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Evaluation and Benchmarking of ICT in Schools. Professor Paul Bacsich UK 17 October 2003. Acknowledgement. The Education and Manpower Bureau would like to offer special thanks to Professor Paul Bacsich for his powerpoint presentation on Evaluation and Benchmarking of ICT in Schools.
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Evaluation and Benchmarking of ICT in Schools Professor Paul Bacsich UK 17 October 2003
Acknowledgement The Education and Manpower Bureau would like to offer special thanks to Professor Paul Bacsichfor his powerpoint presentation on Evaluation and Benchmarking of ICT in Schools
Evaluation In 4 easy lessons
Evaluation • Programme-wide with deep drill-down • Based on numbers and qualitative info, with interpretation • Triangulation and stakeholders
Flashlight (after Ehrmann) • See www.tltgroup.org • And the Flashlight presentation at www.roundtable.ac.uk/FLIntro.ppt
The Flashlight Oath • "Above all, I will do no harm. I know the value of people's time, and so I will be ruthless in making my surveys and interviews focused, brief, and useful…so that those who have answered my questions will be even more willing to collaborate with the next researcher or evaluator who contacts them." • "My study's process as well as its findings will stimulate reflection and learning…"
Programme evaluation in UK • Based on Flashlight • Developed in the Annenberg/CPB trials of e-learning in HE c. 1995 • and the OU evaluation consensus • (Bates, Mason, Laurillard et al) • First substantial trial in the JANUS evaluations of 1993-5 • Refined through TERG (SHU) into a tool for evaluation of NLN • Next set of slides are c/o Ash, Carter and Mistry
NLN-e1 Findings • ICT is only appreciated by students when there is a reason for it • ICT is an increasingly effective tool that is used with increasing sophistication and appreciation • Increasing ICT skills at schools is pressurising teacher skills at FE • Involvement in evaluation can facilitate colleges. organisational development
Evaluation successes • A further £84M funding for the skills sector • DFeS are pushing the toolkit to evaluate courses • Furthered thought in the identification of good practice • Helping to raise awareness of the issues in the pedagogy of ICT teaching
What is UK doing for the second phase of NLN evaluation • Meta-analysis of current and recent surveys • Quantitative data gathering from across the sector • Twelve In-depth longitudinal studies developed by external evaluators • Focus on the whole organisation rather than the course
What did Phase one tell us about conducting internal evaluations? • Tools and processes are often secondary to good management • The process of reviewing and assessing work can be threatening and evoke a deeply political response • Evaluations serve multiple functions not always those the evaluators envisage
Conducting the evaluation Data collection • Leave your baggage at the door • Pilot everything • ALWAYS double check and share insights with your informants • Look from multiple viewpoints • Don’t over-gather the same information from the same sources
Benchmarking Not an easy subject
Benchmarking – but who with? • Similar countries/regions – but who is? • Leaders, to provide aspirational role models • Laggards in case they catch up!
Criteria • Population • And population density • Type of language (alphabet, ideographic, etc) • Level of use of ICT in general life • (Pedagogic) culture
Suggestions • Singapore • Scotland not England • Canadian (province level) • Denmark not Finland • Australia (states) • Thailand (laggard but trying to catch up) • South Korea? • US – are we sure?
ICT findings Key ratios
Key Performance Indicators • Students per PC • Bandwidth per student PC • Or per student (aspirational?) • Media sophistication of software • Text, graphics, web, audio, video • Production to consumption ratio
Spot emerging trends even if small • Laptops/tablets are less intrusive and fit the paradigm of “ubiquitous computing” • Binding of home PCs into school systems: ”extranets” • Hosting: moving servers out of schools back to server farms • New “worldware” apps? • Email integration with SMS on mobile phones?? • Anything coming in from HE (Grid?) or industry (cooperative working) or real life (games?)