ICT for Administrators

This blog will be the primary site for information about this course, including the course outline and course activities.  The main objective of this course is to introduce education professionals to the concepts, terminology and practices of the interactive web. The interactive web is also known at the Read/Write web or Web 2.0 in common parlance.  Web 1.0 describes an Internet that was primarily made up of static resources, mainly text based web pages that were composed by one party and meant to be simply read by other parties.  Online interaction was typically managed by newsgroups or online discussion forums.

The last 10 years has seen an amazing increase in the functionality of the Internet especially with the development of the World Wide Web which allowed for the easy organization search and sharing of Internet resources. It has been increasingly common for authors to compose web pages but then actively solicit and encourage feedback and collaborative contributions from readers. Two of the main tools for this style of interaction were the wiki and the web log where the opportunity for comment and discussion was part of the design. Part of the appeal and the main reason for the rapid spread of wikis and blogs was their simplicity, economy and accessibility. The citizen journalist was born and the phenomena of user generated content exploded.

More recently the development of the multimedia aspect of Internet has resulted in the proliferation of the podcast and online video.  These web based affordances are often anchored to the wiki and the blog.

With the rapid development of Web 2.0 came online communities of people who interacted regularly and closely with other people or groups of people, most often without any face to face contact. Additional web based tools were developed to support online communities leading to systematic online social networking.

Web 2.0 is not a fixed entity by any means and is evolving and developing before our eyes and monitors. The potential for the Internet is being discovered on a daily basis, with every sector of society affected. This is particularly the case in the developed world but many underdeveloped parts of the world see the Internet as instrumental in and essential for their economic development.

The impact of the Internet on education at all levels has been profound.  In particular Information and Communications Technologies have provided access to a vast well of resources. On another level, education has been called upon to prepare citizens to function in a world that has ICT as a basic social and economic reality. Institutions responsible for public education have responded and have used computers as important tools for teaching, learning and administration of education since computers were commonly available.

The ubiquitous nature of ICT has created new demands for educational institutions. Literacy has taken on new and enhanced meanings in our society. To be literate no longer means to be able to read and write text only, but also includes the ability to use ICTs.  At an even deeper level, educational institutions are being asked to not only teach the use of ICT but to infuse it seamlessly into the everyday policies and practice of the school.

The Manitoba Department of Education, Citizenship and Youth has developed a comprehensive long term plan to promote and support the infusion of ICT into educational practice. The Literacy with ICT Across the Curriculum initiative has place a considerable emphasis on the effective use of the Internet with many references to wikis, blogs podcasts and social networks.

This course is intended to allow education professionals the opportunity to explore some of the concepts, practices and mechanism of the interactive web in a hands on active learning environment. Participants will be developing proficiency with Web 2.0 tools and using them to work collaboratively on the course projects. Whether the participants ever actively use Web 2.0 in their professional spheres will be a personal choice to a certain extent. The course will allow education professionals make informed decisions from the perspective of a skilled user of ICT.

The course will allow for the development of ICT skills but the substantive emphasis will be placed on the administrative considerations with respect to the implementation of the Literacy with ICT Across the Curriculum. As each tool is introduced it will be used to convey the reflective and collaborative contributions of the participants with respect to the major themes of the course.