School and wider community culture

This section considers various aspects of the school culture and that of the wider community. First it describes the beliefs and visions of the school leaders and IT leaders within the school and the ways in which they are reflected in the school’s IT plan. Factors taken into account in implementing IT in the school and the actual roles of the school’s leaders can also have an impact upon the school’s IT culture, hence these factors are examined along with the interactions between schools and wider community groups in establishing the IT culture. The next section describes the activities that schools have organised to promote an IT culture within the school and the wider community and the final sections examine the extent and nature of the impact of IT on the school and community cultures and factors that can affect them.

6.4.1 School leaders’ beliefs and visions

This section will begin with a description of the school leaders’ beliefs and visions, since there is evidence to suggest that leadership and the organisational environment have an important impact on the school culture (Fullan, 2001; Senge et al., 2000; Kozma, 2003).

It is an encouraging sign of the emerging IT culture in primary schools that 90.4% of the school heads surveyed said their schools have developed ITEd plans (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 14c).

95.9% of the schools reported to have an IT plan or policy (School Survey item 1h) said that they focused in the plans or policy on teacher training/development and teaching, with administration (75.3%) and extra-curricular activities (79.2%) being less common. The most common goals for IT

Chapter 6: General Findings from Primary School Sector

plans (Table 6.28, School Heads’ Questionnaire item 5) are concerned with making the learning process more interesting (93.8% rating it as very or quite important), improving students’ learning outcomes (87.1%), strengthening students’ initiative, independence and sense of responsibility in learning (82.9%) and providing suitable learning activities according to individual needs (75.8%). The least common are strengthening or developing co-operation among students (55%) and providing training to prepare students for further study or future careers (50.9%). These patterns reflect those of the Preliminary Study. While the school heads surveyed in this Study do not seem to have placed the same emphasis on catering for individual students’ needs as was reported in the Preliminary Study, where 98% reported it as important or very important, the proportion rating it as very or quite important is still high (75.8%). Interestingly, however, only half of the respondents indicated that the goal of strengthening co-operation among students is important, even though this is an important component of the kind of student-centred learning that can bring about the other goals they did stress as important. Similarly, relatively low proportions think that using IT to improve collaboration between different subjects to enable curriculum integration, or to use it as a way to improve co-operation and communication among the school, parents and community, are important goals.

Table 6.28: Heads’ perceptions of importance of goals in formulating School IT plan (School Heads’

Questionnaire, Q. 5)

SD N % of school heads choosing the option Goals Mean

(0 – 4) Very

important

Quite important

Average Not very important

Not important at all

a 3.3 0.7 620 41.3 45.8 11.1 1.8 0.0

b 3.4 0.6 623 44.5 49.3 6.3 0.0 0.0

c 3.1 0.7 623 27.0 55.9 15.9 1.3 0.0

d 2.9 0.7 620 19.4 53.4 25.7 1.6 0.0

e 2.6 0.8 620 10.3 44.7 37.9 6.3 0.8

f 2.9 0.7 620 20.3 55.5 21.3 2.7 0.2

g 2.5 0.9 619 13.3 37.6 34.3 13.3 1.6

h 2.7 0.8 622 13.3 49.7 31.7 5.1 0.2

i 2.7 0.8 624 13.3 46.8 33.0 6.3 0.6

j 2.7 0.8 621 12.9 47.8 31.9 6.9 0.5

a. To improve students’ learning outcomes b. To make the learning process more interesting

c. To strengthen students’ initiative, independence and sense of responsibility in learning d. To strengthen/develop students’ analytical power/creativity

e. To strengthen/develop co-operation among students

f. To provide suitable learning activities according to individual needs g. To provide training to prepare students for further study or future careers h. To improve collaboration between different subjects and integrate the curriculum

i. To improve communication and co-operation among your school, parents and the community j. To satisfy the expectations of parents and the community

From the interviews with primary school heads emerged two distinct groups with different philosophies. One group is those who are not so proactive in exploring good use of IT to improve teaching and learning outcomes. Their major concern is to comply with the requirements.

IT is a worldwide trend. Also the Government emphasises education as a long-term investment. It is a government policy to use IT to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning in the classroom.

The other group consists of those who have higher ideals about why they should explore and advance their use of IT:

Our IT skill sets and applications have to be close to that of Taiwan and South Korea. We have to be ahead in the world. Hong Kong is a commercial city, we have to be ahead of others in terms of our business environment and knowledge. If we do not develop information technology, we will lag behind of our competitors. ... It is essential to start IT education from schools.

IT can help to enhance students' self-learning ability. Through IT, students can search what they need from the web and books. When teachers teach students how and where to find information, teachers and students will learn from each other and improve altogether. IT allows students to leave the classroom and broaden their learning sphere. They will learn much faster than teachers.

This group has a wider vision of integrating technology into the whole teaching and learning environment. They tend to have a good understanding of what is happening in their schools, compared to the former group, who do not really know the specifics of what is going on. The latter group tends to have a better understanding of the potential benefits to students’ learning, and particularly higher-order thinking and using information, that can be achieved with the aid of IT. They proactively seek new ways to make the best use of IT in their schools whereas the former group is more concerned with problems and difficulties encountered with the ITEd initiative. The characteristics of the former group exist in spite of the fact that, as noted from the EMB Document analysis, that some specific training was provided for school heads with respect to the development of IT culture and IT plans within their schools.

6.4.2 Implementation of the school IT plan

More than 93% of the primary school heads indicated that they have adopted security measures and practices to prevent student exposure to insecure or unhealthy information in implementing their school IT plans (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 17). 98.9% indicated that they encourage teachers to enroll for courses or participate in training in ITEd, although it is not clear from these data whether the training refers to IT skill training rather than training in the pedagogical use of IT. Only 76%

indicated that they have defined learning targets for the implementation of the IT plan. Not many (18.4%) showed that they have used the school’s IT facilities to promote a community culture of IT use, by either allowing students to use school computers appropriately for non-study purposes or allowing public access to the IT facilities in the school. In 94.9% of cases school heads said that they have used IT in school administration and management and 71.8% for researching or analysing school data, but less than half reported that they have used it for communication between teachers, students or parents, and only 49.2% indicated that they have used it for teaching (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 2).

It was mentioned earlier that 97.2% of the primary schools surveyed have school websites. There is some evidence that these are used within the school since three-quarters of the P3 students and nearly all P6 students knew about them. However, as a means of communicating with the wider community and parent, the use is not so widespread. For example, as will be discussed in more detail in Section 6.4.5, only about half of the parents surveyed said they had ever browsed at their children’s school webpages.

In addition, 72.1% of the respondents (School Heads’ Questionnaire items 8 and 8a) said that their schools have intranet and almost all agreed or strongly agreed that the purposes for developing the intranet were to improve communication within the school, improve teaching effectiveness and to encourage students’ initiative. On School Heads’ Questionnaire item 8b the percentages of school heads indicating that they use the school intranet for a range of purposes were high: the highest being for storing teaching, training and learning materials (93.9%) and the lowest functioning as a communication platform for school and parents (69.4%). The school heads also gave high ratings for the usefulness/effectiveness of the school intranet for these purposes, with more than 71% giving ratings of effective/very effective for all items except functioning as a communication platform for school and parents (64%).

Chapter 6: General Findings from Primary School Sector

6.4.3 Leadership roles

The average number of IT Team members per school is 5.7 and the average teachers (including permanent and non-permanent) to IT Team members ratio is 5.4 to 1 (SD=3.7) (School Heads’

Questionnaire item 14a). In most cases the responsibility for overseeing all ITEd related activities in the school falls to three main parties: the IT coordinator, the IT team and the school head (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 14b). Also, 97.1% of the heads reported that their IT team participated in formulating the school IT plan (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 14d). The instances of community members from outside the school participating in the formation or implementation of school IT plans are extremely low (2% or less). More than 90% of the school heads agreed or strongly agreed that their own role is to set clear objectives and guidelines, encourage and motivate teachers to make appropriate use of IT in teaching, provide sufficient training and professional development and support to teachers, to integrate IT into the school-based curriculum, to promote online learning and to allocate IT resources properly (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 9a). This is consistent with the findings of the Preliminary Study. Fewer primary school heads said they see it as their role to promote online communication within the school (74.5%), although this is still a reasonable proportion), and lower again are roles beyond the immediate school community such as making the school an exemplary model (65.8%) and sharing of experiences with others outside the school community (55.7%). The IT team members’ self-perceptions of their roles (IT Team Members’ Questionnaire item 3) follow similar patterns to the school heads, although the percentages are slightly lower. About 90% of the IT team members expressed strong opinions about their role in encouraging and motivating teachers (90.3%) and participating in the formulation and implementation of the school’s IT policy (88.9%).

6.4.4 Activities to promote IT culture

There has been a wide range of activities described in the EMB Documents that encourage schools to exchange/share ideas and experiences in the use of ITEd, particularly promoting students’ use of IT in various subject areas, developing higher order thinking skills and understanding society better and becoming better citizens.

From the School IT Survey (item 4b), 609 (98.9%) of the surveyed primary schools indicated that they had done at least one of the listed activities to promote IT culture during the two years prior to data collection. Of these, 96.1% had organised IT-related extra curricular activities for students, 76.8% had organised IT courses for parents and 72.4% had organised IT competitions. Other than that, very few activities organised by the school were reported.

The School IT Survey data appear to understate the level of activities undertaken by schools to promote IT culture when compared with the School Heads’ Questionnaire. When asked to show the activities in which the school had engaged in the year prior to data collection (Table 6.29, School Heads’ Questionnaire item 10), nearly all of the school heads (99.5%) made a strong claim for encouraging students to make use of IT in their daily lives. Around 80% indicated that they had occasionally/always encouraged IT culture within the school community of staff and parents to some extent through providing IT courses for parents and holding experience-sharing staff meetings. Apart from these, only about one-third indicated that their schools had participated in activities to engage the community beyond the school and parents. Similarly, less than one-third had collaborated with other organisations in organising or promoting ITEd activities.

Table 6.29: Frequency of engagement in activities to promote IT culture in the past year reported by school heads (School Heads’ Questionnaire, Q. 10)

% of school heads choosing the option Activities

Always Occasionally Rarely Never N Encouraged students to make use of IT in their daily lives 74.3 25.2 0.5 0.0 623

Provided IT courses to parents 14.1 61.5 17.0 7.4 623

Provided IT courses to the community 2.9 16.4 33.0 47.7 621

Made school IT facilities accessible to parents/public 5.3 28.3 28.7 37.7 621

Provided IT support to parents/the community 4.0 32.6 31.5 31.9 620

Co-operated with other schools through computer networks 2.3 26.1 37.1 34.6 622 Held public exhibitions or competitions on IT/IT in Education 2.7 19.7 26.4 51.2 621 Participated in public exhibitions or competitions on IT/IT in

Education

13.6 53.1 17.1 16.3 620

Held experience sharing meetings for school staff 19.0 61.3 14.5 5.3 622

Held/participated in experience sharing meetings with other schools 8.7 52.9 23.3 15.1 618

When making comparisons to corresponding questions in the Preliminary Study it can be seen that there has been quite a dramatic increase in the percentage of school heads who indicated they had made at least some attempt to organise activities for parents and the community. More than twice the percentages of schools reported in the Preliminary study have reported providing IT courses to parents (from 45.2% to 92.6% saying that they had done this at least rarely), and increased percentages have communicated with other schools (from 12.6% to 65.4%), held public exhibitions or competitions on IT or ITEd (from 11.7% to 48.8%), and provided IT courses for the community (from 3.8% to 52.3%).

An increase from 25.7% to 68.1% said they had provided some IT supports to parents and the community.

In the School Visits and interviews there were no examples cited of schools opening their facilities to the wider community – although there was a sense that it would be good to have community sharing.

This is consistent with the findings of the SITES-M2 study, that there were only a few cases around the world in which the innovative uses of ICT helped to break down barriers between schools and other institutions or involved parents.

From the EMB Document analysis it was revealed that in a survey of 277 secondary and 487 primary and special schools, most schools indicated that they were willing to work with PTAs and local communities or NGOs to provide facilities for parents but not to the public due to concerns about human resources, security and maintenance. It was reported in the EMB Documents that in the 1999-2000 school year some 1000 schools had utilised the incentive grant to open up their computer facilities after normal school hours (in 2001-02 this was $14 665 for an aided school and 208 hours of overtime work at Workman II level for a government school).

6.4.5 Contributing parties to community-wide IT culture

From School Heads’ Questionnaire item 11, it can be seen that a little more than 50% of the school heads had made at least some use of the EMB (52%), local schools (54.5%) or local community or commercial organisations (55.9%) to organise or co-organise ITEd activities in the past year. About another quarter had only used these organisations rarely. Only 43.4% had made use of local tertiary institutions and less than 25% had made use of schools, community or commercial organisations or tertiary institutions in Mainland China or overseas.

It appears that the surveyed primary school heads are generally of the opinion that it is the education-related institutions followed by the commercial organisations that enable the community to get in touch with IT (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 12). While 82.3% of the school heads think that the EMB is making a considerable or great contribution to promoting a community-wide culture using IT, there are not so many who think considerable contributions are being made by other organisations. Around 70% think that local schools (68.1%), software or hardware service providers (68.2%), Internet service providers (72.8%) and application system developers (67.2%) are making a

Chapter 6: General Findings from Primary School Sector

contribution. In other words, the highest ratings were given to those who provide the services and resources. After this, 61.2% acknowledged the contribution of tertiary institutions, but only 54.6%

thought that contributions were being made by commerce and industry and less than half thought contributions were being made by professional education organisations.

With regard to the parties from whom the school sought support to plan, install or deploy IT resources (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 15 and IT Team Members’ Questionnaire item 1), the most common, reported to be used by more than 94% of respondents were IT team members and school administrators. 93.6% of school heads and 81.3% of IT team members reported consulting other teachers. 95.9% of the school heads and 81% of IT team members rated the input of the IT team members as being quite or very useful and 85.6% of school heads/69.1% of IT Team members rated the input of school administrators such as the vice-principal as quite or very useful. The input of other teachers was rated quite or very useful by 76.2% of school heads/59.6% of IT team members who responded to this item. 41.4% of school heads/38.6% of IT team members reported having consulted staff from EMB or the former ED and 67.5%/56.6% reported having consulted board of school directors/school management committee members. There were very few reported incidents of schools seeking input from either students (17.7% of school heads/24.5% of IT team members) or parents (28% of school heads/26.1% of IT team members) for IT planning.

The same pattern of little support seeking from the general community is supported by the interviews with Trade Association representatives. They indicated that they are willing to support ITEd through various forms of collaboration but that, as yet, they have not been invited by the Government or schools to do so. Two of the primary school heads interviewed mentioned that they had in fact organized some activities with industry through their sponsoring bodies, but that this did not happen very often. Some said that they did get support for facilities from parent-teacher associations, but again this was not the norm.

To explore further the contribution of community resources, some of the student data presented in other sections warrants some discussion here. First, it is relevant to consider the extent to which HKedCity has contributed to the IT community culture. In 2002 it was reported by the Director of Education at the Hong Kong Digital Day Carnival that more than 3.7 million people had visited HKedCity, again indicating that it has a high potential impact. As reported in relation to Research Question Set 3, 72.1% of the primary school teachers surveyed reported to have used this and 71.6%

of those who had used it said they were satisfied or very satisfied with it. Students, on the other hand, did not indicate as high a use of HKedCity. Only 26.7% of P3 students and 42.7% of P6 students reported having made use of it, or even having looked at it, and 56% of those P3 students who have used it and only 35.4% of the P6 students reported it as being helpful or very helpful. It appears, therefore, that there is further room to develop the potential of HKedCity to promote an IT community culture.

The second area that can shed further light upon the community IT culture is the locations where students use computers outside their schools and homes, discussed in relation to Research Question Set 1. Less than 9% of primary students use community centres or youth centres (7% of P3 students and 8.4% of P6 students) and less than 10% use cyber cafes (3.4% of P3 students and 9.9% of P6 students). Libraries are more popular locations with P3 and P6 students (26.3% of P3 students and 26.9% of P6 students).

6.4.6 Impact on school administration and communication

More than 90% of the school heads (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 9e) agreed or strongly agreed that ITEd has had an impact on school administration or management (96.6%) with respect to improved communication within (76.2%) and outside (90.2%) the school, improved management of student (94.4%) and teacher (93%) records and improved management of teaching and learning resources (95.6%).

However, when we look at parent involvement, we can see that their use of IT to communicate with the school community is quite low. Only 13.5% of P3 parents and 11.3% of P6 parents surveyed (Parents’ Questionnaire item 7) said they have participated in IT or computer courses or seminars organised by their children’s schools. Of the 86.5% and 88.7% who said they had not participated, 11.4% and 8.2% claimed the school had not organized IT courses and 19.5% and 15.1% said they did not know whether any courses had been offered. More than half of the non-participants gave lack of time as the reason, with relatively few saying that they are not interested. 46.6% and 54.7% of the parents said they have not browsed the homepages of their children’s schools (Parents’ Questionnaire item 5). Again lack of time was given as one of the major reasons for not doing so (21.2% and 31.2%), the other being lack of knowledge about the necessary IT skills (37.6% and 30.2%). 91% of P3 parents and 93.5% of P6 parents have never communicated with their children’s schools through email with the aid of IT (Parents’ Questionnaire item 6), with one-third stating their reasons as being lack of time, lack of the necessary technical skills and lack of need to do so (Parents’ Questionnaire item 6_1).

Nevertheless, the potential exists to develop the use of IT as a means of communication. 84.7% of P3 parents and 77.1% of P6 parents who have browsed the schools’ homepages believe it has enhanced their knowledge about the school (Parents’ Questionnaire item 5a) and 79.3% and 69.7% of those who have used email to communicate with the school have found the outcomes to be satisfactory (Parents’

Questionnaire item 6_2). Hence there is a fairly strong suggestion from these data that IT can potentially improve home-school communications for those parents who have the time and the skills to utilise it.

6.4.7 Factors affecting IT culture School policy and planning

Nearly all of the school heads and IT team members indicated that they have taken into account a full range of factors when planning, installing and deploying IT resources: school financial situation, teaching effectiveness, environment, allocation of manpower, and students’, teachers’ and curriculum needs (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 16 and IT Team Members’ Questionnaire item 2). More than 94% of the school heads rated most of these as quite/very important, the exceptions being EMB policy (84.3%), school image (78.1%) and information security issues (85.1%), which were all rated important by about 80%. Slightly fewer IT team members rated EMB policy (72.6%), allocation of manpower (85.2%), teachers’ needs (87.3%) and curriculum needs (84.6%) as important, suggesting a slight difference in the perceptions of the school heads and IT team members.

Parents’ attitudes and beliefs

81.3% of P3 parents and 76% of P6 parents said they would welcome the use of IT and computers in teaching in their children’s schools, with another 14.9% and 20.2% saying they would welcome it slightly (Parents’ Questionnaire item 8). Comparatively speaking primary school parents seem not to be so confident that IT can improve their children’s learning – they are more interested in the ways in which it can impact upon their futures. 84.3% of P3 parents and 81.1% of P6 parents said they agree or strongly agree that ITEd can help strengthen students’ confidence and ability to use IT and improve future career prospects, and that the application of IT is becoming increasingly popular in daily lives (Parents’ Questionnaire item 9).