Drawing on data from a major survey on the impact of information technology initiatives on Scottish schools, we assess the extent to which the outcomes resemble those that have already been reported by Larry Cuban in his study of schools in Silicon Valley. We find a large measure of agreement. Scottish teachers and school students mostly have access to computers in their homes and classrooms. The home computers appear to be frequently used. The classroom computers, however, are encountered by students only seldom and when students do use computers in the classroom the activity is often peripheral to the learning process, such as word processing of essays. We discuss some possible explanations for this state of affairs and suggest some implications for policy-making.
In England and Wales, Initial Teacher Education depends upon a legal and contractual partnership between schools and higher education institutions in which teacher mentors are often trained to support student teacher development. This paper investigates the much less formal kind of partnership model that has evolved in Scotland, using one university's PGCE (Secondary) programme as a case study. Our research shows that the partnership is based on goodwill and relationships built up over time between university and school staff. However, school staff generally have only a weak understanding of the overall direction of the PGCE programme and they are uncertain about how best to fulfil their role in placement supervision. Partly in consequence, students find it hard to integrate school and university experiences and the quality of placement is very uneven. We identify scope for the development of mentoring skills among teachers and argue that current developments in Scottish education mean that this is a propitious time to begin to strengthen the links between school and university components of PGCE programmes.En Angleterre et au Pays de Galle, la formation initiale des professeurs repose sur un partenariat contractuel et juridique entre les écoles et les Instituts de formation, c'est-à-dire que des professeurs sont formés en tant que mentors pour veiller au bon développement des étudiants. Dans cet exposé nous allons étudier un modèle de partenariat beaucoup moins formel qui s'est développé en Ecosse, en nous basant sur le cas d'étude du programme du PGCE (professeurs du secondaire) d'une université. Nos recherches montrent que le partenariat est basé sur de la bonne volonté et sur des relations bâties au cours des années entre l'université et les enseignants en collège. Cependant en général ces derniers n'ont pas une vision très claire de la direction globale du programme du PGCE et ne savent pas quelle est la meilleure manière de remplir leur rôle de superviseur durant les stages. En partie pour cette raison, les étudiants ont des difficultés à faire le lien entre leur expérience au collège et leur expérience à l'université et la qualité des stages est donc très inégale. Nous constatons donc qu'il faut que les professeurs soient mieux formés à leur rôle de mentor et que-en raison des développements qui ont lieu à l'heure actuelle dans le domaine de l'éducation en Ecosse-le moment est propice pour commencer à créer des liens plus étroits entre les composants universitaires et les stages en collège des programmes du PGCE.En Inglaterra y Gales, la Educación Inicial del Profesor depende de la asociación legal y contractual entre los colegios y los institutos de educación superior, por donde enseñ an a los mentores de profesores a apoyar el desarrollo del profesor en prácticas. Este artículo examina el modelo de asociación mucho menos convencional que ha desarrollado en Escocia, utilizando el programa de PGCE (secundario) de una universidad como estudio de casos. Nuestras investigaciones demuestran que la asociación s...
The questions that dominate the discourse of IT in education are mostly at the technical or craft levels. Visionary questions relating to the purpose of education and the proper place of technology are not much discussed. This paper seeks to undermine the idea that such questions should be avoided. The context of postmodernist change is described and two contrasting visions of education are discussed. Each vision is a hypothetical but recognisable representation of certain trends in educational thinking. Each vision has appeal but also severe shortcomings. The paper concludes that unless teachers, learners and communities can articulate their own visions of educational change, new technology could take them into a future that they would never willingly have chosen.
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