The Australian Governments report ‘Australia’s Future Using Education Technology’ (2004) suggests that mainstream digital technology needs to be made into an education policy and the benefits of e learning need to practically available to all Australian students, including Indigenous students, in order to position Australia as a major payer in the delivery of online learning. In preparing the youth of Australia for the future, the Government has outlined a number of policies to ensure that ICT is at the forefront of Education.
In Victoria currently, ICT in schools falls under the VELS framework.
ICT in VELS 2010
Currently in Victoria, teachers are following a curriculum as outlined by the VCAA (Victorian Curriculum & Assessment Authority). This means that students in Years K-10 fall under the 'VELS' framework (Victorian Essential Learning Standards) and students in Years 11 and 12 work within the VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education) framework.
The VELS frameworks states that “Information and communications technology (ICT) encompasses the hardware and software that enable students to work more productively and creatively, collaborate more effectively, gather and evaluate information efficiently, and share their knowledge with others, locally and globally” (VELS, VCAA). It suggests that students should be working with hardware such as computers, printers, digital cameras, interactive whiteboards, mobile phones, data loggers and robots, and software/applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, web and multimedia authoring, movie maker/animations, databases, Internet browsers, image editors and graphic organizers. As ICT is an interdisciplinary domain, it is not compulsory within schools to teach ICT as a ‘stand alone’ subject; rather they can chose to integrate ICT across the curriculum and apply it across all learning strands of VELS(Approaches to ICT VELS, VCAA).
Within the VCE framework however, which begins in Yr 11, students who chose ICT undertake up to 4 units (IT in action, IT pathways, IT Applications, IT Software Development) that operate as ‘stand alone’ subjects. These subjects focus “on the processing of data and the management of information and information systems to meet a range of individual and societal purposes” (VCE Study Summary, VCAA)
However, from 2011 Australia will be beginning to operate as a whole under the National Curriculum.
ICT in The National Curriculum
The National Curriculum in Australia will be introduced in schools in 2011. The document “The Shape of the National Curriculum, A proposal for discussion” (National Curriculum Board, 2010) discusses the core reasons for including ICT in the National Curriculum. It states that changes over the last 20 years with implications for education include the “rapid and continuing advances in information and communication technologies (ICT)” (p1) that have changed the way we share, use, develop and process information and technology, leading to a major shift in how students learn. Suggesting that students need to be “highly literate in ICT” (p1) the document is explicit in its insistence on reintroducing ICT with a cross curriculum approach; “skills and understanding in the use of ICT are required for all learning areas” (p8). This directly relates to the aim of the National Curriculum; to map key competencies into employability skills, and encourages teachers to integrate ICT in all classrooms in order to do so. The National Curriculum will be operating in conjuction with the Governments Digital Education Revolution initiative.
Digital Education Revolution
The Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) current $2.2 billion initiative “Digital Education Revolution” (DER) aims to “contribute sustainable and meaningful change to teaching anc learning in Australian schools that will prepare students for further education, training and to live and work in a digital world” (DEEWR, 2010). To do this, they will:
- provide new ICT equipment for all schools with students in years 9-12 through the National Secondary School computer fund
-support the deployment of high speed broadband connects to Australian schools
-ensure teachers have access to training in the use of ICT that enables them to enrich student learning through collobaration with states & Deans of Education
- provide online curriculum tools & resources that support the national curriculum and specialist subjects such as languages
-enable parents to participate in their childs education through online learning access
(DEEWR, 2010) Importantly, the National Secondary School Computer Fund aims to achieve 1 to 1 computer to student ratio by 31 December 2001 (DEEWR, 2010)
In whose interest?
These policies and initiatives seek to further educate Australian youth as we move into an ever changing, highly technologically driven future. “So much of the debate about technology and education is based on the premise that technology will be the catalyst to create change” (Watson, 2001, p262) and of course that is exactly what the Australia Government is trying to achieve. Change is crucial in the development of Australia; in order to tackle unemployment, students need to be educated with the education of the future, as these initiatives seek to achieve. In order to create individuals who can make a difference in this world, Australian students need to be up to date with what the rest of the world is doing. There is no room to fall behind, and only room to leap into the world of the future.
