IntroductionThe aim of this article is two-fold. First, it presents in succinct summary a selection of the work conducted by OECD in the field of technology and education. This has been an on-going focus since the 1980s and recently, much of this has been carried out under the heading of 'New Millennium Learners'. But the technology focus extends well beyond a single project and includes work on innovation, open educational resources and the development of the digital resources market, as well as ICT use in educational settings, access, and digital competence.Second, the article considers the assumptions underlying much work on technology in education to propose that a more holistic focus on learning environments, of which technology is only a part, represents a fruitful avenue to help design education for current and future systems. OECD has a project called Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) which has just reconceptualised 'learning environments' in general and 'innovative learning environments' in particular, drawing on 40 case studies in 19 systems (sometimes countries, sometimes regions or states) to illustrate the framework and to refine it iteratively 1 . This article presents this framework to show how technology enters into schooling in very diverse ways. There is neither a single 'technology effect' nor does technology operate by itself, but always in combination with all the other elements, dynamics, contexts, and partners of learning environments. OECD Work on Technology in EducationThere is longstanding work in OECD on 'new technologies', dating back to the 1980s that include analyses on how such technologies might transform the teaching of reading, writing, science and mathematics (OECD, 1986; 1987). In the years that followed, adults were as much in focus as school-age students, and in the early 2000s this resulted in two reports that also had a strong equity focus -one on the digital divide (OECD, 2000) and one on ICT and out-of-school youth and adults (OECD, 2004a). Schools and schooling were not ignored, and the 2001 report 'Learning to Change -ICT in Schools', written under the 'Schooling for Tomorrow' umbrella, arrived at a set of conclusions that maintain a relevance today:Digital literacy is now a fundamental learning objective, including informationhandling skills, and the capacity to judge the relevance and reliability of web-based information. Curriculum change is needed in the Internet age: the open, skills-based, studentcentred approaches supported by ICT call for changes in schooling, teaching and learning.
This paper explores historical patterns of change in participation in higher education in Wales, using as an organising framework Halsey's (1992) distinction between higher education as an administrative and as a social system. The nineteenth-century development of Welsh higher education was both part of a distinctive national political project and reflected the specificities of wider Welsh society. Expansion through the early and middle decades of the present century eroded this distinctiveness, as both the governance of Welsh higher education and patterns of student recruitment and participation became increasingly integrated into an 'England and Wales' system. The more recent expansion of higher education institutions in Wales, as well as the participation of Welsh students in higher education overall, has further accentuated this social integration into an 'England and Wales' system. Currently, Wales exhibits a pattern of participation which is unique amongst the home countries, whereby the Welsh higher education institutions serve very substantial numbers of students from England (and to a much lesser extent elsewhere), whilst a large proportion of Welsh students register at institutions in England. This indicates that there is now a significant disjuncture between an increasingly distinct pattern of governance of Welsh higher education and a pattern of participation which is massively integrated in the 'England and Wales' system.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.