Niki Davis

Information Technology in United Kingdom Initial Teacher Education, 1982–92

ABSTRACT During the past decade the introduction of microcomputers has been a major innovation in the United Kingdom (UK). This new technology has enormous potential to improve teaching and learning and it continues to offer an exciting challenge to educationalists. This paper reviews the development of information technology (IT) in initial teacher education. The change in IT courses over time reflects the development of a more critical view on the effect of IT on teaching and learning and the cross curricular aspect of IT in the UK National Curriculum. Many issues still remain and can result in a lack of IT competence in newly trained teachers. In 1990 IT became the only skill to be specifically listed within the guidelines for teacher training accreditation by the UK government Current issues and strategies to improve IT components of initial teacher education courses are discussed.

Use of Information Technology by English University Teachers: Development and Trends at the Time of the National Inquiry into Higher Education

Abstract The National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education was informed by a research study on information technology assisted teaching and learning in higher education in England led by the Telematics Centre at the University of Exeter. Evidence on educational quality and economic value was sought through literature reviews, case studies, seminars and a set of questions put out on the World Wide Web. This article presents a generalised summary of the working methods and outcomes of the institutional case studies, focusing mainly on educational rather than economic contexts and issues. The research confirmed that information technology assisted teaching and learning should be viewed as an intricate and repeated set of innovations applied to complex and rapidly changing interdependent systems. As a result, the full costs and benefits have not been considered by institutions. It is recommended that staff and institutional developments are synchronised through strategic management of change and that ai...

Six case studies of information technology-assisted teaching and learning in higher education in England

Abstract In August 1996 the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) commissioned a six-month research study of IT-assisted teaching and learning (ITATL) in higher education. This was to inform policy and also to provide evidence to the Review of Higher Education in the United Kingdom (Dearing, 1997). The research study was led by the Telematics Centre at the School of Education at the University of Exeter, working in collaboration with the NatWest Financial Literacy Centre at the University of Warwick and the Institute of Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol. A key element of the research was the case studies of ITATL undertaken in six HE institutions. This article reports the case studies. It provides a more comprehensive view of the educational outcomes of the research than the final report published by HEFCE which placed a greater emphasis on the economic aspects (Boucher et al, 1997). The outcomes are discussed in terms of the educational costs and benefits of ITA...

Pedagogy and Protocols for Collaborative Teaching and Research Through Super JANET and ISDN in Higher Education

SUMMARY The increasing bandwidth on the Internet between universities in the UK has potential for multimedia communications in higher education, for both teaching and research purposes. This article reports on a project which developed person‐to‐person protocols for such communication and the pedagogic styles employed in a set of eight case studies. The project transferred previous experience with multimedia communications, using ISDN2, between a university and partner schools into higher education. It also transferred experience with the 128K dedicated bandwidth of ISDN2 to the distributed architecture of 10 megabyte communications employed in SuperJANET service. Additional new styles of pedagogy, consultation and collaborative development became the most prominent modes. Styles such as these should assist staff to integrate IT into teaching and learning in higher education.

Telematics Applied to the Training of Teachers: a survey via video‐conferencing across Europe

Summary In January 1996 the European Union funded three projects within the Telematics Programme DG XIII_c to focus on Telematics in Teacher Training. One project with the same title, T3, will apply telematics within teacher training for over 4000 teachers in seven European countries over three years. Part of the work within 1996 performed a needs analysis for multimedia communications across the partner teacher training institutions in seven European countries using enhanced desk top video conferencing. Teacher educators were informed of case studies already developed in the UK and aspects were demonstrated to them. Their views on the transferability of such activities to their courses and countries are documented in this paper. This research took place using the medium of enhanced desk top video conferencing. This application of Telematics is seen as an extension of the common practice of interviewing by telephone, permitting more information to be shared between teacher trainers in the seven teacher tr...

International multimedia for teaching education

The University of Exeter, in England, with support from the Higher Education Funding Councils, led a consortium of four universities in a project which developed a range of multimedia resources for student teachers in the UK. The resources were designed to enhance and improve courses and to extend teaching and learning styles. Dissemination of these resources within UK higher education is now underway through the Telematics Centre at the University of Exeter. Colleagues from within Europe, North America and Australasia have shown an interest in these materials. This paper describes the resources and raises the issue of their relevance to communities outside the UK.

Teaching and learning with telecommunications: issues for schools and professional development

There is a wide range of applications for telecommunications in teaching and learning, but unlike in commerce and in leisure these are peripheral rather than part of the infrastructure. Applications range from information retrieval to information provision: using computerized banks of information to electronic mail to multimedia communication incorporating video conferencing on the desktop. This paper reviews the issues which prevent video and telecomputing from becoming a main stream activity in teaching, learning and professional development. It suggests that the extreme changes in practice required by telecommunications imply a move towards applications which directly address the needs of the institution and community including the business community. Telecommunications are too costly and hopefully too valuable to be repressed in education.

Case Study: A Future for Electronic Communications in Education?

Future computer networks for education in the twenty‐first century appear to assume extensive worldwide networks which use the processing power of the computer terminal to enhance the value of the multimedia information transmitted. Current systems in the UK have pioneered valuable work, but because of inherent design problems of the present central systems and the move towards local management of schools, current global interconnections may be restricted to a few pupils in a few schools. This paper describes a new distributed structure for electronic communications in education, in which microcomputer nodes based in initial teacher training institutions are linked together using the national and international networks developed for higher education and research. Such systems are already in place in some states in the USA. The paper also describes a second system through which audio, software and text information are communicated using an ICL desktop conferencing system and ISDN2 telephone lines. The most...