How to ensure equal opportunities for citizens?
You have all heard expressions and statements like these:
“Information technology“
“The information society“
“The information revolution“
“- I see computers everywhere“
“Everything is speeding up - things change overnight“
“The future is already here“
Personally, I think that the last statement contradicts the very definition of the word future but…..
The word revolution can also be a topic of debate but I think we all can agree about the high speed in which the wheels are turning. Things change very fast on all levels in our society!
Another quote:
“The only thing we know for sure about the future is that we don’t
know anything about it.“
The people who are going to live and work in 10-20-30-40 years from
now are our children and grandchildren. The logical question then is:
What kind of education can prepare the children of today for a tomorrow
we know little or nothing about?
Well, for one thing we have to give them the tools to find information, to assess and use it. Computer skills are already required for many jobs and a not too daring guess is that in the future our children will have big problems finding a job if they don’t know how to use a computer.
Today, some children have a computer and an Internet connection at home. Other children have no hope of getting one. We have a high unemployment rate and a difficult economic situation for a lot of families in many European countries.
The children with a computer at home have an enormous advantage compared to other children. Many of them already know a lot more than their parents and teachers. So then, maybe we should buy a computer for every family? No, that’s a rhetorical question. That would for one thing be too costly. A better way is to make sure that all children get the opportunity to use computers, Internet and interactive media. Not on rare occasions but in their daily schoolwork.
For that to happen our schools need:
Computers
Useful software
Internet access and e-mail addresses
Teachers who have (at least) basic computer skills
A strategy - why, when and how do we use computers?
New ways of working, new methods
In Östersund we have set up goals and strategies for the use of computers and information technology. Strategies are often just words on a piece of paper though. They need to be discussed and questioned, they need to be worked with to be more concrete and real. Teachers need time and opportunity to do that if we want things to happen in our schools.
The head office of the educational department initiated a plan for improvement.
We knew that there were big differences among the teachers regarding
experience, knowledge, interest and ambitions both regarding information
technology and new ways of working.
The conclusion we came to was quite simple: We must give the teachers
further education in these areas, no matter no matter what their former
knowledge is. Everybody must be allowed to move forward, otherwise our
goals will not be reached. We also wanted to give the teachers an opportunity
to learn from each other.
The teachers are in a key position.
Giving further education to teachers is one of the best ways to change
a society. If the majority of the teachers have a high level of competence
and work towards a common goal we will achieve a fantastic effect in a
few years time. For Östersund and other municipalities in sparsely
populated areas IT is an opportunity to create jobs. For that to happen
we need competent people and we have to start with our young citizens.
Also for jobs in other areas than IT, computer skills are required. If
we want our part of the world to be competitive we have to give education
high priority, and we have to give a good education to everyone, not to
just a few.
The following starting points were formulated:
 | The level of knowledge and skills of each teacher must be the starting point of the education |
| The in-service training should serve as a model for the teachers own work |
| To achieve a lasting effect we need a relatively extensive effort |
| The teachers will be studying full time for four weeks |
| Every teacher may at no cost borrow a computer during that time |
| The municipality must make sure that schools and libraries have a sufficient number of computers |
| We will give a lot of unemployed people (with university degrees) a short training course and then employ them as substitute teachers |
We decided to use this model:
| Two weeks intensive course |
| Six weeks back at work. During that time everyone should carry out a project. Tutoring will be available. |
| Two intensive weeks of studying, training, evaluation and planning for the continuing work |
Main goals:
The teachers shall
| get IT-support in an extensive pedagogic development work |
| be able to plan new forms of learning situations that integrate IT in a pedagogic context which includes international contacts |
| get insight into work methods that prepare children for future society- and worklife |
| get a higher level of competence that benefits equality both between the sexes and between people of different backgrounds. That applies on personnel as well as children. |
| realise how school and child care can be organised so that all citizens regardless of status or age can get access to the society’s resources for a “lifelong learning“ |
Other goals:
The teachers shall
| learn basic skills in IT, for example word processing, database, multimedia, communication |
| create, search, process, store, receive and send information |
| use IT as support in their work with individual study plans |
| show examples of collaboration with the neighbouring society |
| understand how to get better learning conditions |
| plan a project and carry it out |
| get access to municipal networks that grow to be information sources for all categories of the society |
| get more knowledge about and find good strategies for learning - both for pupils and teachers |
Resources
| A municipality network, fibre cable with Internet access was built in 1997 |
| A county project in Jamtland, “Outlook“ or “Chance“ (in Swedish: Utsikt) has started a First Class server for pupils and teachers. We now have more than 9 000 people that use this server! The server has been used a lot for discussion, tutoring, evaluation of literature and many other kinds of communication. The server has been an important condition for this project! |
| 16 “IT-pedagogues“ who also are a part of the county project. They work 25% of their time as a resource in IT-questions for their colleagues. |
| We bought over 300 new computers for the teachers to borrow during their education |
Who, and how many teachers should get this education?
We decided that all personnel working with children and youth should
get the opportunity. Personnel in pre-school as well as personnel in primary
level, secondary level and adult education.
Since September 1996 we have given 360 teachers each term this chance. After this term over 1 300 teachers have been given further education. That is 80% of all the teachers in Östersund!
How?
It’s not easy to carry out an education with so many people with very
different backgrounds and skills. We asked a lot of universities and private
companies to submit a tender and many were willing to try. We gave the
job to “The Mid-Sweden University“ and have had a very good collaboration
with them.
The course participants have been working half the day with the computer. The rest of the day they have taken part in lectures, discussions and group activities regarding pedagogic issues and leadership.
Economy
The cost each term has been 1 150 000 ECU. 50% of this has been paid
by the municipality of Östersund. 40% has been financed by government
funds for unemployed and 10% by funds from the European Union.
Evaluation
It is too early to see the long term effects now. The evaluation showing
the opinions of the course participants is very positive though. 98% said
that the education lived up to their expectations!
A pleasant remark from many participants is about something that we thought might be a problem - the fact that we have course participants from pre school to adult education.
A couple of quotes:
“-The discussions with the colleagues teaching other age groups
have been a very positive surprise for me.“
“-It was good to talk to pedagogues from all age groups. It gave
us a common perspective of children and education“
Another comment:
“ A very good course that really got me started using the
computer. Now I think about why, how and in what way I want to use it.“
Problems?
Yes, but not any big ones.
It is not easy to be a substitute teacher and in some cases we had
problems. For the majority though, things worked out fine. A positive effect
was that some of the substitute teachers liked being teachers so much that
they have started to study at a school of education to become teachers.
We also had problems finding substitute teachers for a few subjects like chemistry, Spanish and Italian.
As I said earlier, we have not seen the long term effects yet but we think this is a very good way to ensure equal opportunities for all citizens.
Thank you!