In this section, we will examine how schools and their teachers choose new technology, and what they choose. We want to learn what kind of criteria and priorities they apply. Obviously when choosing technology, many different factors must be taken in to consideration. Among them, is the most important respect are expectations at the school level. Central role should be played here by the school leader, and its ICT specialist or coordinator. Another key factor is the current experience of the school, and it's actual human potential for the further development. It is also important to thoroughly consider the actual teaching, and learning goals of the teachers and the needs determined by them. And, naturally, there are important safety issues, ergonomics and various concerns. We will focus on them separately in the next week of our MOOC. Although schools rarely have explicitly formulated system of selection of criteria. In this map we tried to summarize various decisive factors which our sample schools have referred to. We have already mentioned the needs of the learners. However, you must always carefully consider needs and attitude of all participants including parents. Very important criterion is new technologies' appropriateness, physical and developmental. In the following activity you will be invited to read about one useful general framework, for teachers and decision makers. For reviewing developmental appropriateness of ICT tools, for very young children and pupils. Some schools also regularly invest in following what are the actual trends in choosing technology for educational reasons. Teachers are also aware of the problems of maintenance, of both hardware and software. When choosing your hardware, we have to take into consideration its purpose and category. When collecting software, it is necessary to think about its later upgrades, ease of use, licensing, and possible localization. On certain individual content, we will devote the following section to it. Besides standard ICT like desktop computers, notebooks, or data projectors, there are many other categories of highly stimulating digital technologies. In this pictures, you can see some of them, mobile devices using them inside and outside, programmable digital toys, we will come back to them later in this week. Digital scale and digital method detectors for kids, digital microscope, various devices for collecting data and doing research and some more. These are all hardware tools, however we should never underestimate the importance and value of educational software. In the process of selecting software, schools usually choose general creative environments like music editors, photo editors, text and graphics editors. Storytelling and writing practice tools, mind mapping editors, various authoring tools for creating learning materials, which we will come back to when reflecting on the digital content. We have observed a clear tendency to prefer notebooks and, even more, tablets. We have also noticed that the more a school is experienced and equipped, the more they want to extend even more to build so-called technology-rich learning environment. Schools are aware of the exceptional potential of various mobile technologies. Some of them also think about implementing so-called bring your own device strategy. And clearly, there are many challenges referred to by the teachers. Among them, financial issues, where often, teachers note that most of the finances are being spent on hardware. They also offer mention lack of software to support creativity, and learning by exploring and constructing. They refer to high time demands and also urgent need to better equip the teachers themselves. One of our findings from the previous research, using ICT in early childhood education. Was that, when a school or a kindergarten is at the early stage of the process of integrating digital technology into the teaching and learning. A lot of exciting things can be done with very little equipment. One computer, and one digital camera, or with one or two [UNKNOWN]. It might easily lead to a failure if we right away started, with technology rich learning environment. So, there is no general answer to the question how much technology do we need? Clearly the need grows with our growing experience and understanding of the actual potential of ICT to support learning. And therefore, in some schools we ought to witness the transition to the so called one-to-one approach. When each student is equipped with his or her device, a tablet most often. In the last activity of this section, you will be invited to read more about one-to-one approach. And think about the arguments to support it or not, which often equals come back to rethink it later. You may also ask our collaborating teachers about their experience concerning this issue.
