Raising Standards

The government has invested $1.8 billion into ICT in schools since 1997. Much of it has been spent on infrastructure - particularly hardware and the online systems that make up the core of the National Grid for Learning both in school and on the Internet. But now the focus is shifting towards delivering of the National Curriculum and raising standards.

We need to ask what is the purpose of all this expenditure? Is it because ICT is new and therefore it must be a good thing? Or does ICT improve our teaching or the children's learning? Or perhaps there's something altogether different going on that we haven't yet identified? The answer of course, is that it's all of these things. Let's look at them in turn.

Is ICT new and therefore by definition a good thing?
Like all things new, ICT has been embraced by enthusiasts. Just like every new technology before it there have been the early adopters, including those who have staked their careers on the new technology. And there have been the doubters and the Luddites - and those with a vested interest in the old order.

Printing is probably the best known example of this. Caxton used it to earn a living, but members of the aristocracy and the church feared that spreading ideas would lead to the breakdown of society (and certainly the loss of their power). Printers were imprisoned for "disseminating ideas". Even as late as the middle of the 19th Century, eminent people of the day said they could "see no earthly reason why the working man should ever need to be able to read". Others feared that teaching the masses to read would "give them ideas beyond their station". They were right of course. In each case their fears were based in reality but society didn't end. It changed and this's what is happening now.

In the early to mid 1980s most probably people fell into the Luddite camp. Comments such as, "why would children ever need to use a computer to write with?" were common. But as time passed it became clear that a word processor is probably the best tool for writing that has ever been invented. You are free from the need to form letters by hand (although the keyboard is still a relic of Victorian times). Your writing is infinitely adaptable. The text remains plastic and malleable in a way that no other writing technology has ever allowed. And you are supported by a host of tools, including spelling and grammar checkers.

Does ICT improve learning?
This is the popular view at the moment, and is why the Treasury has authorised so much investment in ICT. The government is set on raising standards and it defines these in terms of the traditional curriculum. Computation, mental dexterity, spelling, grammar - these are the building bricks of knowledge and they believe that ICT can help children master them better, quicker and more effectively. If more children can reach Level 4 in English and Maths the government will consider every penny to have been well spent.

In fact, although ICT certainly does help children learn the traditional curriculum - and several Logotron titles do this particularly well - it's a very small part of what ICT offers. To use ICT just for that would be to miss the real opportunity that ICT has delivered.

Is the real value of ICT something else altogether?
The truth is that the real value of ICT is the way in which it changes the whole nature of learning and of the society we live in. The notion that you can learn a set of skills for sixteen years and then leave school equipped to get a job and lead a fulfilled and useful live until retirement is simply no longer a reality. That world is gone. The world we live in now is a place where people continue to learn throughout their lives and will probably change careers several times during their lives. ICT uniquely provides the very learning environment that is best suited to this new world. It lets us work creatively, collaboratively and in almost any geographical location.

It's no surprise then to find that the Logotron catalogue, while containing valuable software to enhance and extend the learning of traditional skills, has at it heart software tools for creativity. Indeed, this is the origin of the company, not with programs which skills but with LOGO, the program which gave it its name and provided the first real open learning environment, in which a child couldn't fail, but could stretch his or her learning