Computers, the internet and literacy

Research, reports and initiatives
This area is also sometimes generally known as information and communications technology (ICT).

Computer game helps to raise primary pupils’ literacy skills

The TES has reported on the use of a fantasy adventure game, Myst III Exile, to motivate primary pupils, particularly reluctant boy writers, to improve their literacy skills. The game has been played by classes at Elrick Primary in Westhill, Aberdeenshire, and is used to inspire creativity through drawing, writing and discussion. Pupils are reported to be able to write more, with improved vocabularies and more imaginative styles of writing.

Read the case study at http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2612812

(TES, 25 April 2008)

Getting children online at home

The TES reported that getting children online, a key strand to the Government's strategy to increase performance and decrease the achievement gap, stalled. A survey by Kirkland-Rowell, a school self-evaluation firm, found that one in 10 secondary pupils doesn't have computer access at home and 10% of homes without computers are among the poorest. Marginally more girls than boys have home computers.

Computers have long been seen as motivators for boys. Becta's Harnessing Technology report found that over 90% of teachers believe computers aid boys motivation and more than 70% believe they improve boys' attainment. The report also found that teaching demands for ICT equipment was outstripping availability in schools despite £3 billion being spent since 2000. Primary teachers also demonstrated greater competency in using technology than their secondary colleagues.

(TES, 28 September 2007)

Log on for learning

'Log on for learning' is the slogan of the City of Edinburgh Literacy and Numeracy (CLAN) partnership, which has developed an innovative website to support adult extended learning. It provides online facilities to extend the duration, frequency and effectiveness of learning and to give people more control over their learning opportunities and goals. For more information visit www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2441049

(TESS, 28 September 2007)

A computer revolution? Or £3bn spent on gloss?

TES reports on how teachers are still not plugged in after Labour's massive splurge on ICT. To read this article in full visit www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2326939

(TES, 5 January 2007)

Hi-tech Reading Plus goggles claim to aid reading

City officials in Miami, USA claim that goggles that track students' eye movements are helping to produce dramatic reading improvements in some of their lowest performing schools. The technology can capture the erratic, laboured eye movements that signify a struggling reader via infrared sensors. The software displays the eye movements for teachers to view. Taylor associates, developers of the Reading Plus system in New York, claim that such visual training develops reading skills.

However, a Florida centre for reading research noted there was a lack of robust evidence of the effectiveness of Reading Plus. And Timothy Shanahan, director of Ilinois University's centre for literacy and president of the International Reading Association, said most evidence suggests training eyes to move more efficiently probably does not improve reading.

(TES, 23 June 2006)

Hi-tech equipment has 'low-impact' in Wales

The TES has reported findings from data received from local education authorities (LEAs) in 2004, which show that large numbers of computers in Welsh schools have not led to improved performance in the classroom. Although £80 million has been spent on ICT since 1999, LEAs found "no relationship between ICT provision and achievement".

Inspections agency, Estyn, reported that computer shortages and faulty equipment were largely to blame for weak standards in ICT in almost half of the Welsh secondaries it inspected in 2004-5. There are signs the arrival of interactive whiteboards has helped motivate disaffected students, though Simon Brown of Estyn said: "Sometimes the whiteboard is used in a way that seems to replicate the overhead projector and as a tool for things that could be done by simpler technology."

(TES Cymru, 7 June 2006)

School website motivates children to read and write

The TES has profiled pupils at Woodland Grange Primary School, Oadby, who have a school website, costing around £200 a year to maintain, which includes a pod-cast radio show, the chance to chat to Woody the school's own mascot and blogs written by pupils in which they share news ranging from messing around in the toilets to a child's prowess on a computer game.

Mr Smyton, deputy head, spends an hour a week updating the site and pupils can log on at lunch time to add their contributions. There is also a Thursday computer café for children wanting to learn web design. You can visit the school's website at www.woodlandwideweb.org.uk and Mr Smyton's blog about the website at www.tes.co.uk/blogs

(TES, 27 January 2006)

Google is changing the way children read

Linguistics Professor, Naomi Baron, comments on the way in which technology is changing reading.

"Internet search engines, such as Google, are terrific for quick research but they're ruining young people's ability to read. Students in my college classes no longer see any point in slogging through entire books. Why, they ask, can't they just search for a precis of the book or a single page from it containing the relevant information? Books, they say, are so… long. They're such an inefficient use of time. Want to know what the Mad Hatter said to Alice, or how history has judged Abraham Lincoln? Just Google it. The internet isn't bad for literacy, per se; students read quite a bit online, and they read very quickly; but search engines are training them to see all knowledge and literature as searchable "fragments" with no coherent purpose. Those of us who grew up reading books enjoyed hours of quiet serendipity, and often "happened upon issues and chapters that provided more interesting than our original queries". More important, reading successive pages and chapters taught us how to follow a sustained argument. That has been lost in the "search-and-seizure" approach to the written word. In the long-term, search engines may do to our minds what the automobile did to our bodies: make them flabby, lazy and incapable of strenuous effort."

(Los Angeles Times, December 2005)

How reading on screen changes the nature of reading

The Independent has reported that more and more of what we read is on screen and reading on screen is a terrible way to read compared with reading on paper. You read 50% less quickly on a standard computer screen than on paper. Your comprehension is also lower on work you read on screen.

(Independent, 9 November 2005)

Computer games hinder achievement for teen boys

The TES covered research which suggested that computers can help pupils do better at primary school but can hold back teenage boys, who spend too much time playing games. Research carried out for the Department for Education and Skills, by Leeds and Sheffield University's and BMRB, found that 16-year-old boys who were unable to resist computer games did worse at school than their peers.

The research was based on a survey of pupils in 12 schools, interviews with 111 children and analysis of the children's home use of computers and their attainment in national tests and GCSEs. English was the subject which children were most likely to use computers for at age 11, 14 and 16. There was a link between home computer use and an improvement in maths for 11 and 14-year-olds. There was also some effect on their progress in English and maths by 16.

Children and young people's home use of ICT for educational purposes: The impact on attainment at key stages 1 to 4 www.dfes.co.uk/research

(TES, 2 September 2005)

Scottish online learning scheme a success

The TES has profiled a project for interrupted learners which combines home-based online learning alongside one-to-one contact with tutors has been acclaimed for its high success rate. The Schoolsoutglasgow.net initiative, first developed by Glasgow City Council with support from the Scottish Executive and Learning and Teaching Scotland, has been evaluated highly by Edinburgh University.

Of the first 23 participants, all aged 14-16, two went back to school (one to a new school, the other to her old school), five to employment, one to an employment training place, one joined the army, four were accepted for a college course, seven were referred to Careers Scotland and three were transferred - one to another project, one into the care of the social work department, and one into the care of psychiatric services.

The scheme, costing £120,000 to £130,000 a year, employed three dedicated staff as part of a seven-strong interrupted learners' team. It initially targeted pupils who were absent through ill health, disengaged from learning, alienated or excluded from school, or looked after by the local authority. The project later offered a service to a small number of pregnant girls and young mothers.

(TES, 26 August 2005)

Working-class children fall foul of digital divide

The Guardian reports that according to research from the London School of Economics children from poorer homes are becoming victims of a digital divide because their parents lack the skills to help them use the internet as effectively as their middle-class counterparts. A study of internet use among more than 1,500 youngsters revealed that children age nine to 19 from better-off backgrounds not only had greater access to the world wide web at home but were more likely to exploit its array of resources.

The socio-economic differences are striking: 88% of middle-class children but only 61% of working-class youngsters have accessed the internet at home. The data suggests that well-established advantages enjoyed by many middle-class children, such as access to books and help with their homework, also extend to technology.

(Guardian, 28 April 2005)

Research suggests computers have limited impact on pupils' achievement

The TES covered a report by the Royal Economic Society which challenged the assumption that ever-greater use of ICT in schools boosts standards. In its report, Computers and Student Learning, it said, "Computers in the classroom have no discernable positive effect on children's educational performance while computers at home could be actually detrimental.

In the past, ministers dismissed such concerns, the Government's own review of research, carried out in 2003, found that "the weight of evidence suggests clearly that ICT provision and pupil ICT use do in fact impact positively on pupils' attainment and on school standards."

The review drew heavily on the findings of the schools technology agency Becta's Impact2 study. Crucially, the study found that "no consistent relationship between the average amount of ICT use reported and its apparent effectiveness in raising standards". It is how, rather than how much, ICT is used that is important.

(TES, 1 April 2005)

DfES schools ICT survey published

The DfES has published the ICT in Schools Survey 2004, which presents data about the current state of ICT in English schools. It shows there has been continued progress with infrastructure such as numbers of computers, interactive whiteboards and school networks. Teacher confidence in the use of ICT has remained static, but there was high reported use of ICT for teaching and learning. The DfES has derived a new composite measure for the 'e-confidence' of a school, by scoring results across a range of measures, and then summarised the key differences between groups.

www.becta.org.uk/research/

(NGfL, Jan 2005)

Laptaps have little impact on academic attainment

The TES has covered research, by Mary Simpson of Edinburgh University and Fran Payne of Aberdeen University, examined a project that provided personal laptops for two groups of children and their teachers. They concluded that their findings mirrored those of other research outside of Scotland: while using ICT in education can introduce significant innovation into schools, classroom practice is not greatly affected. The overall conclusion was that without a learner-centred approach and changes in teaching practice, the use of laptops would not transform learning and teaching.

(TES, 3 December 2004)

Online buses in Yorkshire offering Skills for Life

Discovery Mobile ICT vehicles have become the first mobile units to be accredited as test centres for the City and Guilds Certificates in Adult Literacy and Numeracy. The UK online buses were launched by North Yorkshire County Council in June 2001 and are each equipped with computers, internet access, scanner, printer, accessibility aids and a driver/tutor. Gill Morrissey, Assistant Education Officer leading the Discovery project told Learndirect: "When the buses hit the road we had no idea they were going to be so popular! Between them they reach more users per quarter than originally expected in an entire year - approximately 15,000 people."

(Learndirect newsletter Nov/Dec 2004)

Computer games can help children's literacy skills

The Guardian has reported that research into games, conducted by the London Institute of Education, suggests youngsters could develop their literacy skills by writing games programmes as well as studying existing ones. Researchers believe games deserve to be treated by schools with the same seriousness as books and films.

(Guardian, 27 October 2004)

ICT not engaging adult learners

The Guardian reported that researchers at Cardiff University found that the key determinant of learning in later life proved to be experience of work and family life as an adult, rather than access to ICT. They carried out a household survey of 1,001 adults in south Wales and the west of England. This was followed by in-depth "face-to-face" work involving 100 of the original sample.

The report said: "The chief obstacles to educational participation reported in our interviews were not the physical barriers of time and place, but rather issues such as lack of interest or motivation....We would conclude formal education practitioners and institutions should shift their focus away from using ICT for formal education and start helping people to use it for informal learning." Use of ICT for engagement in formal education, or even for finding out about formal education opportunities, was almost non-existent.

(Guardian, 5 October 2004)

Individual laptops to raise standards for pupils

The Times reported that all 64 pupils in year six at Prettygate Junior School, Colchester, will have their own laptop computers from September 2004. The leased machines for the 10 and 11-year-olds are being paid for with a grant from Essex e-learning Foundation, a charitable organization. National research carried out by the Department for Education and Skills shows that pupils with full-time access to information and communication technology score higher in national tests. Boys' achievement levels are also raised, especially in English, and the standard of work and involvement of disaffected pupils rises.

These findings were also reflected in pilot schemes in Essex since 2002. The studies indicated that motivation and achievement increased, parents and carers were more involved in the learning process and relationships with the school improved.

(The Times, 26 August 2004)

Skills strategy White Paper declares ICT 'the third basic skill'

Information and communications technology was designated a basic skill in the Government skills strategy White Paper, published in July 2003. ICT became a third area of learning alongside literacy and numeracy within the Skills for Life strategy from autumn 2003, backed by Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funding. The development of basic skills ICT is seen as building on the existing provision in learndirect centres and as part of a wider e-learning strategy.

For more information on Reaching Our Potential, the skills strategy White Paper, visit www.dfes.gov.uk/skillsstrategy.

(Basic Skills Bulletin, September 2003)

Learning to write with keyboards not pencils

The BBC has reported how six-year-olds in Norway are learning to write using keyboards and computers rather than pencils and books. 18 schools in Bergen have moved away from handwriting training in the early school years. Instruction in cursive handwriting is postponed until the age of eight, when it can be taught in a fraction of the time normally spent on the subject. The director of Tysvaer school district calls it, "a splendid example of learning by playing". Children in computer classes have been found by independent experts to write better content than their hand-writing counterparts.

(BBC News, 29 July 2003)

HMI visited a total of 368 schools in summer and autumn 2001 to produce this progress report on government initiatives to encourage the use of information and communications technology (ICT). Subject-specific reports were also produced: those relevant to literacy teaching are summarised below. 

Implementation in primary schools and effect on literacy
Ofsted, June 2002, reference HMI 712

Inspections of 113 primary schools showed that the use of ICT to support the national literacy strategy is increasing, albeit slowly. In the most effective practice, teachers are using whole-class activities, with or without the use of ICT, to introduce tasks where pupils work at computers, either individually or in pairs. Teachers are also becoming more confident in their use of ICT to improve pupils' writing, with carefully chosen texts being used to demonstrate the importance of improving sentences from simple to complex or compound, for instance, by adding adjectives and clauses. Despite strong evidence that ICT skills are improving, the effect of these skills on literacy achievement remains much less clear. 

Secondary English
Ofsted, June 2002, reference HMI 702

Inspectors visited 239 secondary subject departments and made the following findings in relation to English. A key factor in departments where ICT had a good effect on English teaching was the presence of at least one influential staff member with vision and some ICT expertise. In the minority of schools where it had a good or very good effect, teachers had quite high levels of confidence in their own ICT skills, and pupils also had a good level of skills. The pupils were motivated by using ICT as a vehicle to focus on purpose and audience for writing, or on text manipulation and experimentation in layout and presentation. 

All three reports above are available from Ofsted Publications on 07002 637833 or www.ofsted.gov.uk. 

The Telegraph reported a study involving 1000 students over the summer of 2001, commissioned by Powergen, which found that around half of the pupils questioned spent most of their summer holiday time surfing the internet or playing computer games. The report said: "Children's mathematical, reading and language skills all begin to decline after three weeks, and concentration levels also decrease after this time." It also recommended daily reading sessions to improve children's communication skills.

(Telegraph, 3 September 2001)

Research shows ICT boosts literacy

The TES has reported that computers can boost primary pupil's reading and writing even more than their numeracy skills, research published by the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in January 2000 reveals. The key to raising standards seemed to be the effective use of ICT systems by teachers, rather than pupils. Literacy skills improved five times more quickly than average among primary schools where teachers made good use of computers. 

For more information visit the University of Newcastle site at 
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ecls/research/publications/publication/10246

(TES, 14 January 2000)