University of Oslo Workshops June 29-30 Conference July 1-3 ...

Track C SITES - Session 2
Comparative ICT use in Schools
1 July
13:30-15:30
Room: AK 2138
Chair: Carolyn Barber
Discussant: Tjeerd Plomp
Levels of Influence on the Use of ICT in Teaching in Australia
John Ainley, Australian Council for Educational Research, Australia
Information and communication technologies (ICT) have changed the environment in
which students learn. This paper investigates the use of ICT in the teaching of Grade 8
mathematics and science and interprets differences in ICT use between Australia and other
countries, as well as variations among jurisdictions in Australia, in relation to ICT policy
initiatives at national and state level. It is based on analyses of the SITES 2006 data that
investigate the influence on the use of ICT in teaching of system level factors including
policies supporting the pedagogical use of ICT in, school level factors such as the ICT
infrastructure and teacher level factors such as teacher confidence in using ICT and
participation in ICT-oriented professional development.
Keywords: ICT; computers; teaching; mathematics; science
The Challenges of Implementing ICT in Poorly Resourced Schools in
Developing Environments
Sarah Howie, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Kim Draper, University of Pretoria, South Africa
SITES 2006 was an international comparative survey on IT in education aimed at
examining the extent of ICT integration in schools and classrooms, and identifying factors
contributing to effective integration of ICT into learning and teaching (Law, Pelgrum &
Plomp, 2008). The study administered questionnaires for school principals, ICTcoordinators
and math and science teachers. SITES 2006 also administered a national
context questionnaire including four clusters of system level questions, viz demographics,
education system, pedagogical trends, ICT-related policies. The rationale for this
questionnaire was that it is reasonable to expect that what happens in schools and
classrooms reflects system-level policies. Data from this questionnaire assist in interpreting
patterns at school and classroom level. This paper is one of a set of three case studies of
countries that participated in SITES2006 (viz. Chile, South Africa and Australia) all
addressing the general question: to what extent are national ICT- related policies
implemented at the school and classroom levels and what factors enable this
implementation? This paper analyses South Africa’s policy of implementing ICT widely in
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