Discussion paper for a Farhorizon Dinner, with High Level Stakeholders form different DG from the European Commission

1. The need for visionary policies
for teaching and learning for an ICT revolutionizing Society
Victor van Rij
Far horizon working dinner
2 December, 2010 Brussels
Teaching and learning for an ICT
revolutionizing world

2. Communicative revolutions in human society
6
10
5
10
4
10
3
10
2
10
1
10
Oral communication
through language
Picture and symbol
communication
Writing
Book printing
Mass education
Mass media
Total
interconnectivity
Years ago

3. Commonalities
• All these communication(r)evolutions had in common that they accompanied large
innovative changes in society
• Speech made it possible to coordinate action (during hunting) and to teach the
fabrication of tools
• Written language made it possible to have commerce and to keep record of possessions
and to create proto science that was needed for effective agriculture
• Book printing coincides with what we nowadays call the age of enlightment and made it
possible to create industrialisation and the modern state with its famous paperwork
• The present revolution allows us to communicate world wide and can be seen in the
frame of the globalisation that takes place
• All of the revolutions not only had great impact on society but also on what we needed
to learn to survive in the transformed world from speaking to writing and reading to
typing and peresenting through different audio and visual means as well as
computerssimulations ,websites , weblogs and so on

4. The characteristics of the ICT revolution
• Speed and range of communication
• Global immediate communication and data transfer from many people to many people, Giga
bytes per second
• Multimedia
• Written information but also symbolic, audio and visual (real recordings)
• Real mass communication
• Almost everyone can send and receive
• Storage an full communication over time
• Information including real audio-visual recording built up over time, communication to next
generations
• Processing and Translation
• Programming gives continuously new ways to process and visualize information in useful ways
• Interconnectiveness of people, computer-systems, datacollections , real time measurements and
observation systems – and manufacturing systems - the internet of things

5. Clear relation educational output and Economic growth
Table taken from OECD report: The High Cost of Low Educational Performance THE LONG-RUN ECONOMIC IMPACT OF IMPROVING PISA
OUTCOMES, OECD 2010
PISA

6. ICT and Economic growth

7. But what about the relation of education and ICT and Economy
• Will the effects multiply?? What do we know about this?
• What about the combination of high ICT investments and high basic PISA skills
in upcoming economies?
• Especially if these skills are also focused on ICT use and development and
deployment in society?
• What are actually basic skills/competencies of the coming decades

8. ICT competence will become a basic competence
• ICT literacy or even fluency is seen as one of the basic competences in the
future decades
• Without this people can hardly survive in an ICT saturated world
(Inspired by Technology, Driven by Pedagogy A Systemic Approach to
technology-Based School Innovations , OECD 2010 )

9. But what about the relation of education and ICT and Economy
In the report : The Future of Learning: European Teachers’ Visions. Report on a foresight consultation at
the 2010 e Twinning Conference, Sevilla, 5-7 February 2010 we read:
Based on the results of the group work, the workshop participants considered the following
competences as very important for 2025:
Digital competences. This includes the competence to efficiently, confidently and critically use
the technologies of 2025 in an efficient and targeted way. Information skills, such as
searching, sifting, organizing, managing and evaluating information; judging the
relevance and trustworthiness of sources and avoiding knowledge overload are considered
a crucial part of future digital competences. Creating digital content was also considered
important.
Communication. Both mother tongue fluency and competences in foreign languages are very important, but the emphasis will be on using them as a
means for communication with other people, not on grammatical correctness per se.
Global citizenship. This is a versatile competence of understanding and being able to analysz the surrounding world, being social and part of the society,
and assuming responsibility for taking care of the environment, also for future generations.
Learning to learn. Being motivated to pursue one’s own learning progress and knowing how to process information, assigning meaning to it and
converting it into knowledge, are important. People need to be able to set their own goals, strategies and evaluate risks. They
need to live their lives as a continuous learning experience.
Working collaboratively. Collaboration was seen as a crucial skill that needs to be learned and practiced from early on in education, and remains an
important form of working and interacting for all employees – including teachers. People need to learn to listen to others,
negotiate and accept others’ ideas, understand and work in different roles in teams, andparticipate in communities.
Continuous skills updating. All employees, and especially teachers, need to be committed to
continuous updating of skills related to their work. They need to be prepared to do this in
their initial training and supported during their working lives. This skill includes
autonomy, lifelong learning, flexibility and preparedness for continuous change and
development,innovation and creativity.

10. Not everyone will achieve these competencies
http://www.21stcenturychallenges.org/focus/the-reasons-for-digital-exclusion/
It is clear that ICT and ICT literacy and fluency will make us more competitive.
But there is another side of the ICT revolution coin which is exclusion of ICT
and everything which is connected to this
Using the internet is now a daily activity for most people both at home and at work.
But 17m people in the UK still do not have access to the web.

11. Exclusion projection UK : http://research.freshminds.co.uk/files/u1/shminds_report_understandingdigitalinclusion.pdf
Especially elderly will stay excluded

12. PRESENT PERCEPTIONS OF HIGH + MODERATE NEED OF ICT SKILLS DEVELOPMENT BY EXPERIENCE AND SEX
OF TEACHER S
Teachers need to be thaught
Graph: With many thanks to Francesc Pedro of OECD

13. Schools need to be equipped and updated
ATARI 64Kb , HD 720 Kb,
computer classroom exception
COMPUTE! ISSUE 40 / SEPTEMBER 1983
Desktop PC, 2 GB , HD 500 GB,
many classrooms - 2010
virtual classroom and new tools and
gadgets to observe, learn and work,
Create and communicate in www
30 yrs OS development
30 yrs Moore’s Law

14. Curricula and visions on what has to be learned need to change
• Curricula need to take into account what need to be learned in the fast
changing ICT environment
• ICT changes not only the societal and economic dynamics in fundamental way
but also professions and disciplines
• To develop curricula and learning material as well as teaching strategies
incorporating the fast developing ICT, school and government have to develop
common visions on the approach of these changes and the way to implement
these in curriculum, learning environment and teaching practice on a
continuous basis

15. What needs to be done
• Awareness of government, teachers , school management and teacher
training has to be raised. Digital literacy and fluency need to be part of the
basic educational objectives
• Training of teachers and implementation of new curricula that prepare people
on the ICT (or Digital) revolutionizing world need not only professional support
but require continuous high levels of additional investment
• These investments should come from additional Private and Public funding
from the ICT industry which will pay back itself through innovation and higher
national productivity in combination with increased use of ICT in society but
probably to a far lesser extent by productivity increase of education itself.
• The level of this investment need depends on the speed of change of
hardware and software , and their user friendliness which needs to be traded
off to the investments required

16. What needs to be done
• To prevent a further widening of digital gaps between countries and different
groups within the population special attention should be given to digital
analphabetism as well as sex- and age related differences in uptake of the
new technologies as well as differences between countries and regions
• To acquire competencies school but also households need all to be connected
to the internet
• To realize successful policies, joint efforts are needed from different policy
areas as employment, innovation , social policy and education