Educational use of ICT in a school setting

Capitalize on the opportunity

“Since my school acquired Internet access, I can follow big news stories along with the rest of the world,” says Nada, a young Ghanaian student who met Canadian researcher Thierry Karsenti during a research project conducted in Africa. “What’s more, I can comment on them too. Now I am really part of the world!”

Thierry Karsenti specializes in integrating information and communications technology (ICT) into education. He is participating in a far-reaching initiative with the aim of achieving a better understanding of the way that integrating ICT into schools helps improve the quality of teaching and learning in Africa. “In 2008,” he says, “some 120 schools equipped with computers in 12 countries were visited to collect comments from close to 9,000 teachers and more than 240,000 students.” Together, the input will provide guidance for discussions about African schools overall. The schools will have access to the research findings via the Internet as soon as the project is completed in 2010.

A professor in the faculty of education science at the Université de Montréal, Karsenti has a worldwide reputation for his contribution to integrating ICT into teaching and teacher training. He is a founding member of the Réseau pour la formation des maîtres en Afrique [Network for Training African Schoolteachers] and heads the Réseau international francophone des établissements de formation des formateurs [International Francophone Network of Institutions for Training the Trainers]. His research has won a number of awards and he has often been invited to speak on his findings, notably by the director general of UNESCO in April 2009 and the Commonwealth Ministers of Education in June 2009.

Karsenti also holds the Canada Research Chair in ICT in Education. With contagious enthusiasm, he continues to emphasize the benefits of properly integrating ICT in the classroom. “There are endless opportunities,” he says. “Above all, educators need only open the door, even if they have to give up a bit of their authority.”

Since 2008, with funding from SSHRC, Karsenti has been conducting research on the use of ICT in distance training of school teachers, including teacher trainees in Francophone Canadian communities outside Quebec. By the time the study ends in May 2010, some 500 teacher trainees will have taken part. “In terms of learning, the use of very short videos, such as what you see on YouTube, is proving more effective than traditional approaches that rely on a series of television programs—especially because the clips can be accessed in a few clicks, from anywhere and at any time,” says Karsenti. “We have to ensure that teachers can take advantage of this type of tool and use it for teaching in class.”

Use of these tools is all the more essential in view of all the educational technology resources offered by Web 2.0, the new iteration of the Internet that enables surfers to interact with page content as well as with each other. “There is a real need for research to find ways of integrating ICT into teaching,” says Karsenti. “The training provided to teachers has long focused on teaching computer science or technology itself. That was a mistake. We needed to develop seasoned users, not computer technicians or programmers.”

With the help of information and communications technology, the goal is to be able to offer more and better teaching, at a quicker pace and lower cost. However, it must be noted that there are still many challenges in education.

“Research takes time to influence policy, and faculties of education are not successful in tracking the rapid development of technology,” says Karsenti. In Quebec, ICT is now considered an essential part of the skills that every new teacher must master. School boards are beginning to understand that simply purchasing new computers is not enough, and that teachers must also know how to use them as genuine teaching tools.

Despite heavy investments over the past 25 years, ICT still has very little presence in the classroom. The final breakthrough may occur with the emerging generation—future teachers are already experienced in using the Internet and ICT, while Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia and Texto hold no secrets for them. “ICT should not be feared. Instead it should be made available to students, while maintaining traditional features that have enriched teaching through the centuries,” concludes Karsenti.