Four in Balance Monitor 2011 - downloads.kennisn... - Kennisnet

2 - BENEFITS oF USING ICT
The education sector has not concerned itself with this problem in any
consistent manner. It is wrongly assumed that youngsters are so handy
with computers that schools do not need to teach them how to search for
and select information on the Internet. By way of illustration: a recent
study has shown that only one out of five primary and secondary school
teachers gives frequent or very frequent lessons on using Internet sources
selectively (Van Gennip, 2011a; 2011b).
That means that pupils’ digital literacy currently depends mainly on the
situation at home and what their school happens to teach them. Unlike
most of the other European Union Member States (Eurydice, 2011), the
Netherlands has not defined learning objectives for the digital skills that
young people need to survive in the twenty-first century.
Studies are making it increasingly clear, however, that many pupils are
incapable of using the Internet effectively as a learning resource (oECD,
2010a; Walraven, 2011). In other words, we tend to overestimate pupils’
computer skills (Kanters, 2009). Although many pupils have mastered a
number of ICT skills, that does not mean that they are capable of using ICT
to learn or of using it responsibly, critically, and creatively.
2.6 Learning to learn
“Learning to learn” covers various teaching methods that focus primarily
on the pupil’s learning process and his or her awareness of that process.
The content is subordinate to the process. There is some overlap between
learning to learn and inquiry-based learning.
We still know too little about the added value of applications that support
this type of learning. Schools are experimenting with ICT in this respect,
but the working methods are still too open-ended to study their effects.
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