Introduction

Nine years ago the Israeli Ministry of Education reached two basic conclusions concerning the role of ICT (Information and Computer Technology) in education:

1. ICT will be the medium of education in the foreseeable future, and will change many aspects of the education system as we have known it in the twentieth century.
2. ICT should be introduced into the education system within a framework of a national computerization plan that is based on a holistic and systemic understanding of the role of ICT in education.

On the basis of these two assumptions, in 1993 the department of Science and Technology in the Ministry initiated its first national 5-year program for the computerization of the education system. We are now at the middle of the second 5-year program. During these eight years we have computerized more than half of our schools and kindergartens. Almost 90 percent of our teachers are taking courses on integrating ICT into education. We hope that in the next two years all of our schools will be computerized, with a ratio of at least one computer for every ten students, all connected to the Internet. We hope to change the educational environment toward an autonomous constructivistic way of learning.

We are proud of the systematic approach that is guiding us and of our achievements in a rather short period. At the same time we feel the need for a thorough rethinking process. Firstly, when the programs were initiated we were speaking mainly about the IT (Information Technology) revolution, whereas now, with the extremely rapid spread of the Internet, we are speaking about ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Ð and that is an entirely different world.

Secondly, we (in Israel and in other post-industrial societies) are much more knowledgeable today then we were nine years ago. We are much more aware today of the relative advantages of ICT as well as of its problematic and dangerous aspects, the obstacles blocking the way both to real integration of ICT in education systems and to the enhancement of the desired modes of research-oriented learning based upon it. Today we are asking ourselves questions that very few people were asking nine or ten years ago, about the expected and desired effect of ICT on the organization of education, on its content on its didactics.

We are also aware today that in the foreseeable future, computerization of the system will be an on-going process and, consequently, that the social investments in ICT in education are not going to be reduced but probably will increase. Given the new (and constantly changing) nature of the technological revolution, the new knowledge, and the questions and doubts we have today, we have reached the conclusion that the systematic process of computerization of education should be accompanied by an on-going rethinking process.

We have already started out on this process with the report "Information and Communication Technology in the Education System in Israel" (Melamed et al., 1999). We hope that the national conference to be held on June 27th and 28th will enhance and empower the process, in two complementary ways:

1. By fostering critical discussion on the most basic questions referring to systematic computerization at the beginning of the third millennium.
2. By fostering Israeli and intercultural dialogue on these issues, and presentation of other systemsÕ approaches to them. At the two theoretical plenary sessions, and at the pre-conference meeting of all lecturers, we will present our current understanding of the prevailing problem-situation involving the use of ICT in education, and what we see as the main questions that stem from this. Below, we will outline this understanding and two sets of questions that stem from it (the first two sections), and what we see as the required balanced mindful strategy for the systematic computerization of the system. This understanding of the problem-situation, the questions it raises and the balanced strategy dealing with them will serve as the framework of discussion at the pre-conference meeting and at the two theoretical plenary sessions.

We invite participants to both tackle these questions and to critically question our assumptions. The challenge facing us is very great Ð probably the greatest since the formation of the modern education system around the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth. It involves an extensive change in almost all aspects of the education system, accompanied by the combined investment of money, time and good will by teachers, students and experts. We would like to approach it in as rational and critical way as possible, and we invite all participants at the conference to join this crucial discussion during the conference, and hopefully later on as well.

The first (organizational) set of questions:

Background

Over the past two decades, the ICT revolution and its products, which are being constantly updated, have been presented and automatically conceived as the epitome of "progress" by almost everyone: individuals, corporations and governments alike. Education systems throughout the postindustrial world have not emerged unscathed from this process. In our postindustrial education systems, ICT has been automatically identified with progress. Governments and education authorities continue to invest large amounts of money in equipment, software and training that need to be constantly upgraded or renewed. Thus, over the past two decades, many billions of dollars and much energy, good will, and time have been invested in introducing into schools several generations of computers, closely followed by multimedia and the Internet.

After two decades of growing investments, however, we have recently become aware that:

1. schools are still not "ICT-friendly" Ð most schools have still not really integrated it, and have certainly not become integrated within the emerging cyber-culture stemming from ICT;
2. in the majority of cases, ICT in schools has not brought about (what has been desired and expected since the mid-eighties) changes in learning/teaching methods towards more research oriented methods;
3. on balance, ICT in education has not led to meaningful increases in studentsÕ achievements.
4. On the other hand we are much more aware today than we were ten or fifteen years ago that we cannot and should not ignore ICT in education. ICT is here to stay, is a defining technology (i.e., a technology that is changing the environment and the organizations in which it is being used and hence its users), and is having an enormous impact on all aspects of our lives (Preiss 2000). What has been created in the past decade is not just a series of new tools, but a whole new virtual living environment that wraps up all the technological developments of the IT (Information Technology) and CT (Communications Technology) revolutions of the past 150 years. In a few years time this is going to be the environment in which we will live, communicate, work, consume, do business, and spend large parts of our social lives. It is obvious now that education systems cannot and should not isolate themselves from the ICT-based environment. By doing this they will doom themselves to rapid marginalization.

It can now be said that schools are being (and should be) computerized not because we have evidence that computers do the educational job better. Schools are being (and should be) computerized first and foremost because computers and the Internet are both the representation and the medium of the new way of doing things in the postindustrial period, and schools, if they want to survive, have no option but to adapt themselves to the era in which they function and which they have to serve.

The basic questions

Here the first two basic questions arise:

1. If the above is indeed the case, why havenÕt schools really integrated ICT (or, rather, become integrated into the new emerging ICT culture) up until now?
2. Why havenÕt they succeeded in adapting to the new, active, research-oriented learning/teaching methods that seem to go along with ICT?

These questions become much more difficult to answer in light of the two following categories of facts:

• In the past two decades all other kinds of organizations have undergone radical reconstruction processes in order to adapt themselves to the new reality, i.e., both to ICT and to new, active, ways of working and learning. To quote Howard Gardner on this issue: "Few institutions have changed as little in fundamental ways as those charged with the formal education of the next generation" (Gardner, 2000). Thus the explanation cannot be based on factors such as the slowness or gradual nature of the adaptation process, the immaturity and unreliability of the technology, or the fears and objections of teachers, since all these factors existed in all other organizations and did not prevent the computerizational restructuring process (although they certainly caused many problems along the way).
• Education systems have gone through very radical and rapid restructuring processes in the past (the formation of the modern education system; the radical transformation of Jewish education in Palestine at the beginning of the twentieth century from religious and Yiddish- (or French- or German-) speaking education to Hebrew-speaking Zionist education; the ideological transformation of East European education systems a decade ago Ð these are only a few examples). Thus it is impossible to point to the "traditional conservatism of education systems" as the main explanation.

Once we have reasonable answers to these questions, answers that take the above and other relevant facts into consideration, a third question naturally follows:

3. What needs to be done to enable the education system to become integrated into the emerging cyber-culture?

It is our understanding that the above three questions comprise the core of the first, organizational, set of basic questions concerning ICT and education

The second (values-oriented) set of questions

Background

Although education has probably a lot to learn from how other categories of organizations have adapted to cyber-culture, there is one essential difference: in education we cannot just introduce ICT on an administrative or organizational level. Education is the only powerful social agency remaining to democratic society with which to enhance desired development in its young generation in the face of very hostile nihilistic and anomic tendencies. There are good reasons to believe that ICT has both an immense positive potential when judged in light of democratic values but also a very negative and dangerous potential.

As far as the positive potential is concerned, the often-mentioned blurring of distinctions between center and periphery in the (potential) universal access to the most updated information is a democratizing process through and through. Nonetheless there are reasons to believe at the same time that ICT, if not socially managed, also has the potential of accelerating the "consumption race" and thus widening and increasing the prevailing socio-economic gap between the haves and have-nots. On the negative side, the most direct and easy-to-diagnose negative consequences are the harmful physical problems including eye and back problems, radiation from cellular phones and PCs, and psychological and social problems stemming from uncontrolled exposure to pornographic, racist or terrorist websites. Below I would like to refer several deeper double-edged impacts that might stem from the nature of ICT as defining technology.

Thus, for example: being hypertextual and multimedia-based, the ICT revolution is changing our ways of thinking and learning, making knowledge much more easy to access and restructure, and our thinking more lateral, associative and visual. In doing so it is probably enhancing our imagination, curiosity, inquisitiveness and creativity (Negraponte,1995). But at the same time it may also be threatening the dominance of the linear, logical, abstract structures which have ruled Western culture in the past 2500 years, and which are vital to any process of reasoning and criticism Ð thus potentially enhancing superficiality and charlatanism (Hirsch 1987).

Being audiovisual, and including constantly improving speech and written text-recognition, ICT will probably render much quicker and more efficient all the functions that now require reading and writing, to an extent that might render reading and writing redundant in many cases; hence, it is likely to diminish the importance of literacy in society. (Birkerts, 1994). This in turn might open the door to more equality among individuals endowed with different Intelligences (to use GardnerÕs term) and enhance the development of individuals who until now have been oppressed by literacy-dominated culture (Gardner, 1993). At the same time, however, it might also encourage even further the demise of rationality, which has always relied on literacy (Hirsch, 1987; Hough, 2000).

Since it facilitates immediate connections among individuals throughout the world, the ICT revolution is bound to extensively facilitate individualsÕ ability to connect on the basis of similar interests, quests or problems, and thus will have an important empowering effect (Harasim, 1991; Rheingold, 1991). But in doing so, it also exponentially multiplies the number of relationships one has and renders each of them more superficial, fragmentary and temporary, thus perhaps contributing to increasing emotional "flatness" and to the disintegration and "saturation" of the self" (Gergen, 1992).

Since it allows anyone to form, structure, present and access knowledge anywhere and at any time, the ICT revolution threatens the authoritative structures of knowledge that are blocking the way to many democratization and empowerment processes, and is thus itself a process which has tremendous empowering potential. But in doing so it also leads to the blurring of the clear distinction between valid knowledge and superstitions, which has facilitated so much of the scientific advancement in the past two centuries and may enhance the development of new "Middle Ages" (at least as far as the development of intellect and criticism are concerned) (Gendron, 1999).

Since it is flooding organizations with real-time information, it is compelling them to change their structures into much flatter, more flexible and more democratic ones which can respond and change quickly, according more power to the "field people". This in turn is contributing to the empowerment of many individuals. But at the same time it is also changing all the work patterns in the organization, making them much more hectic, and forcing organizations to hire most of their employees on a temporary basis. This in turn is radically changing the labor market, in which at present only 40% of the workforce have a chance to get tenure. This of course leaves many more people continuously in the labor market and in this way meaningfully contributes even more to stressful, hectic life styles (Handy, 1989; Peters, 1994).

Another influence in the same domain: ICT leads to accelerated automation and efficiency, which leads to the continuous shortening of the working week, which in turn (together with the lengthening of life expectancy) leads to the "End of Work" society Ð a society in which, for the first time in human history, most individuals will be able to enjoy (or suffer) leisure most of the time. This may sound like either almost a Humanistic utopia of freedom and self expression, or a capitalistic nightmare of ever-accelerating cycles of consumption and production (White 1997).

In connecting 2-3 billion individuals, companies, and services, and in passing on multimedia information in real time, ICT has dramatically extended the possibilities of work, relationships and entertainment open to individuals, but it is also accelerating the rate of change in our world, rendering our life much more hectic, saturating our egos, and changing the relationship between old and young people and all the social authority structures based on them. This is so because in eras of rapid major changes (wars, immigration or rapid transitions) young people always have the edge over older people, who are much slower in adapting themselves (Mead, 1970; Postman, 1984).

The basic questions

It follows from the above that if and when we succeed in integrating education into the emerging cyber-culture, we should also possess:

1. Clear abstract and operational definitions of the aims of education (or of the basic values society expects education to promote).
2. Criteria stemming from the above, for distinguishing between positive and negative impacts of ICT on society and education.
3. Strategies for restricting the damaging impacts and enhancing the positive ones, on three levels: the development or adaptation of ICT for education, the diffusion of ICT, and its use within the education system.

From the above, four basic questions follow:

1. What are the fundamental aims of education?
2. What are their operational definitions?
3. What criteria for distinguishing between positive and negative impacts of ICT can we derive from these aims?
4. What strategies can we use in order to limit the negative impacts and enhance the positive ones (on three levels: the development or adaptation of ICT for education, the diffusion of ICT and its the use within the education system)?

These four questions are the fundamental questions concerning ICT and education as far as the second category of questions is concerned

The need for a balanced attitude

Thus the challenge facing education systems throughout the postindustrial world is the challenge of mindfully and critically channeling their investment:

• on the basis of a reformation of "schooling" in light of the radically new possibilities and requirements of cyber-culture (or, to use other terms Ð on the basis of answers to the three basic questions of the first category);
• selectively, in light of the desired aims of education ( or Ð on the basis of answers to the four questions of the second category).

Now although the above two guidelines are not logically contradictory, psychologically speaking there is a clear and strong tension between them. This tension explains the prevailing rift in the literature on the subject between the "enthusiasts" Ð who rightly understand the defining nature of the ICT revolution, but wrongly deduce from it the conception of the ICT revolution, in itself, as the vehicle of progress and the panacea to social and educational problems (Papert, 1992; Perelman, 1992; Tapscott, 1997) Ð and the doomsday predictors or opponents Ð who rightly diagnose some of the negative potential of ICT and its prevailing educational uses, but wrongly deduce from it the recommendation to drastically limit the influence of ICT on education (Healy, 1998; Postman, 1992).

What we need to adopt is neither the first nor the second view, but a balanced attitude. The balanced attitude represents a real challenge because it requires educationalists, experts and decision makers to understand the inevitably defining nature of ICT, to diagnose both its negative and positive aspects, and then to form strategies in order to integrate ICT into education in such ways that will limit the negative potential while enhancing the positive potential (Aviram, 2000; Aviram and Richardson, 1999).

We hope that this conference will take the first steps towards the formation of such a balanced strategy, by tackling these two sets of questions that are fundamental to it.

*********

Bibliography

Aviram, A. 2000, "The Journal of Educational Change" (forthcoming).

Aviram, A. & Richardson-Deberghes, J. (eds.), Proceedings of first Israeli seminar on Pedagogical technology and educational systems: guiding visions for the 21st century, Jerusalem, July, 1999, The Center for futurism in Education, Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva.

Birkerts, S. 1994, The Guttenberg Ellegis: the fate of reading in an electronic age, Fawcett Columbine, New York.

Gardner, H. 1993, Multiple intelligences : The theory in practice, Basic Books, New York.

--------. 2000, "Technology Remakes the schools" The Futurist, March-April 2000, 30-32.

Gendron, B. 1997, Technology and the Human Condition, St. Martins Press, New York.

Gergen, K. 1992, The Saturated Self, Basic Books, New York.

Handy, C. 1989, The Age of Unreason, Business Books, London.

Harasim, L. 1991, Global networks, The MIT press, Cambridge, Mass.

Healy, J. 1998, Failure to connect, Simon & Schoster, New York.

Hirsch, E.D. 1987, Cultural Literacy, Houghton Mifflin, Boston.

Mead, M. 1970, Culture and commitment, Garden City, New York.

Melamed, U. 1999, "What the evaluation of ICT really evaluates", in: Aviram, A. & Richardson-Deberghes, J. (eds.), 1999.

Negraponte, N. 1995, Being digital, Random House, New York.

Papert, S. 1992, The Children's Machine, Basic Books, New York.

Perelman, L. 1992, School's Out, William Morrow, New York. Peters, T. 1994, The Tom Peters seminar: Crazy times call for crazy organizations, Vintage, New York.

Postman, N. 1984, The disappearance of childhood, Laurel, New-York.

--------. 1992, Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology, Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Rheingold, H. 1991, The virtual community,http://www.rheinold.com/vc/book/intro.html

Tapscott, D. 1998, Growing up digital Ð the rise of the Net generation, McGraw-Hill, New-York.

White, J. 1997, Education and the end of work, Cassell, London.

Rifkin, J. 1995, The end of work, Tarcher/Putnam, New York.

Scardamalia, K. & Bereiter, C. 1994, "Computer support for knowledge building communities", Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3, 3, 265-283.

Schofield, J.W. 1996, Computers and Classroom Culture, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Semerau, P.& Boyer,B.A. 1996, "Social studies lessons integrating technology". Social studies and the young learner, 7,3,1-4.

Smrekar, C. 1992, "Building community: The influence of school organization on patterns of parents participation". Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American educational research association (San Francisco, CA), 20-24.

Tapscott, D. 1998, Growing up digital Ð the rise of the Net generation, McGraw-Hill, New-York.

--------.1996, The digital economy: promise and peril in the age of networked intelligence

Tofler, A. 1981, The third wave, William Morrow, New York.

--------. 1990, Power shift, Bantam Books, New York.

Tyack, D. 1974, The One Best System, Harvard University press, Cambridge, Mass.

Ramsy, K. 1992, "Home is where school is." School Administrator 49,1, 20-25.

Zuboff, S. 1988, In The Age of The Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power, Basic Books, New York.

White, J. 1997, Education and the end of work, Cassell, London. Wiburg, K.1994, "Teaching science with technology: Telecommunication and multimedia", Computing teacher, 27, 7, 6-8

__________________________

21st Century Learning Initiative

http://www.21learn.org

mail@21learn.org