seminar
Perspectives from International Comparative Studies
Rapid social changes brought about by technological advances and globalization have made impacts on the goals and processes of education both in terms of national/regional policies and classroom practices in many countries around the world. The roles and impacts of ICT use in the classroom have taken on different dimensions in the context of these global changes since the 1990s. The IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, which is holding its 48th General Assembly in Hong Kong from October 8-11) has launched since 1997 a series of several modular comparative studies under the title SITES (Second International Technology in Education Study). So far, three modules have been conducted in more than 20 systems around the world to investigate: (1) the status of ICT use in schools around the world (SITES M1) through a survey of schools, (2) how the integration of learning technologies into the teaching and learning processes have enabled deep content, sophisticated pedagogy and impressive student outcomes and the contextual factors for their sustainability and transferability through in-depth case studies (SITES M2), and (3) pedagogical practices and the use of ICT by science and mathematics teachers and the contextual factors at school and system levels that may influence them through a survey of schools and teachers (SITES 2006). The speakers for this seminar are researchers who have played important leadership roles in the three SITES studies. Professor Plomp will start this seminar by reflecting on and discussing this topic from the curriculum perspective (how the notion of "good education" differs in an information society from that in an industrial society), change perspective (how introducing ICT to enhance education can be looked at as a process of change) and international perspective (how findings from the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement) SITES (Second International Technology in Education Study) Modules 1 & 2 studies inform us about what changes may take place when schools and teachers try to renew teaching and learning through the use of ICT). Dr. Hans Pelgrum has been leading the school survey component of SITES2006 study. He will focus his presentation on tentative outcomes and potential implications from the study in relation to school conditions for pedagogy and ICT. Professor Nancy Law will present tentative findings on the general pedagogical practices of teachers and how these relate to their use of ICT in classrooms. She will also present preliminary findings from analysis that explores the relationship between teachers��� personal characteristics and school contextual factors on their pedagogical use of ICT.
Prof. Tjeerd Plomp (1938) is emeritus professor of education of the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands, where he served as Dean of the Faculty of Educational Science and Technology from 1982 till 1985 and as chair of the Department of Curriculum (from 1990 till 1998). He was chair of IEA, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, from 1989 - 1999. In the IEA he served as chair for the 'Computers in Education' study (Comped), the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the IEA Second International Technology in Education Study (SITES). At present he is study director of the IEA SITES2006 study, a survey of schools and (math and science) teachers on pedagogical approaches and the use of ICT in it (with data collection in 2006). His research interests are educational design and design research, international comparative research, and information technology in the curriculum and teacher education. Dr. Willem J. Pelgrum was until 2005 senior researcher at the Faculty for Behavioral Science of the University of Twente in the Netherlands. His main experience is in the field of large-scale international comparative assessments. Currently he is involved in the international coordination of the IEA Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES). He is director of the consultancy company EdAsMo (Educational Assessment and Monitoring) and he is associate professor in Comparative Education and ICT in Education at Danish University School of Education (University of Aarhus). He conducted an extensive training project (on innovative didactics) for teachers in Central and East Europe and was involved in several consultancy activities on ICT in Education (Jordan, East and South Europe). He also performed several studies for the European Commission in the areas of educational monitoring and ICT. The results of his work appeared in several books and international research journals (amongst others: Studies in Educational Evaluation, Computers in Education, International Journal of Educational Research, Prospects). Prof. Nancy Law is Professor and Head of the Division of Information and Technology Studies in the Faculty of Education and the Director of the Centre for Information Technology in Education at the University of Hong Kong. She serves on the Executive Board of the International Society for Learning Sciences, the Publication & Editorial Committee of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), the International Steering Committee of the Second International Information Technology in Education Study (SITES) and was a member of the Steering Committee of the APEC Cyber Education Consortium. She has conducted numerous evaluative studies as well as research and development projects related to information technology in schools. She is currently leading the research design and reporting of SITES 2006 as a member of the International Study Consortium. Her research interests include international comparative studies of pedagogical innovations and information technology, models of ICT integration in schools and change leadership, computer supported collaborative learning and the use of expressive and exploratory computer-based learning environments.