Activity 4: Whole school conditions for ICT integration

In this activity, you will begin to think about some of the things that ICT integration at schools promises us. What can ICTs do and what can't they do? What do terms like the digital divide mean and why is equitable access to ICTs an issue? How is this issue relevant to us in our own school context? How do some of these concepts motivate for ICT integration in our schools? Why is alignment important and what is the leader's role in this?

Activity

This activity has various compulsory parts (listed below), as well as further optional activities that you can pursue if you are interested in the topic. First, complete each part of the compulsory activity below.

Part One

1. Review the whole school improvement framework, in which various aspects of the school are considered in terms of conditions that can enable school and classroom improvement when introducing ICTs at a school. The diagram stresses alignment both within the school and in response to global trends. When there is alignment, and enabling conditions exist at the school, learner and educator development can be seen through their normal or matter of course practices.

In reviewing this diagram, consider the following questions:

• What sort of vision is there about what learners and educators will do in a school where ICTs are integrated?
• What kind of behaviours will they exhibit?
• What would it take to get this to happen at your school?
• Why are the principles of experimentation, flexibility, collaboration and communication part of the conditions that can enable improved school practices?
• Do these principles also relate to a certain leadership style?
• Do your attitudes and behaviours, as a leader, shape what happens at the school?
• How do you feel your school is doing in terms of alignment to these principles? Is there a culture for experimentation, for example?
• If there is not a spirit of experimentation at your school, what will you have to do to change this?

Write your thoughts on these questions in your e-diary.

Part Two

Below are five possible tasks. Choose one of them, participate in an online discussion with your group about that task (using the Task title as the subject heading). Indicate clearly which task you have chosen in the introduction to your comments.

Task A - Senge "The Ecology of Leadership"

Task B - Senge "Asking the Right Questions"
Task C - Personal Learning Strategy

Task D - School Learning Strategy

Task E - Drucker & Senge on Innovation

Part Three

1. Create the first slide for a presentation (possibly using PowerPoint) which gives a motivation for ICT integration at the school.
   
2. In a second slide, clarify the principles that will (and/or that do) underpin the ICT-change process at the school. Explain why these principles are beneficial.
   
3. In a third slide, describe what the school will look like with ICT integration having been achieved. What would a newspaper or the Education Department be saying about the school? Document everything in the slide as if it were a press release.
   
   
4. Save the presentation in a file called Motivation for ICT Integration.
   
5. Share your presentation document with your group online.
   
6. Comment on at least two other slides presentations that you view and send your feedback to your group.
   
7. Incorporate valuable feedback received from your peers. Keep your slides handy for your presentation to the school.
   
8. Make closing comments in your e-diary.