E Learn Center

Students need new skills and competences to be fully integrated in the 21st century society; this is why ICT must be integrated in curricula and why the implementation of ICT in schools has been enhanced by European, national and regional programmes. Despite the use of ICT in schools, there has been little improvement or innovation in the teaching and learning processes. To take advantage of the educational opportunities of ICT, schools need both a global educational model at professional development, organization and curricular levels and a strategic and effective use of ICT to improve outcomes. When organisations make strategic and effective use of ICT to improve educational outcomes, they can be considered e-mature. To become e-mature, schools pass through different stages of ICT implementation: initial, e-enabled, e-confident and e-mature. It has been shown that the role of the principal and the quality of teaching have arisen as key elements in the setting of e-maturity in schools.

This research is based on three study cases, three secondary schools from Catalonia, whose head teachers have already been interviewed using a semi-structured interviewed to know the school vision and organization of ICT, the role of the school leader, how the school evaluates the use and impact of ICT and how national educational policies can guide the use of ICT in schools.

The first results of this research are organized into four categories: school organization, school leadership and management, impact and evaluation of ICT, and educational policies. Regarding school organization, these schools consider themselves as innovative, with ICT embedded in their daily activities, which makes them invisible. Concerning school leadership and management, in all schools there is an ICT committee where strategic decisions are made. All schools have organised ICT professional development courses, being in-house training and individual support the most valued. With respect to the impact and evaluation of ICT all schools pass questionnaires to measure progress. The head teachers agree that students’ outcomes cannot be related to the use of ICT in their schools. Finally, with reference to educational policies, the three school leaders agree that at present there are few educational policies that foster the use of ICT in schools in Catalonia and they would like more advice and support.

The first analysis of these three interviews to school head teachers seems to confirm some points of the studies on e- maturity and the role of principals in the implementation and use of ICT in schools. In these schools there is a shared clear vision of ICT by all stakeholders. ICT is embedded in their daily activities using a wide variety of digital tools and resources to support, facilitate and personalise learning. The head teacher in these schools has a key role in the implementation of ICT; they were the person who decided to start using ICT in the teaching and learning processes, but they have developed a distributed leadership, with an ICT committee in charge of making decisions. Finally, the head teachers point out the importance of teacher professional development and teacher support.

Governments have set programs aimed at schools to take advantage of the educational use of ICT and to improve outcomes. This paper provides a critical perspective on how national educational policies can promote the use of ICT in schools. It also examines the strategic and effective use of ICT, known as e-maturity, in secondary schools in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain) and classifies them according to their participation in the program Educat2.0, the last initiative of the Catalan government to introduce ICT in secondary schools in a massive way. The results show how educational policies have influenced on the level of e-maturity in schools. The schools that have participated in the program have a more e-mature level, but it can also be concluded that schools can have a different level of e-maturity in its different components; that is why these should be balanced and studied separately.