Sir, – It was with interest I read of the latest OECD report on ICT (information and communications technology) in schools and education ("Low use of internet in Irish schools may be educationally advantageous", Front Page, September 15th). In most exams students are asked to compare, contrast and discuss. With that in mind I decided to review the 2005 OECD report Are Students Ready for a Technology-Rich World? ICT and Education and this latest OECD report Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection.
The 2015 report suggests that “These findings, based on an analysis of Pisa data, tell us that, despite the pervasiveness of information and communication technologies (ICT) in our daily lives, these technologies have not yet been as widely adopted in formal education. But where they are used in the classroom, their impact on student performance is mixed, at best. In fact, Pisa results show no appreciable improvements in student achievement in reading, mathematics or science in the countries that had invested heavily in ICT for education.”
Ten years ago, what did the OECD report suggest? “One thing that is now clear is that in an age in which computers feature strongly in everyday life and in education, the minority of students who have little access to them, who use them little and who are not confident in using ICT are not performing well.”
So 10 years ago the OECD suggested that students with little access to ICT were not performing well and today – surprise, surprise – the OECD suggests the opposite.
To be fair to the OECD research teams of 2005 and 2015, they both highlight a very important issue by suggesting that above all, it is the quality of ICT usage, rather than necessarily the quantity, that will determine the contribution that these technologies make to the student and that technology can amplify great teaching, but great technology cannot replace poor teaching. – Yours, etc,
Dr DAVID O’GRADY,
Killarney, Co Kerry.
Sir, – The most surprising thing about the recent OECD report on the impact of computer use in schools is that many people seem to be surprised by the findings.
The OECD set out, unsuccessfully, to find a positive correlation between crude markers of computer use in schools and student performance in some Pisa-designed computer literacy tests. No details were sought as to what the students were actually doing with the computers in school, and no evidence was provided by Pisa that their tests are particular good measures of “digital literacy”. For example, as far back as 2009, an Australian study showed that performance in “digital reading” was closely related to performance in “print reading”, suggesting that digital reading skill is not so much a marker of digital skills but of general literacy. The OECD report should be taken with a pinch of salt.
The worrying aspect of this report, however, is that it will be used to justify the continued lack of investment in ICT technology, and the explicit teaching of ICT skills, in secondary schools. While the debate continues as to whether the use of computers can enhance learning generally, there is absolutely no doubt that all school-leavers should be digitally literate. That means being able to find meaningful and accurate information on the internet or in specialist databases, being confident in using a word processor, being adept at using spreadsheets, being able to use graphics packages and, in some cases, being able to use some of the more advanced computational and technical drawing packages. As well as being taught explicitly, all of these digital skills should be woven seamlessly into the teaching of everything from mathematics to science to business and, increasingly, to the humanities. That’s the way it is at third level and that’s the way it is in life. – Yours, etc,
GREG FOLEY, PhD
Associate Dean
for Teaching and Learning,
School of Biotechnology,
Dublin City University.
Sir, – The furore surrounding the publication of the OECD report is misplaced. The OECD Pisa studies are cross-sectional and can only report on associations between computer usage and performance at one point in time. The inference that computer usage can have negative effects on performance is inappropriate. In fact, research studies that use an experimental design show that lower-achieving students, whom the OECD identifies as spending relatively more time on computers at school in many countries, can benefit most from carefully structured interventions in literacy and numeracy delivered on computer.
Ireland can take little comfort from its slow start in integrating ICT into schoolwork and homework. For many years our 15-year-old pupils have consistently lagged behind their counterparts in mathematics in other European countries, on both paper-based and computer-based maths tests.
Our students would benefit from a judicious combination of traditional and computer-based activities in classrooms. For example, developing students’ ability to generate graphs using a spreadsheet, studying how a function changes when the value of a variable changes, or manipulating complex shapes and their properties on screen, could add considerable value to more traditional teaching or teaching where the teacher uses a computer, but students don’t. None of these activities is inconsistent with the Project Maths curriculum.
It is ironic that the OECD has moved entirely to computers for Pisa 2015 testing (which was completed in Ireland in March of this year) and now holds countries accountable for their performance on tests administered in this way (including performance on questions that require use of a computer), while also contributing to the view that students might be better off not using computers at school. – Yours, etc,
GERRY SHIEL,
Educational
Research Centre,
St Patrick’s College,
Dublin 9.