Hans van Driel
Hogeschool Holland, Department HHIT
Centre for Education and Information Technology
Postbus 261, 1110 AG Diemen, the Netherlands
In August 1993, the Dutch education system was reformed to provide all pupils entering secondary school (age 12 years) with three years of what is called 'Basic Education' (basisvorming). Although schools still retain a measure of freedom in deciding on the balance between subjects, all have to devote 25 of the 32 hours in the school week to teaching the obligatory subjects in the Basic Education curriculum, as defined by the government. This curriculum includes not only familiar subjects such as Dutch, English and Mathematics, but also those which, for some schools at least, are quite new, such as Technology, Home Economics and Information Technology (IST).
The aim of the reform is to improve co-ordination between secondary schooling and the needs of society. Well-defined objectives have been formulated for each subject. These specify the knowledge and skills pupil are expected to acquire by the time they complete the Basic Education phase. The emphasis is on learning practical applications and skills, on understanding relationships, and on 'learning by doing'. The Basic Education phase is concluded with a series of tests. These are provided by the government, though schools are free to decide how to mark and administer them, and may supplement them with tests or assessment of their own devising. Finally, the curriculum is designed to link up with subsequent schooling of various types (the Intermediate Education phase).
This paper describes some of the problems that were encountered in drawing up a curriculum for the subject of IST in the Basic Education phase. Designing such a curriculum is a particularly complex task, because the prevailing circumstances in the school may play a large part in determining what the final curriculum actually looks like. Moreover, one's ideas about what IST as a subject involves can also greatly affect the shape of the curriculum.
In what follows, I try to adopt a systematic approach to this problem, describing the subject matter of IST, and constructing a framework within which the subject matter and the curriculum of IST can be given shape. I take as my initial assumption that the business of deciding of what is to be taught and what methods are to be used must be based on a set of clear objectives. These objectives impose certain requirements, and it is from these that the contents of the curriculum must be distilled.
If the practical circumstances in which the subject is to be taught-the space available, the skills of the staff who are to teach the subject, etc. - turn out to be inadequate in the light of the demands of the curriculum which has been decided on, then they must be altered to fit in with the curriculum-not the other way round! This is not to say that this latter development does not or may not happen, but it should not be the point of departure.
The only exception to this order of priorities is constituted by the demands imposed by the principles of the Basic Education phase: these not only specify the goals, but also specify the timing (the timetable) and the situation (emphasis on integration) required for realising to the core goals.
In sections 2, 3, and 4, we shall look at the practical
circumstances within which the IST curriculum will be taught:
the place of IST in the Basic Education phase and its relationship
with the curricula of subsequent school-years and of other subjects.
In sections 5, 6 and 7, we shall look at the objectives of IST
teaching.
Niki Davis
School of Education, University of Exeter
Higher Education (HE) is in a period of unprecedented
change and its most pressing needs world wide relate to the information
explosion and the associated demand and responsibility
that our information society requires. With the increasing
interdependence of individuals and countries such developments
will naturally transcend the traditional boundaries between courses,
departments, institutions and countries. Effective ways of meeting
these needs may be catalyzed by the new technology itself, as
long as staff are enabled to achieve an autonomous approach to
their own professional development. An approach that matches that
of successful academic researchers. They understand that it is
necessary, not only to do good research and publish it, but also
to keep abreast of new developments and monitor the field. This
approach is less accepted for teaching and possibly even more
rarely adopted as a mean to develop the academic's administrative
tasks. The aim of academic staff development must be to develop
this wider view and autonomy.
Bernard Cornu
Director of IUFM (University Institute for Teacher
Education)
As in many countries, new technologies have penetrated
the French educational system. But, after some twenty years, computers
are not used as much as one could expect in education, and several
plans for developing computers in schools have failed or missed
their aims. In most schools there are many computers now. After
a period in which the state was the only provider of equipment,
now it is mainly the local authorities (communities, regions,
...) that equip the schools, and they do it quite generously.
Software have done much progress, and some good one is now available
for teaching and learning in schools. Courses for in-service teacher
training have been designed and offered.
But two main problems remain unsolved:
1. The use of new technologies in schools is the
fact of but a little part of the teachers, the most enthusiastic
ones, who spend much time, often nights and week-ends, in order
to implement computer activities. We now need a wide generalization
of the use of new technologies. We have done much experiments,
we have designed sophisticated hardware and software, the priority
is now to make all the teachers be involved in new technologies.
2. New technologies are, most of the time, just added
to other topics in schools: Informatics courses are added to the
curricula; a computer room is added to the other rooms in schools;
time for new technologies is added to the pupils time-table; a
chapter about the use of new technologies is added to the school
books. We now need a strong integration of new technologies in
school, not only an addition: integration in subjects, integration
in teaching, integration in learning.
Computers and informatics are not only a supplementary
tool. They influence each subject, they change some fundamental
concepts. They make the knowledge evolve. Curricula have not only
to incorporate new technologies: they are globally influenced
by new technologies. Teaching is influenced by new technologies
not only because they give a new tool but because they deeply
change the profession of a teacher and his or her role. We know
that learning is also influenced by new technologies, but we do
not know exactly how and why, even if the knowledge about learning
is improving.
New technologies are not only computers: Information
technologies and communication technologies are getting closer,
and the development of hyper and multimedia tools make now new
technologies be a more global concept, including a wide range
of tools and activities. It seems that the development of communication
will impact strongly our societies, and certainly the educational
world.
The role of a teacher is evolving very quickly and
the profession of the teacher of the future is quite different
from what it was some years ago. At this point, in order to prepare
the future teachers, in order to impulse a wide generalization
of the use of new technologies, in order to make new technologies
actually integrated in education, pre-service teacher education
is crucial. We do not need to prepare some teachers, but all of
them.
Teacher education systems are different in our countries.
In most countries, teacher preparation is independent of recruitment:
students get degrees in education and then have to look for a
position in a school. In France, there is a tradition of linking
training and recruitment. All over the world, there is a tendency
in bringing teacher education closer to university. In France,
an important reform in teacher education has been made four years
ago. It gives a very good opportunity for developing the role
and the place of new technologies in education.
Viera K. Proulx
College of Computer Science, Northeastern University
With the widespread use of computers in all areas
of work and play, it became clear that all students (in secondary
schools, universities, and even in elementary schools) should
be taught 'something about computers'. The dilemma is, whether
to teach 'computer science', or just 'computer literacy'. In this
paper we argue that both computer science and a literate use of
computers need to be taught to all students, if we want them to
function effectively in the new information age.
Using examples from real teaching situations, we
illustrate how to incorporate the teaching of effective computer
literacy skills into traditional, programming based, computer
science course. In the second part of the paper we show how teaching
fundamentals of computer science within the context of a computer
literacy course can improve student's ability to learn how to
become an effective user of computer technology.
Zdenìk Botek
Department of Information Technologies
Teacher training is the principal aim for the successful
realization of the actual process of penetrating computers to
the secondary and basic schools. In the Czech Republic the official
training is provided in the form of complete university studies
as the second subject of the studies (usually with mathematics
or physics). This approach to the teachers training is considered
optimal in present conditions. But it is only the first assumption
for a long-time successful activity. The second approach is the
post-graduate education and studies.
Secondary schools have not sufficient financial resources
to obtain modern hardware and software. Furthermore many secondary
schools have not enough professionals in computer science, such
that they can master all the means of modern computer technology.
Thus the Ministry of Education starts the grant competition via
the Fund of Dynamic Development. After the evaluation, the resources
of the ministry are devoted to the best projects, which can guarantee
the efficient use of these resources.
Masaryk University is very successful in this competition.
Three projects under the supervision of Masaryk University will
be mentioned, that are related to the teachers training and they
help to complete the mentioned curriculum in a suitable way.
Jan Vinaø
Šafárik University, Faculty of Science
For some time (approximately two years) a small group
of teachers and researchers in the Faculty of Science of the Šafárik
University in Košice has been investigating the possibility
of using hypertext and hypermedia (specifically the IBM LinkWay
hypermedia authoring system [5], [6]) in training future secondary
school teachers of science subjects as well as in actual secondary
school teaching. This article is an account of the experience
gained during this investigation and of some ideas concerning
possibilities of further progress.
Since hypertext systems are not used by our teaching
community very much, the paper contains a very short overview
of what hypertext is and also information about some hypertext
products and systems available in our country. However, the main
emphasis is on some things we have found out the teacher of a
wide variety of subjects could (together with his students) do
with hypertext to make his subject more interesting and the teaching
process more rewarding for both himself and the students.
Gabriela Andrejková, Jaroslav Gera, Jan
Vinaø
Šafárik University, Faculty of Science
There are many reasons for incorporating relational
data base systems into a university level curriculum in information
technology - certainly more than could be discussed exhaustively
in a paper of this size and nature. The student whose goal is
to become a practising programmer may be reasonably sure that
almost any real-life application which he is likely to encounter
will have to do with databases. The future computer scientist
may study both abstract database theory and the implications of
modern computer design (networking, client-server architecture
etc.) on implementation issues. Even the "educated user"
- the person many theoreticians of computer education are so fond
of - will need considerable insight into the ways in which relational
databases may solve his problems. Thus, an acquaintance with relational
database system theory and practice should be a part of education
in information technology at the university level. For a university
(in particular an Eastern or Central European university) whose
funds tend to be very limited indeed one of the main problems
is the high cost of both the modern (fourth generation) database
systems and the hardware platforms necessary for their use.
The INFORMIX Software Inc. made a very substantial
contribution towards solving this problem for eighteen Czech and
Slovak universities. On March 20, 1992 representatives of the
corporation management came to Prague to present the selected
universities with a gift - INFORMIX database systems adjusted
to the individual hardware and software requirements of each university.
The software was made available free of charge on the condition
that it will be used solely for teaching and demonstration purposes
and not commercially. For our University the system comprised
INFORMIX SQL, 4GL and ESQL/C for IBM RISC/6000, AIX 3.1 platform.
While we are of course glad to be able to use this opportunity
to acknowledge gratefully this generous gift, the main purpose
of this paper is to report on and generalize the experience gained
during two years of using INFORMIX in our "Mathematical informatics"
course.
Among the main features of the INFORMIX database
system are its two-layer architecture (the database engine - the
part that actually manipulates the data stored in the database
- is separate from the applications which interact with the user,
prepare and format data and set up requests to the database),
full support of the client-server architecture in the LAN network
and the ability to work with distributed databases. INFORMIX products
form a modular system which may be customized to meet the needs
of any particular user. All these features together with the fact
that INFORMIX is becoming increasingly common in our market (so
that the graduates are likely to encounter familiar software products,
probably localized) contributed to our decision to incorporate
INFORMIX into the curriculum both for computer specialists and
for future teachers, as well as for the three-year bachelor level
course which was at the time in the preparation stage.
The present paper will describe the steps which are
necessary to prepare such a course, the teaching experience and
some of the results apparent so far. It will necessarily be an
idealized description - what will be described as a one-step process
was actually the result of a first year "trial run"
experience of which was used in modifying the course design in
the second year and the process was again repeated when preparing
for the coming academic year which will see a third generation
of students starting to study databases with INFORMIX.
Károly Farkas
Teacher Training College
I have been using Logo in education of young children
and students for a long time. My experience is that Logo provides
more than pure communication with a computer, for this is the
most effective implementation of the principles of the School
of Thinking of the Hungarian mathematician G. Polya.
In the course of experiments with Logo I have found
a procedure that offers rich possibilities of experimenting for
children. While we were playing with the procedure, Seymour Papert's
words came to my mind: "We must search for and discover
the New Microworlds together with the children!"
The starting point towards the "World of Roses"
was a well-known procedure of the square formation:
? repeat 4 [fd 10 rt 90]
What will happen if the length of the sides increases
in the course of the sequence like this:
? fd 10 rt 90 fd 20 rt 90
Bojidar Sendov
Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics
Which is the most appropriate role of computer
in education? This question has been discussed for years and
opinions on it still vary from using computer as a trainer up
to using it as an open-ended environment (microworld where
the learner is involved in a creative exploration of ideas
[1]).
A lot of educationalists claim that programming should
not be taught at school since only few students will become professional
programmers and the rest will have to know only how to use highly
specialized software packages. However this argument can hold
for any concrete knowledge that would not be used directly in
one's future profession. In other words, much more important than
programming per se are its underlying principles and ideas
that could be applied to different areas of life.
Since informatics methods and notions can be illustrated
in different contexts, learning informatics itself can be motivated
when carried out in fields the students are interested in, i.e.
in specialized microworlds.
Academic Staff Development Through New Technology in Higher
Education
Exeter EX1 2LU, Devon, UK
e-mail: N.E.Davis@exeter.ac.uk
New Technologies and Teacher Education:
Some Trends in the French System
30 avenue Marcelin Berthelot, 38100 Grenoble, France
tel.: (33) 76 74 73 70, fax: (33) 76 87 19 47, e-mail: cornu@grenet.fr
Computer Science vs. Computer Literacy
Which to Teach?
Boston, MA, 02115, USA
e-mail: vkp@ccs.neu.edu
University Projects for Secondary School Teachers
Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University Brno
Czech Republic
e-mail: botek@informatics.muni.cz
Hypertext in teaching
Department of Computer Science
Jesenná 5, 041 54 Košice, Slovak Republic
e-mail: vinar@kosice.upjs.sk
Using INFORMIX in University-Level Teaching of Information
Technology
Department of Computer Science
Jesenná 5, 041 54 Košice, Slovak Republic
e-mail: andrejk@kosice.upjs.sk
The World of Turtle Roses
Budapest 1126 Kiss J. altbgy 40
Hungary
e-mail: H9116Far@Huella.Bitnet
? fd 30 rt 90 fd 40 rt 90
Through Fire and Water in GEOMLAND
or
Teaching Informatics in a Computer Environment
of a Math Laboratory Type
Sofia University, Bulgaria