Schools of the 21st century are taking shape now with the fast digitisation of the curriculum. There's increasing use of computers, and computer thinking: linear, ends-oriented, highly structured thinking. Classes are preplanned, with control shifting from teachers to curriculum planners and software designers. Too often that means the ICT class is boring. The computer bandwagon is being pulled in four directions by the four horses of the education apocalypse:
"One size fits all", determining lesson plans and curriculum targets;
"Download-itis", requiring teachers to download the lessons, and children to download the answers;
"Tick-off-the-boxes", not sanctioning anything without official approval, lessons or teaching strategies;
"IT re-skilling", which seems to be helpful but undermines teachers' confidence and professionalism.
Because of the frequent inspection of schools, teachers must ensure lessons conform to officially sanctioned styles. The easiest, indeed almost the only, way to do this is to follow an established scheme, with "Ofsted/QTA approved" all over it. The correct method is to get this off the National Grid for Learning, and let the kids get on with it. The DfEE is not the only authority keen to hand down schemes. Software manufacturers are producing approved software for government schemes of work. Schools such as Thomas Telford in Shropshire have produced ICT packages guaranteed to whizz pupils through GCSE. All the teachers need to do is find a way of paying for the network licence.
Steve Lloyd, project manager of an ICT training provider in Plymouth, is aware of the dangers of concentrating too much on visible, measurable classroom activities and neglecting the human aspects. Trainers must remember that most teachers are not computer buffs, and so should not make them introduce computers in class in a way which marginalises their own skills and interests, he says.
A teacher, reduced to operating as a semi-trained agent for someone else, delivers lessons that are formulaic where they should be creative, dull where they should be lively. Teachers must be able to feel that they are using the computer as a tool, and not vice-versa. Teacher creativity must remain central to the use of ICT in the classroom.
But creativity in the classroom depends less on the latest technology than on the teacher's confidence in using it. Paula Goddard, an ICT coordinator at a primary school in Newquay, describes children using Superlogo independently and creatively. Of course, Goddard says, the creative class keeps the teacher alert. Everyone may be doing something different, but this is the mark of creative teaching rather than the usual drill-and-practice ICT sessions.
The DfEE has commissioned research which acknowledges these cultural aspects of the classroom, hidden, irrational, more emotional than mechanical, but still the real driving force of education.
The latest future vision of the secretary of state is of "good teachers in suitably equipped schools, using enthusiastic and imaginative techniques, transforming the quality of lessons". This suggests that most teachers now are unenthusiastic, unimaginative and giving low-quality ICT lessons.
When simple software works a treat
Some of the most enthusiastic teachers use very simple (in other words, out-of-date) computer technology to great effect. One maths teacher used a program which simulated the running of Grand Prix races. "You get the worksheet packs which have each Grand Prix circuit printed on them and you have to design the way the car will run. You actually have to set up the car in terms of the function of its suspension, whether it is running on oil slicks or tyres, how many pitstops it will make and how much fuel is put in. Eventually the race is run, and you see which cars do well, and which spin off.
"There is a vast amount of maths in planning that. That's a tremendous piece of software in generating discussion and consideration and argument. You're into a huge area of building skills, how to use the program software, and also skills for grappling with and analysing the problem. Fairly high-level thinking is involved in using the spreadsheet, but phenomenally high-level thinking is involved in designing it."