School Informatics: The Vision, the Learning, the Information, the Technology and the Need for Research

Abstract

School librarians and school libraries have been affected by a number of changes over the past decade. Development in leaming, such as the development of information skills programs; in teaching, such as the greater use of learning resources by teachers; and in technology, such as the availability of electronic information resources such as the Internet; have all affected the nature of the school librarian's work. Taking a holistic view of schools, it can be seen that developments in these areas have been the focus of research of a number of related disciplines. Researchers in the area of learning have sought to identify the impact of new technologies on the learning process in schools. Researchers in IT in education have studied the increasing sophistication of computer assisted learning packages and school networks. Researchers in educational administration have examined the potential impact of IT of improved record keeping and information management in schools.Researchers in school librarianship have examined the growth of information skills/literacy programmes in schools as well as the growth in the range of electronic information resources such as CO-ROMs, online databases and the Internet This paper proposes that these disciplines could usefully contribute to a new discipline entitled school informatics which would examine the impact of new technologies on leaming and teaching from a perspective which seeks to examine how learning and teaching can be improved in schools by the integon of related but as yet separate aspects of IT in today's schools. The central focus of school infomatics should be on learning in the classroom, in the school library and elsewhere and not on individual advances in technology. This paper outlines a vision for school infomatics and the relation of that vision to learning, teaching, information resources and information technology in schools. A research study of 2 UK schools' views on intranet developments is induded in the paper.