Into the future

Dr Rangsun Wiboon-upptum leads a panel discussion on using schools as cyber community centres.

The emergence of new media channels not only means a revolution in information access; it also means that policymakers, school administrators, teachers and parents will have to work harder together to bring out the best in these technologies.

This was the message delivered at the 2nd East Asia Regional ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) Conference, recently held at the Center for Academic Resources at Chulalongkorn University.

"What is happening now is we've been overtaken by students' experience of ICT outside schools," says Tony Hacking, director of education and development at the UK-based company UniServity, and a keynote speaker at the conference.

Through the use of new media technologies, he adds, students now have access to so much information that it surpasses what the teacher can deliver inside the classroom.

"So, what we've got to do is to develop 'learners' and show them how they can learn how to sift through information, how to construct information, and solve problems, which is what we expect them to do when they go out in the world," he says.

Out of the classroom

Because of the impact of ICT, policymakers and school administrations in countries like the UK and Singapore are re-examining the notion of learning. Experts agree that "learning" no longer confines students within the physical limits of a classroom.

The twenty-first century classroom, says Hacking, is one that allows students to learn in many different scenarios - not just ones where the teacher stands in front of the classroom. Settings should involve students engaged in authentic, real-life activities, not in contrived role-plays.

"The key concept is that we need to view learners as individuals in the learning communities," says Hacking. With ICT as a catalyst, the learning model is shifting away from teacher-led to community-led and is heading toward personalised learning - enquiry-led, student-focused, student-developed, and student-led.

Through the use of online tools, for example, students can create their own communities, such as web forums, weblogs, chat rooms, and websites. These online tools change the students' learning from passive to active, with the students themselves owning parts or all of the content.

Twenty-first-century learning, Hacking adds, will also be characterised by problem-solving activities. Teachers can facilitate this by organising web forums and asking debatable questions, and involving industry experts in guiding the answers.

Through this process, teachers can teach students to apply various techniques - analysis, synthesis, and evaluation - in forming their answers. This example of problem-based learning is what Hacking would describe as authentic learning.

In providing this type of learning environment, however, teachers will be faced with new challenges. While students may already know how to use the technology, the teacher's role remains crucial to the students' learning experiences.

Now, teachers not only have to keep up with the evolving technologies, but also have to learn to keep up with students' expectations. Experts at the conference agree that the so-called learning revolution is not solely about the technology, but about how to enhance and improve learning through the use of ICT.

"What I see is a shift in models between teachers who were seen as transmitters of knowledge to teachers who are now the facilitators of learning and who enable children to go well beyond their particular capabilities," says Doug Brown, divisional manager at the UK's Department for Education and Skills.

The Thai situation

So, where is Thailand in this twenty-first century learning revolution? According to Dr Rangsun Wiboon-upptum, a computer educator at the Ministry of Education's Bureau of Information and Communication Technology, hardware and infrastructure are posing less of a problem in Thailand than the body of knowledge itself.

The exchange of knowledge through the use of ICT among Thai students, he says, remains very much centred around games and entertainment software. And it is this type of usage that drives many of the students' ICT experiences both in and out of the classroom.

"Our main problem is the class size," says Dr Rangsun. "We have yet to find a way to reduce the teachers' workload, so that the ratio of students per teacher [is not more than] 15:1 per semester. This problem is one of our challenges." Once Thailand has reached this goal, he adds, then it can start thinking about personalised learning, which need not always be facilitated through ICT.

Teachers, he says, must teach students how to think critically, in addition to constantly keep current on changes in technology and theories of both teaching and learning. Tony Hacking agrees. "This might be a bit of a shock in an ICT conference, but that sort of approach doesn't necessarily need ICT," he says.

"Rather than a teacher standing in front and spewing forth information, a good teacher gets the students to build up that knowledge by good questioning; by presenting them with access to the resources.

"What ICT does is make that a lot easier. And that, I think, has a lot to do with the professional development of the teachers, as much as it has to do with the development of ICT."

Teacher training aside, one of the biggest hurdles all countries must face is bureaucracy. While educators, parents, and students would probably like to see education moving toward the twenty-first century model, policymakers and educators often find themselves at opposing ends of the progress spectrum.

The government's recent plan to distribute 250,000 computers to schools nationwide, for example, has been delayed again and again due to internal politics and a lack of agreement on specifications. On this matter, Dr Rangsun says that simply designating every project as "mega" in scale does not always provide a solution.

"We must look at the movement within each school, and whether or not teachers are ready for the technology," he says. "At least, we should ask how well our teachers can integrate various resources available on the Internet into their method of teaching."

Facing realities

On a broader level, many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have yet to face certain realities regarding ICT. Alexa Joyce, a representative from Unesco, points out that while countries are talking about a paradigm shift toward personalised learning through the use of ICT, electricity supplies in many areas are still unreliable. Some don't even have telephone access.

Equally important is the price of the Internet connection itself. "The price of Internet content, software, equipment, and connections is still very expensive in Asia, compared with the average teacher's salary or the average budget of the average school," she says.

One way to solve this problem, she adds, is to use open-source software or a scaled-down version of existing commercial software. "But policymakers in ICT and education need to put pressure on Internet service providers to lower connection prices for schools," she adds.

The most important challenge, however, is the language barrier. In 50 countries in Asia, more than 40 national languages are spoken. Relying on automatic translation software, says Alexa, is not a sound solution because none is good enough yet.

"I hope to see more public-private partnerships offer that kind of content and software interfaces for teachers, or have the communities come up with the content themselves," she adds. In moving towards "twenty-first century learning", many countries - developed and developing alike - are at the stage of experimenting with ICT as a tool in education.

Whether or not there is a shortcut that developing countries can use to leapfrog the failures that their developed counterparts have experienced remains debatable. But one thing remains true, as Brown says: this revolution is not about technology, it is about learning and a promising future.

The two-day conference entitled 'Learning Beyond the Classroom: How ICT is Shaping the Learning Revolution' was organised by the British Council (Thailand). For more information, contact 02-652-5480-9 or visit ict.britishcouncil.or.th.

Read the Hiking the E-trail here.