Information and Communication Technologies have recently gained
groundswell of interest. It is a significant research area for many
scholars around the globe. Their nature has highly changed the face of
education over the last few decades.
For most European countries, the use of ICT in education and training
has become a priority during the last decade. However, very few have
achieved progress. Indeed, a small percentage of schools in some
countries achieved high levels of effective use of ICT to support and
change the teaching and learning process in many subject areas. Others
are still in the early phase of Information and Communication
Technologies adoption.
Blanskat, Blamire, kefala (2006) conducted a study carried out in
national, international, and European schools. With the aim to draw
evidences regarding the advantages and benefits of ICT in schools
achievements. It seeks to measure the impact of ICT on students’
outcomes. The study also tried to establish a link between the use of
ICT and students’ results in exams. The findings are interesting: ICT
has positive impact on students’ performances in primary schools
particularly in English language and less in science. Schools with
higher level of e-maturity show a rapid increase in performances in
scores compared to those with lower level.
In addition, schools with sufficient ICT resources achieved better
results than those that are not well-equipped. There is a significant
improvement on learners’ performances. Finally, teachers become more
convinced that educational achievements of pupils are due to good ICT
use. In fact, high percentage of teachers in Europe (86%) states that
pupils are more motivated when computers and Internet are being used in
class. Many pupils consider ICT tools very helpful in that it helps them to
do assignments teachers see that ICT enables students with special needs
or difficulties. It also helps to reduce the social disparities between
pupils, since they work in teams in order to achieve a given task.
Students also assume responsibilities when they use ICT to organize
their work through digital portfolios or projects. In addition, the
study showed that ICT has significant impact on teachers and teaching
processes.
By virtue of government Interventions and training seminars organized
in this regard, ICT tools stimulate teachers. Indeed, an absolute
majority of teachers in Europe (90 %) claim to use ICT to do tasks, such
as preparing lessons, sequencing classroom activities, etc. Therefore,
teachers plan their lessons more efficiently. ICT also help teachers to
work in teams and share ideas related to schools curriculum. There is
also evidence that broadband and interactive whiteboards play a central
role in fostering teachers’ communication and increasing collaboration
between educators.
The ICT Test Bed evaluation (Underwood 2006) provides an evidence
that many teachers use ICT to support innovative pedagogy. It states:
“New technologies that provide a good fit with existing practices, such
as interactive whiteboards are first to be embedded, but others like
video conferencing, digital video and virtual learning environments are
now being incorporated, providing evidence of ongoing learning by the
workforce. Training needs to continue to support innovative pedagogy.”
Both examples show that ICT is being integrated in a continuous process.
Therefore, ICT can improve teaching by enhancing an already practiced
knowledge and introducing new ways of teaching and learning.
Transforming teaching is more difficult to achieve. “Changes that take
full advantage of ICT will only happen slowly over time, and only if
teachers continue to experiment with new approaches.” (Underwood 2006)
This evaluation came from a teacher training seminar in IT during the
ITMF project. It showed that teachers have not fully changed their use
of ICT in education; however, most of them changed their way of thinking
about the application of ICT in education. Teachers have increased
their use of ICT in lessons where students look for information on the
net and use it afterwards for subject specific areas, but hardly any use
of ICT for class presentations. Nonetheless, teachers do not make use
of ICT to engage students more actively to produce knowledge. Similarly,
the e-learning Nordic study shows an increase in the use of ICT to
teach but not to innovate teaching methods: “ICT generally has a
positive impact on teaching and learning situations, but compared with
the ideal expectations; the impact of ICT on teaching and learning must
still be considered to be limited” (Ramboll, 2006).
Many teachers use ICT to support traditional learning methods, for
example, information retrieval in which students are ‘passive learners
of knowledge instead of ‘active producers able to take part in the
learning process. In a document entitled teaching and learning with ICT,
G. Galea (2002) explains how ICT can promote teaching and learning.
According to her there are two main reasons behind increasing the use of
ICT in education in UK. Firstly, ICT can change the lessons’ pace: she
stated that children in modern society need to develop sufficient
potentials and skills that enable them to take full advantage from the
new opportunities that ICT offer. Second, there are groundswells of
interest of academic researches in UK in how technological tools can
enhance the quality of teaching and learning in schools, and so help
learners to achieve better outcomes.
Furthermore, it has been proved that new technologies have lots of benefits on the students.
ICT allow for a higher quality lessons through collaboration with
teachers in planning and preparing resources (Ofsted, 2002). Students
learn new skills: analytical, including improvements in reading
comprehension (Lewin et al, 2000). ICT also develop some writing skills:
spelling, grammar, punctuation, editing and re-drafting (Lewin et al,
2000). Still new technologies encourage independent and active learning,
and students’ responsibility for their own learning (Passey, 1999) ICT
proves that students who used educational technology felt more
successful in school they are more motivated to learn more and have
increased self- confidence and self-esteem. It is also confirmed that
many students found learning in a technology-enhanced setting more
stimulating and much better than in a traditional classroom environment
(Pedretti and Mayer-Smith 1998).
