Host school: Max-Planck Gymnasium in Germany (Duisburg).
Visitors: Maria José Guerreiro (the one to be contacted, if needed) and Maria
Manuela Malhado, both from Escola Secundária Pluricurricular de Santa Maria
Maior in Viana do Castelo, Portugal.
As a general impression, we find it very positive that this school has some
tradition of consecutive Comenius projects involving the same nucleus of schools
which other schools join. This is very interesting as it allows some continuity and a
more meaningful interaction amongst the schools involved.
We see as a weakness of this school the fact that there isn’t either a canteen or a
cafeteria where the students and the teachers can have proper meals or snacks
when they have lessons in the afternoon.
To see the teachers supervising the students during the breaks was something
that called our attention, since in our country that task is not the responsibility of
the teachers, but of other members of the school staff.
About infrastructure for using ICT, we find the following aspects very positive:
there is some team work involving different subjects and even different
departments; the coordinator of the Department of Informatics seems to be
available to support the teachers willing to use ICT; there is software provided by
regional educational authorities and a «computer library» installed by two editors
(the SELGO project), which is a very useful resource.
We see as a weak point the fact that there are only two classrooms equipped with
computers, which seems very little if we consider the number of students
attending the school.
Regarding ICT in the curriculum, school plans and projects, from what we saw,
we do not think this school differs from ours in pedagogical approaches; however,
there is some difference concerning the use of ICT for instructional purposes. In
our school, there is not interdisciplinary collaboration on a regular basis, while in
Max-Planck Gymnasium there is a school project (Electives 9) – this is not part of
the national curriculum, it is an optional subject - involving informatics, art and
music. We were shown the results of the students’ work - short films, some of
which very interesting (with soundtrack, special effects, etc.). This would not have
been possible without the use of ICT.
In the lessons we observed, the students worked in pairs and interacted easily not
only with each other but also with their teacher and with us (the visitors).
In one of the lessons (German) the students did different tasks, aiming at
reinforcing their knowledge of the items in which they had done poorly in a
previous paper.
In another lesson (English), the students were given a task in which they had to
make suggestions on how to solve some problems. Before suggesting, they browsed
a site in the net in order to collect information which would help them do the task.
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No doubt, these are examples of student-centred activities and of attention for
‘new competences’; however, we are of the opinion that both can be handled
without the use of ICT. What we mean is that we are not sure that the use of ICT
has made a difference to these lessons, other than being, maybe, a more
motivating tool for the students.
Regarding ethical issues, we could see that the school Directors were very
concerned about data protection.
About advantages and disadvantages of the use of ICT in teaching and
learning, we feel that the colleagues whose lessons we attended actually see ICT
as a help; however, some of their colleagues, they say, still resist using this tool.
The main concern of the colleagues we talked to is maintenance. They feel the
need of some expert on computers to deal with hardware problems. As they do not
have one, the coordinator of the Department of Informatics does his best to
make things work, which is not always easy. We have the same problem in our
school. We all think that the schools willing to use ICT intensively need to have, as
a new resource, a permanent technician on computers.
Looking as teachers to the host school, it seems to us that they have
implemented the use of ICT mainly due to the voluntarism of some of the
teachers, although the openness of the Directors and the national/regional
policies may have encouraged them. We were in close contact with the ViceDirector and attended even one of his lessons. He was very enthusiastic about
their plans to acquire more hardware and to motivate more teachers for a more
intensive use of ICT.
If ICT has been a catalyst for whole school development, we cannot be sure.
We were in touch with a few students and three teachers only. We do not know
how far the introduction of the use of ICT for pedagogical purposes has
influenced other aspects of the functioning of the school. We do not even know if
it has changed the pedagogical practices, or if the teachers involved would
perform the same way with different tools.
As a last comment, we would like to stress that we believe that the use of ICT
may actually be a great help in the implementation of a student-centred pedagogy
and in the development of students’ autonomy, but it does not guarantee, in itself,
a change in pedagogical practices.
Viana do Castelo, 7th July 2005
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