Best Practices & Challenges

"71% of teachers in upper secondary education reported that the use of ICT for teaching had been included in their formal education or training, and 43% of teachers on average felt prepared to teach in such settings when they finished their studies" (Fraser et al., 2018).

Despite Alberta’s excellent high school computing science curriculum, this is optional and comes too late for many students.

Students often place a higher priority on getting into universities, which focus on core subjects; therefore, students end up dropping computer science or just not selecting it at all.

In June 1997, then Minister of Education, Honorable Gary Mar, approved a Teaching Quality Standard applicable to the provision of basic education, which identified descriptors of teacher knowledge, skills, and attributes (KSA), including KSAs related to technology” (Alberta Education, 2009).

71% of teachers in upper secondary education reported that the use of ICT for teaching had been included in their formal education or training, and 43% of teachers on average felt prepared to teach in such settings when they finished their studies (Fraser et al., 2018).

CASS (College of Alberta School Superintendents) had not articulated a formal position on technology and education, which was unexpected since the organization is made up of influential senior educational leaders, tasked with the implementation of technology policy.

The silence may be due to two reasons:

1) superintendents are not interested in or perhaps find little relevance between tech implementation policies and the core work of superintendents and/or

2) their professional responsibility to attend to Accountability Pillar Measures, which have not shown a direct correlation between technology integration in learning and student achievement on standardized tests.

Canada has been one of the earliest pioneers of bringing together technology and education. Alberta was also an early adopter of distance education. The first virtual schools in Alberta were primarily based in rural portions of the province (Barbour & Reeves, 2009) and appeared around 1995, two years before the first virtual schools were established in the US.

In 1975, Alberta introduced Computing Science as part of its Business Education courses (Alberta Education, 2009). By 1981, Alberta Education had purchased 1,000 Bell and Howell OEM computers (also referred to as the “Black Apple”) for resale to schools. The computers’ original package included hardware, software, warranty and in-service packages, and the provincial initiative was met with positivity, seen as an important first step in increasing interest in computer use (Alberta Education, 2009).