The construction of the ICT curriculum in Iceland: is there a rift in the North Atlantic?

1. The construction of the ICT curriculum in Iceland: is there a rift in the North Atlantic? Allyson Macdonald Iceland University of Education LEARN conference Helsinki, 4-5 December 2003

2. The national curriculum 1999 • Compulsory and secondary school produced at the same time • Two new subjects – IT/ICT and life-skills • Compulsory schooling 1st – 10th grade • Final goals 10th grade • Aims 4th, 7th and 10th grades • Objectives for every grade in most subjects

3. Activity theory - contradictions Mediating tools CONTEXT OUTCOME Subject or actor Object or task Rules Community Roles

4. Curriculum perspectives • Dominant perspective • Institutionalised text • Aims and objectives • Learning experiences • Reconceptualist perspective • Other approaches: historical, biographical, postmodern • Educational principles • Individualism or traditionalism

5. Disruptions in pedagogical spaces Voices of policy – official initiatives and programmes Voices of teachers – professional and curriculum interests The construction of the ICT curriculum Voices of ICT – interests of software developers Voices of pupils – out of school use of ICT Robertson et al., 2003

6. Data sources • Documents – policy reports, preparatory reports, national curriculum, school curriculum • Four semi-structured interviews, one of them an e-interview • Schools (four, urban, established) • On-site interviews with principals, ICT coordinators • Focus interview with six students • Analysis of school curriculum • Part of the larger LearnICT study – student survey, teachers’ self-evaluation of skills, observations, interviews, document analysis

7. The new national curriculum • Previous curriculum 1989 • Prepared 1996-1999 • Project manager • Managament committee • Subject coordinators • Preparatory groups • Workgroups • Two policy committess – curriculum and IT

8. Minister (NC1) Assistant to the minister Ministry Curriculum policy committee ICT policy committee Department heads Project manager (NC2) Project management committee Departmental staff Subject coordinators (NC3, ICT coordinator) Revision of national curriculum Preparatory groups (NC4, Chairman ICT group) Work groups

9. Newspaper editor, early ICT user Assistant to the minister Ministry Curriculum policy committee ICT policy committee Graduate studies in politics, Oxford Education specialists Project management committee House construction, B.A. in sociology and anthropology, some IT training Departmental staff Revision of national curriculum Ph.D. from USA in electrical engineering: University and school teachers School teachers

10. Four chapters in the curriculum • Computer use (cross-curricular) • Information studies (technological, cultural and information literacy) (new subject) • Creativity and applied knowledge (cross-curricular) • CDT (radically altered subject)

11. The minister I did not intend to begin again, I intended to carry on. If I had said that I wanted to rediscover the wheel that would not have been a sensible thing to do. Naturally it was the same party…..so there were people on the political scene who had knowledge and a definite attitude (NC1)

12. The minister Yes we [the project manager and I] were in agreement. We went to teachers not to ask whether it should be like this or like that but to tell them that it would be like this and that and we said that we want you to be on the team with us so that this will work. If you don´t join us then this approach will not work….. But you must come with the content for all of this… (NC1)

13. The project manager • It is not until the student himself puts an effort into thinking that he begins to really understand and it is not until he begins to understand that he starts to learn. So maybe it was with this basic idea that I came into the project and then of course the minister and I also had a common understanding (NC2)

14. The subject coordinator • In the first place I was very attracted to individualised learning, since all curriculum theory in special needs is adapted to meet this. For me the purpose of the national curriculum was to be some sort of map of education. In that way we could think of each subject or disciplines as being located somewhere on this map (NC3)

15. The subject coordinator • In fact there were discussions that we could not set the curriculum “too far away” because then the teachers would simply not follow the curriculum And I got exactly this criticism e.g. with ICT. The problem was that the students could easily achieve its aims, but it was worse with the teachers, the majority couldn’t cope with them and maybe even didn’t understand them. (NC3)

16. The chairman of the peparatory group • ..[my role] was to promote the way engineers think, try to get children to think that way, from the methodology that engineers use, which is just general methodology, define how things should be and then design a process to get there. We also wanted to bring computers into learning,…. We wanted it across [the different subjects] rather than too much of a separate subject…it was also important that children learnt to type properly. (NC4)

17. Policy makers – the object • Wanted a curriculum for analytical thinking and for promoting a way of working • Wanted a cross-curriculum approach • Produced a curriculum which has been interpreted as prescriptive, with lists of things to know and do; • Creativity and applied knowledge and CDT are rarely found in school curricula or in practice • This curriculum is interpreted largely as being for IT skills, not for ICT as a tool in learning • Computer skills and information skills

18. Pupils – the computer as a tool • Out-of-school ICT activities • Collaborative (e.g. games, web-sites) • Communicative (e.g. MSN, blogg) • Creative web-sites (e.g. programming, web-sites) • I understand it as a tool that you use to communicate with others and to collect information, you use the computer as a servant and give it instructions to fetch data for you, and to make a myriad of things. (boy, 14 yrs old)

19. Pupils – the task • In-school use of ICT • Technical • Transmissive • Tedious • We were learning things we knew already (boy, 14 yrs) • The were mainly teaching those who hadn´t yet learnt it (boy, 13 yrs) • We learnt the same thing year after year and we learnt nothing new (boy, 14 yrs)

20. Pupils – the task • I think that most people know how to write on the computer and there is no need to teach it year after year... They should rather concentrate on the Internert more and things which are more difficult and all kinds of software which are more complicated (girl, 14 yrs)

21. Pupils – the computer as a tool • You can hand in a handwritten essay but that is seldom done and you certainly won´t get a high mark for a handwritten essay (girl, 14 yrs) • Sometimes we are not allowed to use references from the Internet or you have to have some from books – I think that is stupid (boy, 14 yrs)

22. Conclusions – motivation • Voices of policy makers – the task • “Wishful rationalism” (Simola 1998) – were trying to put a vision into practice in an organised way through the curriculum • Voices of pupils – the task • Tolerant pragmatism – disappointed with their learning tasks, but willing to stick it out; they have their dreams too.

23. Conclusions – specialisation • Voices of policy makers – division of labour • Limited use of curriculum specialists – did not seek advice outside the ministry and only in a limited way inside the ministry • Voices of pupils – division of labour • Skilled ICT users in spite of the school – are learning ICT in spite of what they are offered in school; learn from each other, not from teachers

24. Conclusions – rules • Voices of policy makers – ICT was to be a cross-curricular tool, creativity and applied thinking to be found across the curriculum • Voices of pupils – IT taught as a separate subject; rarely integrated into other classes and when it is, it is used for transmission of knowledge, not for the creation of knowledge