Innovation Profile 113

What do you want more of?

There is a great deal of research into the benefits of ICT for learning, from many countries. It is an impossible task to read about and to understand all the possible benefits from ICT - the range of examples studied is now too wide.

But what looks to be a daunting and complex issue need not be; the question is really very simple. What do you want see more of?

A benefit can be something more, better, quicker, higher quality, cheaper, happier, easier - choose your own word. And choosing is the critical issue. If you know what you want more of it becomes possible to search for and scan case studies and research papers to find those of use to you, and to ignore the rest.

For example, look at the range of studies into the benefits of interactive whiteboards in education, produced by the SMARTer Kids Foundation, which was founded by SMART Technologies Inc. You can find this at http://www.smarterkids.org/research/library_subject.asp. Teachers in many different situations could find helpful guidance here.

In scanning the abstracts a teacher will also notice opportunities to gain benefits that they may not have considered, but these come later, they are not the starting point. Gaining the more/better/happier/easier etc that an individual teacher personally desires is the start. Success then breeds success, for teachers as well as pupils. Success justifies the effort to consider additional changes in pedagogy that a teacher could make; the journey of change starts.

There is only so much time in life and making change needs more time than continuing to work as before. However small the amount of time a teacher can dedicate to change, we have to make it possible for them to use that time to take a next step in adapting their teaching to the ICT-rich environment - which is inevitably coming.

This is the challenge for ICT-for-learning leaders.

The SMART Technologies Inc™ Company Profile on our web site will give you an overview of the company and a list of other Innovation Profiles connected with the company.

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If you know of examples of innovative use of ICT-for-learning that others would be interested in, please email innovations@eep-edu.org

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