A proper policy in the permanent teacher’s training: Key impulse of the ICT Centre in Andalusia (Spain)

An ICT Centre in Andalusia is considered a compulsory education centre, a public primary or secondary school, equipped with IT material for students, to be also used by the staff. The equipment consists of: one computer for every two students, tables which are adapted to the computers in the classrooms, chairs for every table, computers with laser printer and scanner in the didactic departments, library, teacher’s room, the AMPA (association of mothers and fathers) office, the secretary’s office and in the directive board offices, big capacity printer in the reception, digital photo and video camera, video projector, laptop, broadband internet connection and connection to the Educational Platform where multiple activities can be found. Another distinctive characteristic of this equipment is the choice to use free software and open code in teaching as the operating system is Guadalinex, based on Debian (Linux).

To be considered an ICT Centre, the school has to respond to the announcement of the ICT projects and meet several requirements.

Andalusian schools have access, throughout the school year 2006/07, to 49000 new computers. Of these, 42255 are assigned to the 315 schools and high schools which joined the ICT Centre Network in September. With the new schools that joined the program, the Network is composed of 823 centres, 30% of active centres in Andalusia.

The most innovative factor in this wide integration of technologies is that the computer will be an educational tool in learning and teaching. So, especially relevant is that, apart from IT equipment, centres can access an intranet and an educational platform: Anda@red. These centres integrate ICT.

The Andalusian government published the first notice⁵ to select those centres which would work with information and communication technologies, and once the educational projects to integrate technologies were launched, 50 public centres were selected. Among these 50 centres, 14 were primary schools and 36 were Compulsory Secondary Education (ESO) schools. All these centres had 81000 computers with the same operating system, Guadalinex, developed from Linux by the IT research group in the Junta de Andalucía (Andalusia Regional Government) to be used in Andalusia.

The projects that the centres had to present in response to said notice had to put forward a general action plan to integrate technology in teaching. They had to include, among others, information about the experiences of the teachers regarding ICT, experiences of the ICT coordinator, the reasons or circumstances that made its introduction advisable, the objectives and the list of areas of knowledge in which ICT would be used. It is important to highlight the relevance of the coordinator, whose function was essential to advise the teachers about the available resources and the solution of technical problems, establish ways to spread experiences and exchange information, and promote improvements in the project.

⁵ Regulation on 2003-03-27 by the Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian Government Education Ministry). It regulates the announcement to select school educational projects to include information and communication technologies in teaching.