiated input. On the other hand, change mostly occurs only after a considerable time. Neglecting all kinds of external pressures and many other unplanned events, and not given the time for changes to settle down and become measurable, adds to the misunderstandings and to the conclusion that change does not occur. Therefore educational research about change processes 16 Part I. Jef Moonen (The Netherlands) in education should be of a longitudinal nature. Cuban said it very nicely: "Stability and change are interwoven into a seamless cloth difficult for the observer to disentangle at first glance, yet becoming more visible as time passes. ". (Cuban, 1986,p.107). Given this dubious state-of-affairs with respect of the impact of information technology in schools, is it worthwhile to continue efforts in this direction? 3. A longitudinal technology-enriched school project Recently a longitudinal research project (the PRONTO Project) about the impact of computers on education has been completed at the University of Twente. The project preparation started in 1985, and the project itself was executed from 1987 through 1993. Two secondary schools in Enschede and the Faculty of Educational Science and Technology were involved. The central idea of the project was to equip both schools with extra facilities (in hardware, software, and released time for teachers) to create a situation of a 'technology-enriched' school (TES) (Moonen & Beishuizen, 1992; Moonen & Collis, 1992). In that environment the main task of the project was to investigate the impact of a TES environment on the school as a whole and in an interrelated way. Researchers from the university, school administrators, and teachers worked closely together to formulate, discuss, and investigate several research questions. Five major questions became the focus of the TES project: (a) what are the implications of large-scale introduction of computers for the school organisation, the school curriculum and the tasks of the teachers? (b) what kind of implementation problems are occurring? (c) what type of educational software should be available? (d) how can the use of computers be integrated in the existing curriculum teaching practice? (e) what are the effects of intensive use of computers on the motivation of teachers and pupils, and on the learning results? The project produced 25 scientific reports, 11 booklets with practical guidelines for teachers, more than 70 external reports, articles and presentations, and a final report (Moonen (ed.), 1993). In summary the conclusions of the project were the following: 3.1 From the positive side Because of the introduction of educational and administrative use of computers in the school, many kinds of change processes have started which, when well-anchored into the school system, will lead to substantial changes. The computer thereby acts as a catalyst. Pupils are thoroughly enthusiastic about using computers and express thei