Lounge

Well, on a more general basis I can give you a few concrete examples, although as it's the age group I have worked with, these are based on Primary school children rather than universities.

A few years ago I ran a project (in a Primary school classroom - Year4, 8-9 year olds) where I had one laptop between 2 children - rather than one each. For the majority of the year I planned activities that either the children did in pairs on the computers, or that children could do in parallel, some using IT and some using more traditional pen and paper - all this was mixed in with 'traditional' pen/paper activies as well. After 5 years and having left the school I do not have test scores etc. to back up my comments and to give you actual 'measurements', but my experience  over that year was that:

• most of the class made higher than expected progress in all 'academic' areas (none of the children fell behind - all made progress, but for a small number it was no higher than expected),
• social and behavioural skills improved because of the level of collaboration,
• independence in learning improved - along with some of the children being able to argue very well as to why they should (or in some cases should not!) use the computers for a particular activity and
• attendance improved.

Unfortunately budgets did not permit the experience to be extended at the time.

In a more recent example, from a conversation with a secondary school colleague recently, one local primary school has recently put in a massive investment in IT, including one laptop per child. The first cohort of children to leave the school after using these laptops for the year (I do not know what level of use they made of them but would assume it had been quite high) started secondary school last September (2010). At Primary, they had achieved very well, teacher appraisals and test scores related to high standards of learning being achieved. Unfortunately, the secondary school had nothing like the same level of resourcing and some of these children 'hit a brick wall' in terms of their progress in the first year of secondary (no suggestion that they went backwards or anything, just that they were not able to continue the increased pace of progress that had been demonstrated).

My experience then suggests that where the activities are well targeted and use the IT resources, whatever they are, appropriately, children (and I would assume from my reading that this extends to higher education and universities/colleges as well) perform well and often higher than expected with the use of those resources. However, the inconsistent provision is where issues arise. So as always it becomes about the money .

If the money is there to make the provisions, and if the ability and willingness is there in the teaching staff to adapt their teaching to suit the technology, then the technology can definitely aid progress. It helps, not only develop the IT skills and proficiency that future generations need (have in advance of their teachers in some cases!) but also many of the wider skills of reasoning, problem solving and independent learning, especially when used alongside other teaching/learning methods in a thought out and considered mix, rather than just because its there.

An interesting discussion - and if anyone has any actual study figures/results, please post them or a link to them. I for one would be very interested.

Richard

PS. Although mainly aimed at schools rather than higher education, if you want to see a bit of what IT in learning can look like take a look at Tim Ryland's blog here