TEACHING IN A EUROPEAN WAY THE WAY TO ICT IN THE CLASSROOM SWOT ANALYSIS

THE SWOT MATRIX MODEL External Threats Opportunities Weaknesses Strengths Negative or potential to be negative Internal Positive

AIMS: facilitating communication among teachers and students from different countries using ICT; improving English proficiency in European students (it will be used as communication language); improving school proficiency using ICT in the classroom.

NORWAY: ICT in the classroom. Strengths: efficient technical department with 3 employees, 2 apprentices and 1 contractor; Windows and Mac Intosh servers with ghosts and silent installation of programs required with 1,000 Windows clients and 300 Mac Intosh clients; wi-fi; 4 LANs (administration, teachers and students, multimedia and communication, ICT classrooms); 2 WANs (administration and school, multimedia and ICT). Weaknesses: lack of a red thread among ICT department and teachers of other subjects which could involve the use of ICT; students have access from homes, but only to ICT department; some students do not always use available resouces. Opportunities: creation of a coordinating teacher (ICT expert) who can establish a red thread and increase motivation among teachers of different subjects; improve frequency of students' access to their areas. Threats: lack of time, unwillingness.

PORTUGAL: ICT in the classroom. Strengths: good ICT department with 7 laboratories with 10-15 PCs each and 23 notebooks both for teachers and for students, new fast network (48 Mb) is being installed, prepared teachers, 1 multimedia room, Moodle platform widely used both from teachers and students, ICT competions, one of 30 schools chosen by the Ministry of Educations as part of ICT National Project, stages with private companies where students find jobs (system & network programmers). Weaknesses: slow internet ADSL connection (2 Mb), lack of a red thread among ICT department and teachers of other subjects which could involve the use of ICT, old computers, only two projectors for the whole school, only one multimedia room. Opportunities: use projects and ICT competitions to obtain new materials and extend the use of ICT among teachers, creation of a coordinating teacher (ICT expert) who can establish a red thread and increase motivation among teachers of different subjects and improve English proficiency. Threats: lack of time and money, unwillingness.

ITALY: ICT in the classroom. Strengths: four laboratories with PCs (word processing, accountancy, land surveying, ECDL) and one with multimedia equipment (foreign languages), one smart board, four projectors. Weaknesses: no ICT department (laboratories are independent and depend directly on the principal or delegate), no platform, reduced interaction and unidirectional teaching, class centred teaching reduces time dedicated to teaching in laboratories, reduced access to the Internet, no wi-fi available. Opportunities: creation of an ICT department, teaching ICT and programming (HTML, JAVA, ...), teaching more in laboratories and less in classrooms, creation of a coordinating teacher (ICT expert) who can establish a red thread and increase motivation among teachers of different subjects and improve English proficiency. Threats: lack of time, money and structures, unwillingness.

STRATEGIES Implement project website with more multimedia resouces for European teachers and students. Extend the use of platform in countries which do not have a common platform (Moodle suggested). Share common materials and teaching techniques, also involving multimedia. Find common topics in project countries' curricula. Plan contacts with students groups (e-mails, chats, videoconferences).

CONCLUSIONS All schools have laboratories, but Italy does not have an ICT department. All schools have laboratories, but not all teachers apply new technologies to teaching. ICT is not always taught as an independent subject: in Norway ICT is one of the five basic skills at all levels; in Portugal ICT teaching is started at the age of fourteeen, but only in all courses and they have ICT in the last year of compulsory education; in Italy ICT is taught as an independent subject only in some technical and vocational schools. In Portugal students work as programmers in private companies (stages).