1.2 Goals of this Document

This document describes ways that computers can be used by students. It has a number of goals:

To give teachers guidance on how to introduce projects where students use or learn to use computers.
To give teachers a background in "Information Technology" and its relationship to computers.
To give teachers a structure by which to introduce computer use in an orderly and thorough way
To give teachers theoretical material which is particular to Information Technology and advice on where to include this within the school curriculum
To give teachers ideas on how to incorporate student use of computers into existing learning activities both within and outside the classroom
To give teachers guidance on what kind of projects are suitable for a particular age/grade
To give teachers guidance on what prerequisite skills are required for a particular project
To provide Teachers with tools to help implement projects
To advise teachers of problems associated with computer use in schools and ways to deal with these problems
To inform teachers of current trends in technology
To act as a central repository for information, results, experience in undertaking these projects

While computers and computer literacy is becoming increasingly important in todays society, this document does not assume that the computer is the only or even the major information technology tool. The projects outlined in this document are arranged within the structure of a complete course in computer literacy, but the reason for this is to ensure that prerequiste skills are absorbed and learnt before the more complex computer tasks are attempted. Therefore this document is laid out as a developmental strand of computer literacy, which needs to be interfaced with other developmental strands, such as social studies, arts, science and other technology studies such as materials, and processing systems.

Computers can be used by students in a number of ways:

Information source - using local files or the Web
Computer-based tutorial courses (teaching aid) - which may be passive or actively respond to the student
Design tool - used to model and help create new objects such as a piece of music or a book
Tool Maker - used to build computer-based or other tools that are either the solution to a problem or can be used to solve problems.
Social Interaction - a means of communicating with others around the world at a social level.
Information Repository - a means of organising student, class and school information from the student perspective
Process and project Control - a means of controlling an active process - such as the lighting/video display at a School Dance

The use of computers in schools can be integrated into the fabric of the school in many ways. All that is needed is to establish a basic thorough grounding and this can be done with very little emphasis on computers as a subject in themselves. Instead the computer can be simply be picked up and used as a tool to accomplish tasks as required.

Many of the projects outlined here belong more properly in the syllabus of other subjects - but they are given a place in this document so that teachers can be sure that the prerequiste computer literacy is acheived to allow the students to use the computer to acheive goals and solve problems in other areas without being frustrated by gaps in their knowledge and skills. All this material is covered in the following three Chapters, Basic, Intermediate and Advanced IT (Information technology).

However it became apparent when writing these chapters that many of the problems associated with introducing IT into the classroom had to do with the infrastucture that was required to implement these changes, and the policy required to guide the development of the infrastructure. Policy needs a vision of the future for which to aim. Not an idealogical vision but a practical view of what the world is going to be in 5, 10 or 15 years, this being the effective target world of todays students when they emerge as school leavers. This vision is constructed by looking at current trends and developments and projecting them into the future. The results are quite astonishing, astonishing enough to compel us to rethink the whole process of what education is. So why not place this as the first Chapter? The implications of the Future are so discursive as to distract us from the meat and potatoes job of getting on with the present, and so act as a distraction from the achievement of the primary goals of webscool. But the Future cannot be ignored because it implies fundamental change in our social structure with a huge array of hidden dangers. So a discussion of the Future forms a bridge between the "meat and potatoes" at the beginning and the final two chapters on infrastructure.

The last two Chapters on Policy and Infrastructure provide a critical view of current policy and implementation initiatives at government and at school level and some constructive methods for addressing potential failure in these areas. They attempt to outline necessary conditions for the successful implementation of IT in schools and management of the infrastructure that will build up as a consequence.

Many teachers may be wondering just what IT is and how we come to be so concerned about it, and what is so new about it, that it invades the school curriculum like some rampant fungus. A brief history is in order. This history is also used as material in projects and exercises later on.

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