learner centered ict for schools? dream school procurement model is proven to work
DESCRIPTION
My presentation @Online Educa 2011 conference in Berlin, Germany, Dec 1st 2011.TRANSCRIPT
Learner Centered ICT for Schools?
Dream School Procurement Model isProven to Work
Elias Aarnio, Free/Libre Software in Education Specialist
Innopark Programmes, Hämeenlinna, Finland
What they wanted to change in Kasavuori school?
Create a school where the whole learning environment would support the humanistic, lifelong learning oriented vision: the pupils and teachers are learners. Everything should support the process of learning. This is the essence of Dream School. Rethink ICT in learning: instead of choosing among the known common solutions an answer to the question: What do we really want? ICT should be just a part of the learning environment but yet a crucial part when learning important skills of the future: searching and adapting information, collaborating, reflecting, growing as a whole person.
Key figures, background
Kasavuori school is in municipality of Kauniainen having 8 584 inhabitants of which 58,2% are finnish speaking. 37,6% speak swedish and 4,2 other languages. Schools of a community of 5000 rethinking the infrastructure and methods of education. 3 schools having 1100 pupils and 100 teachers. Some pupils come from Espoo which surrounds geographically Kauniainen. High education level in the community and pro education attitude.
What was wrong with ICT?
A high percentage of computers was constantly under service. It even happened that guarantee period was over before the PC was unpacked and installed. There were over 100 old PCs "too old" to use with "modern operating systems". (These were all utilized as thin clients.)
The software was just not suitable for learning purposes. Operating system + office suit + intranet just is not enough. Core idea: ICT should support and facilitate learning. Tasteless ICT that does not disturb anyone is not enough.
How did they do it?
Rethinking ways of doing things in terms of learner's needs. Example: using the school canteen for groupwork when it is not needed for lunch.
Rethinking ICT. Defining the bits and pieces wanted and then call for tenders. Not accepting the common "can nots" and "beyond reasonable effort". Period. Create a civilised mutiny in this sense.
Seeing different aspects of ICT as a service. Everything, including hardware is there to serve a single purpose: learning.
Acquisition of the needed services. Modular pieces, one by one, designed to work together to serve learning.
Continuous feedback and development.
What is there at Dreamschool now?
Dream School Intranet platform
After a few years of acquiring the services there is a collection of web services = Dream School Intranet platform. Among other things:
• Learning diary - an electronic personal learning portfolio. May include text, pictures, sound, video.
• Tools for editing and creating are cloud services and accessible also at home.
• Teacher sees and may assess all the portfolios with a specifically tailored tool.
• All the core components of the platform are Open Source. The outcome and experience will benefit you if you wish to.
Key benefits
● Improved service level, improved overall reliability of ICT
● Better cost efficiency. Overall cost reduced 40% (estimate – resources have been used to design and offer new services)
● Prolonged life cycle of workstations, reduced electricity consumption → environmental load -50%
● Start-up times of workstations shortened drastically
● Learning is a more positive experience because services meet the pupil's and teachers' needs better.
Videos of an ordinary Thursday @Dreamshool
Some examples from pupil's point of view:
• A pupil interviewed by Allan Schneitz, history teacher and Dream School innovator, about the use of open WLAN.
• Another pupil logs into the Dream School web services and opens a graphic presentation she has made about Rails Girls, a girls programming club.
• Third pupil logs into a Linux thin client and opens a CV he has written in English.
Teacher's point of view
Mrs. Marjo Kekki explains the pros of the new task tool of Dream School platform.
(Sorry about the voices in the background. Recording was made during a class.)
Open Source was not a requirement, but...
When asking calls for tenders the Open Source principle of getting both IPR and rights to source code were not a requirement in the beginning. However, soon it was noticed that when asking certain software based services the Open Source alternatives always won the race. As Open Source gives the schools more possibilities it soon became a requirement when writing new code that makes it possible to offer services included as a part of Open School Intranet platform.
The code and documentation will be officially released under an Open Source license on December 13th 2011.
Welcome to utilize and develop
http://www.dreamschool.eu
Technical documentation online:
https://www.dreamschool.fi/doc/This presentation by [email protected] is licensed with
Creative Commons By 1.0 Finland license