Part 1 of 2: ICT for learning and assessment

Information and Communication Technologies were introduced into educational institutions more than twenty years ago. Meanwhile, computer hardware and software has become much more sophisticated and an immeasurable amount of information can be accessed now through the Internet. Almost every educational institution in Europe has at least one computer pool with access to the World Wide Web, and Web 2.0 technologies have made it possible for students to easily connect with each other and establish communities of learners.

However, in Europe ICT is not used as much in educational institutions as in other realms of our societies, and as recent PISA results show, the frequency of ICT use in European schools is still rather low. Unfortunately, we still do not have a clear answer why this is the case. At the same time, it is extremely difficult to assess the impact of ICT on learning outcomes in educational institutions. The contributions of this symposium therefore try to shed light on the use of ICT in education by way of citing examples of good practice hoping that these might be a model for the stakeholders in the field of education to prudently make use of ICT for teaching and learning purposes.

The eight contributions are assigned to two parts of the symposium: (1) ICT for learning and assessment and (2) creative uses of ICT.

Karl Steffens from Cologne University in Germany will introduce the topic of ICT in schools by reviewing data which were collected during the latest PISA survey (PISA 2009) with a special focus on the relationship between ICT use and achievement in school. Interestingly, there is no linear relationship between ICT use in school and PISA results. His contribution will explore this relationship critically.

Philippe Gabriel from the Université d’Avignonet des Pays de Vaucluse in France will provide an analysis of the relationship between school and families and the role of ICT in this relationship. He argues that ICT is offering new opportunities to school institutions to extend their influence and for parents to increase their involvement in the school careers of their children.

A group of researchers from the Universidad de Murcia in Spain will report on results from a project in the framework of which Web 2.0 technology is used to enrich the learning environment of a hospital school to help students in primary and secondary education who are long-term patients to continue with their studies.

The problem of assessing learning putcomes was tackled by Manuel Cebrián and his research group from Málaga University. There are two interesting aspects about the study the authors will present. One is that the students are supposed to self-assess their learning using rubrics, and the other one is this assessment is to be done online using the e-rubrics tool to which all universities of the RedIRIS network have access.