ICT and home school links does it work

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ICT and home - school links - does it work?

• Vanessa Pittard, Director of E-strategy and
  Evidence, Becta
• Moritz Bilagher, Manager Schools Monitoring and
  Evaluation, Educational Research, Becta

BETT 08Wednesday, 9 January 2008
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Computers for Pupils and Home Access

• May 2005 25m capital 5m revenue for
  Computers for Pupils
• BETT 2006 Further 30m announced
• BETT 2007 Home Access Task Force
• BETT 2008 Public consultation and further
  Computers for Pupils funding

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Rationale links with existing policies

• Integrating technology into education -
  Harnessing Technology strategy
• Adapting education to interests, abilities and
  needs - personalising learning
• Supporting parental/carer engagement
• Learning spaces - Building Schools of the Future,
  Primary Capital Programme
• UK skills - Leitch, world class skills

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Transforming education setting homework
requiring use of a computer
Source Harnessing Technology schools survey,
Kitchen et al. (2007)
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Impact on achievement

• Statistically significant positive association
  between pupils home use of ICT for educational
  purposes and improved attainment in national
  tests mathematics at Key Stages 2, 3 and 4
  English Key Stage 4
• (Valentine et al 2005)
• Where computers are used for educational
  purposes (as well as leisure) pupils with home
  access perform significantly better in PISA tests
  than those without
• (Fuchs Woessmann 2004)

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Impact on achievementhowever

• KS4 (Yr 11) computer games effect
• Use for leisure activities associated with
  decreases in attainment (Valentine et al, 2005)
• PISA tests in maths and reading - overall
  negative relationship of home access to
  attainment (Fuchs Woessmann 2004)
• Promoting and supporting educational use is
  critical!

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Determinants of educational use at home

• School use in subjects is critical
• Young people who never use a computer at school
  in particular subjects are also more likely to
  never use a computer for these subjects at home
• Young people who use a computer every day or at
  least once a week in a particular subject are
  more likely to use a computer for school work in
  these subjects
• (Valentine et al, 2005)

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Impact on ICT skills

• Passey et al. (2004) learners with outside
  school access to ICT have greater ICT skills than
  those that do not
• Somekh et al. (2005) Year 2-learners who used
  computers during their summer holidays returned
  to school with increased ICT skills
• ICT skills acquired at home can engender a
  virtuous circle

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Impact on parental engagement with learning

• Somekh et al. (2005) digital cameras and talking
  books promoted parental engagement in
  childrens learning
• Other research shows that parents seem more
  willing to support their children when using
  internet for research (Comber et al. 2002 Devins
  et al 2003)
• We know that parental engagement positively
  influences learner achievement.

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Spin-off benefits for parents and carers

• The Learn2Go project (Wolverhampton) shows that
  parents with children who received a PDA also
  developed their own ICT skills (David Perry
  Associates 2005).
• For a family with a school-aged child, ICT can
  function as a Trojan horse bringing greater
  learning into the home

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ICT use at home has wider benefits

• Home use of ICT for educational purposes
  delivers
• a range of benefits including motivational
  effects, raising the self esteem and confidence
  of low achievers and enabling those with special
  needs or high achievers to demonstrate their
  ability (Valentine et al, 2005)
• Regular users use the internet in a wider range
  of ways
• - find material for school work
• - interact with websites (eg voting for
  something)
• - communicate with others (eg via email)
• - seek commercial information and services
• - seek career-related and civic information
• (12-19 yr olds, Livingstone and Bober, 2004)

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Other effects of home access

• Opening the door to learning anywhere, anytime
• Opening the door to tailoring learning to
  interests, needs and abilities of the learner
• Blurring the distinction between formal and
  informal learning
• All this can help the learner develop ownership
  of their learning.

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So how can we do it?

• An example from practice
• Sally Wilford of Prince Albert School, Birmingham

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Current work/next steps

• Computers for Pupils programme
• Further funding announced
• Evaluation Interim report spring 2008
• Final report December 2008
• Additional attainment analysis April 2009
• Home Access Taskforce
• 600k for proof of concept projects
• Jan-April 2008 public consultation
• April 2008 recommendations