MEDIA CENTER AND COMPUTER LABS FOR ACCESS TO DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

MEDIA CENTER AND COMPUTER LABS FOR ACCESS TO DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Tackling youth unemployment is also a priority of the Scottish Government. It has set a target to reduce the proportion of young people who are not in education, employment or training by 40% by 2020, and Curriculum for Excellence aims to support all children and young people to develop essential skills they will need to live and work in the twentyfirst century. 

To help pursue its ambitions, the Scottish Government has developed initiatives to support and encourage the use of digital technology in schools, with the vision that ‘Scotland’s educators, learners and parents take full advantage of the opportunities offered by digital technology in order to raise attainment, ambition and opportunities for all’. One of the main elements of this work to date has been the delivery of Glow, an online learning environment that provides access to a variety of digital tools and resources, funded by the Scottish Government and made available to all schools across Scotland[1]. 

Education Scotland recently published a report on the digital technology area of Curriculum for Excellence, which found that ICT is ‘used as an enhancement to learning’ but is ‘on the fringes of the main purpose of tasks or lessons’[2]. In some of the 40 case study schools which provided the findings for the report, inspectors found that ICT can have ‘a much more significant influence on learning which motivates learners and encourages career ambitions using technologies’ but