ICT in institutional links with home and community
Linking homes and schools with ICT
Secondary schools
The 2005 questionnaire survey showed a big increase in home internet use by secondary students compared with 2003 (48% reported daily internet use from home in 2005, compared to 37% in 2003). Some 90% of students have access to a computer at home, but 62% reported not having facilities to access their work at school from home. Only 21% reported being able to access their school email from home, although this had increased from 6% in 2003.
Support from school for ICT use in the home remained low although there had been some improvements compared with 2003 and 2004. The majority of students reported not being able to use school software at home (65% compared to 73% in 2003), not having ICT provision for use in the home (71% compared to 80% in 2003), and not being able to access the school network from home to download work completed at school (62% compared to 74% in 2003). The story was more positive for provision of access to their school emails from home (55% compared to 32% in 2003) and access to the school website from home (77% compared to 52% in 2003).
In interviews in one cluster, secondary students said they were pleased to have received a home ICT Test Bed computer but were frustrated that connectivity had been so heavily delayed ("like a year", "they have taken so long") with the consequence that those without a home ISP were unable to "link it up with the school". Disparities in internet access were evident across the secondary groups in one cluster. One student commented: "I have one of my own and the school's, and when I want to go on the internet I use my Dad's and every time I just want to do work I use my own." Another uses the internet to revise (Bitesize). The students also saw a potential benefit of connectivity as being able to access web information for research in subjects across the curriculum, and that this was "really boring before" (that is, when it had to be done with books).
In the 2005 student survey few secondary students, across all three clusters, reported that schools provide support for ICT in the home environment. Outside access, from the home and other environments such as the public library, to institutional websites was the one facility available to students but they reported that this often related to general information rather than curriculum materials. As with primary schools, the links appear to be one way, passing information from school to home, rather than two-way and interactive.
As with primary students, an encouraging finding in 2005 was that secondary students reported an increased level of help at home in using computers. In 2004, the majority of secondary students reported that there was someone who could help at home, but that they were usually busy; in 2005 the most frequent response was that there was usually someone who could help at home, with substantial decreases in those reporting that no help was available to them.
Secondary students reported that the main barriers to ICT use at home were the cost of computer hardware and software as well as internet access. Time constraints and the students' own computer skills were lesser concerns. In general, secondary students reported fewer problems with barriers to ICT use than FE students.
All schools
There is evidence that, despite considerable expenditure on placing computers in homes in two of the clusters and a high level of motivation on the part of many teachers and school leaders, interactive links between home and school have not been achieved. However, at the end of the third year of the project, it is beginning to appear that an endeavour of this kind may be beyond the capacity of schools. The vision is a good one, which clearly has the potential to provide students in areas of socio-economic disadvantage with a powerful educational resource, but it seems likely that the lesson learnt from the ICT Test Bed project is that another way needs to be found to put this into place. The barriers are high and beyond the control of schools:
- Purchasing and distributing computers into homes is a major undertaking which imposes an impossible workload on teachers or school administrative staff alongside a full-time job.
- Providing technical support in the home and the recall/redistribution of machines when families move out of the area is a heavy additional workload for schools.
- The costs of connectivity for every home are high and cannot be borne by schools.
- There may not be adequate network infrastructure available to make home connections possible, if the locality has been judged by commercial providers as unlikely to provide a commercially viable market.
- Many homes will not have telephone landlines because many families now rely on mobile telephones, and there are likely to be technical problems in connecting some homes by telephone and others by cable.
- The costs for schools of licences for software to use on home computers are unacceptably high.
Further education colleges
The 2005 ICT Test Bed student survey showed that use of the internet at home and college was the dominant application for FE students, followed by use of email. At college, 31% recorded daily internet use and 20% daily email use. At home, 55% recorded daily internet use and 52% daily email use. Overall, FE students reported an increase in use of ICT at home compared with 2004. This was confirmed in interviews in which most, but not all, of the sample had computers at home and were regular users of the internet in their leisure activities. However, access could be a problem: one student commented that although she had a computer at home, she couldn't get on the computer "because of her children". Students reported that they used their home computers for email and leisure activities but also to help with their courses. Several students said they didn't have some of the specialist software they needed at college so did their work at home where they had the software.
In survey responses, as with secondary students, significant relationships were found between use of applications at home and at college, with the exception of the use of email where no relationship was found between home and college use. The figures for daily email use at home and at college were 55% and 20% respectively. There seem to be a number of reasons for this, for example, the college not providing students with a college email address and barring access to other email systems such as Hotmail, as well discouraging the use of email in learning support centres.
Interestingly, students indicated both a decrease in use of ICT at college (by 13% from 38% in the second year to 25% in the third year) and an increase in daily use of ICT at home to 56%. This may indicate a trend towards a different pattern of use. For example, it may be that now they are able to access materials on the VLE from home, some students prefer that option to accessing them in college. Use of computers in a public library has altered very little from previous years.
In terms of receiving college help to use ICT in the home environment, the majority of ICT Test Bed students reported not being able to use college software at home (73%), not having ICT equipment such as laptop computers for use in the home (82%), and not being able to access their college emails from home (55%). This reflects interview data from staff and students as colleges are not providing students with laptops and cannot afford the software licences for installation on home computers.
In interviews, however, increasing numbers of students said they were using their home computers to access learning materials from the college using the VLE or websites created by their tutors. "Having stuff on the VLE is helpful. We can revise for tests. If we miss a class, we can get the notes easily. There are videos of class demonstrations." Some tutors have created assessments for the students to do on the VLE. Students said they liked these as it helped them revise by giving them an idea of how much they knew and what they still had to learn.
In the 2005 survey, 63% of ICT Test Bed students indicated that they could access the college website from home, an increase of 11% from 2004, and this appears to reflect the increased use in VLEs reported in interviews and student logs. However, 75% reported not being able to access college computers and copy files to their home computer electronically which appears to contradict this interpretation.
It was clear in interviews that the ability to access materials from outside college has helped specific groups of students such as NVQ plumbing students who are mainly self-employed and sometimes cannot get into college if they have a job to do. Another student had a long stay in hospital but was able to continue with her course by accessing the course materials from the hospital.
To realise these gains, learners are not only being expected to learn new ICT skills but are being asked to work in different ways. Many students have a traditional view of education and may find it difficult to interact effectively with resources like a VLE. In general, though, students are appreciative of being able to access their course materials online. They now have the opportunity to take more responsibility for their own learning and even to take control of the learning. On the other hand, a VLE can be merely a way of presenting documents; the tutor controls what is there and when the learners can access it. Learners then have little or no additional responsibility for their learning and may even have less independence than with traditional methods.
A very small minority expressed a general reluctance to use ICT and these tended to be more mature students, female students and students for whom English is not their mother tongue. More mature learners have generally used ICT less than younger learners, and language problems can make using ICT more difficult for some learners.
In the 2005 student survey, the main barriers to ICT use at home for FE students, like secondary students, were costs of computer hardware and software as well as internet access. FE students generally felt there were more barriers to internet use at home than secondary students, for example, 57% said that lack of time was a problem and 47% felt that they lacked adequate computer skills. However, it was encouraging that 53% of FE students said there was usually someone available who could help them at home, compared to around 33% in 2004.
> Return to ICT in institutional links with home and community