E-Readiness in Austrian Schools – From Theory and

Visions to Practice and Reality

Peter Micheuz, peter.micheuz@uni-klu.ac.at
University of Klagenfurt, Software Engineering and Soft Computing,
Universitätsstraße 65 – 67, 9020 Klagenfurt, Austria

Abstract

In retrospect, it can be stated that the integration of new media in many fields of
society has been successful. Accordingly, Austria claims to be European e-
Government champion. For the lack of comparable studies in the educational area,
there is, however, little evidence that Austria is the e-Learning champion as well.
After structurizing necessary preconditions of successful integration of e-Learning at
schools, this paper presents some empirical findings about the e-Readiness of
Austrian academic secondary schools.

Keywords
e-Learning, e-Readiness, New Media, ICT in education, innovation

1 INTRODUCTION

Since the early eighties of the last century, computers have determined the
economic, social and increasingly the educational field. Computers are
• objects of didactical reflection (Informatics),
• tools for filing, organising and presenting digital information (ICT),
• and increasingly media for learning and teaching (E-Learning).

Figure 1: The Synthesis of Informatical Education (Hubwieser, 2003)

Recent educational approaches (Hubwieser, 2003) emphasize the importance of an

integrated view of computers in education. This view integrates all three pillars,
which are highly interdependent. Informatics education (“Informatische Bildung”)
must be seen as an integrative amalgam of learning about informatics concepts,
acquiring basic ICT-skills and using computers as networked multimedia devices to
improve, or at least, to change and extend the methods of teaching and learning.
Doubtlessly, e-Learning is a buzzword in educational contexts, associated with
many hopes on revolutionizing the teaching and learning process. Current scientific
publications, which deal with E-Learning in a visionary way, make one believe that
we are on the verge of entering the promised land of totally “transformed” schools
2.0, induced by massive and successful ICT integration. More critical reflection is
sorely needed. As we will see, even in a well developed country like Austria, those
“transformed” schools are rare exceptions, if there are any at all. Despite of single
and successful e-Learning projects, due to (rare) innovative teachers, the expected
large-scale progress is still far in the future.
Actually, there exist many theoretical proposals how to employ new technologies in
education, some are mere rhetorics. However, if we aks ourselves how much we
really know about e-Learning in practice in schools, we have to admit that there is
still a lot of unawareness, uncertainty and misconceptions among the stakeholders.
A side glance at the theory of innovation (Rogers, 1962) may explain the perceived
slowness of ICT penetration in general. Doubtlessly, the process of integrating ICT
into education in all its facets meets the definition of innovation. „Doing the old in
new ways – that is innovation”, as the well-known economist Joseph Schumpeter
states. A majority of (Austrian teachers) “does the old in old ways”, which does not
mean that traditional ways are (always) wrong and out of place.
Peter Denning describes an innovation as a “transformation of practice in a
community” (Denning, 2004) and further “A transformation […] won’t happen unless
the new practice generates more value to the members than the old.”
It is immanent to an innovation that, first of all, problems become visible before it
becomes widely accepted. Technical devices do not always work reliably, many
teachers are still not knowledgeable in computer technology and often over-
challenged. And finally, students are likely to distract themselves from the particular
learning goals by the fascination of technics (Wiggenhirn, 2003).

2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL ICT-INTEGRATION

Any complex task like implementing ICT in schools needs careful structuring on a
meta-level. In Ehlers (2005) we find a suitable proposal.

1. Cultural level
2. Strategic level
3. Organisational level
4. Pedagogical level
5. Technological level

The cultural level is the broadest one and exerts direct influence on politics and
political decisions. External as well as internal factors which position the particular
country in an international context are the driving forces to ensure the necessary
budgets. The strategic level has a major influence on the following levels in terms of
specific (financial) investments in hard- and software, in-service training of teachers
and its underlying organisational structures.

Addressing these levels, a study (Wiggenhirn, 2003) of best practices in specific

world regions with vast experiences in ICT-integration, a set of recommendations for
successful ICT integration has been published. This collection can be considered a
sound theory and necessary foundation to successful E-Learning dissemination in
schools. In the following section, the author will comment on the Austrian practice in
contrast to or accordance with these recommendations.
2.1 Pedagogy should have the highes priority

Highest priority must be attached to the improvement and reflection of teaching and
learning processes, which means that the vision of successful integration of new
media is founded on pedagogy and not on technology.

The technical aspect of E-Learning, which begins with basal competence to handle
digital devices and ends with using highly complex learning management software,
must not be underestimated. Actually, also in Austria most of the teachers are still
struggling with technical problems and possess too little confidence to be able to
concentrate on pedagogical and didactical issues. On the other hand, many of them
– the average age of an Austrian teacher is almost 50 years – are caught in their
daily routine work and do not reflect on new learning and teaching concepts.
Considering this, successful ICT integration depends on the teachers’ sound digital
and pedagogical (didactical) competence. Thus, new media can lead to an
increasing reflection of pedagogical practice and a new learning culture at schools
(Fischer & Mandl 2002, p. 634). Such a new learning culture or even more, the
complete reinvention and restructuring of education and schools, seems to be
necessary in order to ensure a proper functionality and seamless integration of
modern technologies (Albirini, 2007).

2.2 National policy, financial support and autonomy of schools

The national policy has to provide unambiguous guiding principles and to develop a
clear strategy which has to be evaluated and updated. Adequate financial support of
regions and schools has to be guaranteed, and finally, the autonomy of schools has
to be reinforced, together with the demand for accountability.

According to a letter of intent of the European Union (e.g. Feira, June 2000), the
Austrian Ministry of Education has launched several e-Learning programmes,
projects and initiatives.
A considerable budget has been provided for the programme “eFIT Austria” since
the year 2000. The pillars of this programme, recently replaced by the programme
“futurelearning”, are still the projects “eLC – E-Learning Cluster Austria” for upper
secondary level and “eLSA – E-Learning im Schulalltag” for lower secondary level.
After the start in 2002/2003 with a few pilot schools, these two main projects
currently cover about 10% of the secondary schools. However, it must not be
assumed that non-participating schools do not support ICT integration at all.
Referring to this, we lack reliable data and nation-wide studies.
In addition to the benefits of these projects through better financial and in-service
training support, these schools have to commit themselves to give feedback and
evaluate the process of achieving the project goals. At the moment the eLC Cluster
tries to double the participating schools through a “partnership model”.

Additionally, a notebook-class project has been carried out for years ago. Now that
the project and the financial support have ended, a supporting network and a
knowledge base, filled with valuable experience, has remained. At the moment there
is an insignificant amount of laptop classes in Austrian schools. There are no more
than 470 classes and 12000 students (about 1% of all students) involved, as pointed
out in the E-Business Guide 2007/08 recently published by the Austrian
government.
In Germany the situation is similar. In 2000 the former minister of education
announced proudly that by 2006 each German pupil will have been equipped with a
notebook. According to the German Ministry of finance, this goal has only been
achieved by less than 1%.
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, after the hype five years ago, the number of
notebook classes in Austria is stagnating. Laptop classes are disputed for many
reasons. One is their introduction as a marketing instrument and the other the
selection mechanism by creating “elite classes” (Feierer, 2005). Since the early
1990s, autonomy of schools is promoted by the government. Thus, each school can
decide on its own to introduce laptop classes, in most cases with high financial
investment by parents. However, the situation of too expensive investments can
change dramatically in the near future because right now notebooks get cheaper,
more handy and powerful.

2.3 Visionary and creative management

Management at all levels, but especially at the regional one, must be visionary and
creative, has to support effectively interested and enthusiastic teachers and to
incorporate a critical mass of all school partners.

To determine whether the Austrian government, in particular the Ministry of

Education, is visionary or not, goes beyond scientific seriousness. In terms of new
technologies, the government declaration of 2007 contained only the vague, but
ambitious statement: ”By 2009 Austria should be one of the leading ICT Nations.”
(BMUKKa, 2007). No explicit objectives can be found with regard to ICT integration.
Is it coincidence or did it happen on purpose that among twenty projects in the
recently published folder “Bildungsprojekte 2008” e-Learning and a new learning
culture are not even mentioned? In October 2007, the new programme
“Futurelearning”, comprising many activities around the Web 2.0 started (BMUKKb,
2007). Hopefully there will also be a reasonable budget for it. Without financial
incentives, the broadening of ICT integration will be difficult, if not impossible. The
less financial support for ICT development in schools is provided, the more creativity
is necessary to keep the innovation process alive.

2.4 Reliable and sufficient hard- and software(support)

An adequate equipment and support means the provision of a reliable access to

computers (with a students:computer ratio of at least 6:1) and a professional
technical support so that the teachers can concentrate on teaching. Last but not
least, a periodical renewal of hardware must be guaranteed.

It seems simple but it is reliable hardware, easily to use software and fast internet
access which is certainly a - if not t h e - key factor for the acceptance of new media.
The proposed students : computer ratio of 6:1 is only realized in vocational schools.
Non-vocational schools as the secondary academic schools (Gymnasium) are
disproportionately disadvantaged, as a recent survey revealed (Micheuz, 2008).
Moreover, this study points out a big divide within this type of schools which is due
to the autonomy of schools and their educational priorities. Ratios of 20:1 and even
higher can be found in many schools. On the other hand there is 100% coverage
with highly available internet access for all computers in particular schools. A
periodical renewal of hardware in academic secondary schools, as it is the case in
many vocational schools, is wishful thinking. Regarding the technical support of the
technical infrastructure (servers, clients, software, internet, etc), there is an ample
scope of realisations, from individual up to common regional solutions. Depending
on the size of schools (number of students and computers), there is a fixed budget
provided for system administration. This task can be accomplished either by
teachers or it can be outsourced.
2.5 Various ways of in-service teacher training

In-service teacher training must be implemented in various and personalized ways

and must concentrate on the integration of new technologies in lessons.

Pointing out once more that teachers are the key players of practicing ICT
integration in their lessons in an operational sense, in-service training cannot be
valuated highly enough. In the last few years, the eBuddy- and eCoaching concept
has turned out to be successful. This means a 1:1, respectively a 1:5 (individual)
support where one experienced teacher accompanies a less experienced one, visits
and offers support in on particular aspects. An informal investigation of this way to
increase the number of e-literate teachers shows, however, that mainly
technological support was given (Hummer, 2007). Obviously, this shows that a vast
majority of teachers in Austria still lack basic knowledge and confidence in using
informatics systems. Of course, there are also traditional training courses for larger
groups of teachers, currently covering mainly product schooling for learning
platforms.

2.6 Digital content, subject oriented

The provision of digital content and teaching material has to be subject oriented in
order to enable students to appropriately apply their media competence.

The question of digital content is as old as the emergence of e-Learning. The shift
from useful content and learning software on single storage medias as DVDs to the
ubiquitous availability of digital content on the internet is obvious. The problem is not
the lack of (partly excellent) digital learning content, on the contrary, it is the
profusion of avaliable information. Unfortunately “the internet does not forget”, and
thus never will be perfect. “Perfection”, the French poet Antoine de St. Exupery
observes “is not achieved when there is nothing more to add, but when there is
nothing left to take away”. Contrary to a printed textbook, where newer and better
content replaces the old and of worse quality one, the internet grows exponentially
with increasing inconsistency.
Various and perhaps too many educational platforms, in German so called
“Bildungsserver”, have mushroomed (and disappeared or became an orphan) in
recent years, leaving teachers and students alone with an agony of choice.
Nowadays, content on the web 2.0 is increasingly created by independent
individuals. It is shared and made available free of charge, and often constantly
improved by collaboration (see Wikipedia).
A project of the Austrian Ministry of Education has supported (also financially)
content production by teachers since 2002. The results have not been evaluated
empirically so far, but a look at the corresponding websites (www.bildung.at and
www.e-teaching-austria.at) reveals the problem: Questionable quality, content better
represented in textbooks, inconsistency and incompleteness, in short: a
misconception of (the potential of) E-Learning.
Another ambitious and promising project, called SBX (Schulbuch Extra – textbook
extra), offers supplementing digital content on the internet in combination with
textbooks. This project developed poorly for the same reasons, although published
by professional companies. Other reasons for the poor acceptance of this well-
intentioned project are a too complicated authentication process, different
technologies and inconsistent user guidance.
2.7 The importance of leadership in schools

Involvement of school leaders is indispensable. Besides supporting enthusiastic

teachers (see 2.3), a headmaster should take responsibility for the development of a
clearly structured ICT-concept as part of a master plan.

Many studies point out the importance of leadership for developing excellent
schools. The hierarchy in Austrian schools is very flat, consisting of one headmaster
and the whole teaching staff below. If headmasters do not support and accompany
the process of ICT integration, it is very likely to fail.
It is a fact that many headmasters are occupied too much with pedagogical,
disciplinary and administrative tasks and have little time and energy to control the
process of ICT integration personally, but however, some are simply incompetent in
terms of coping with ICT matters, technically as well as pedagogically.
Most headmasters of the schools involved, in the above mentioned ministerial e-
Learning projects eLSA and eLC either have a technophile background or are
influenced by a hyperactive group of interested teachers who are responsible for
ICT integration in the particular schools.

3 SPECIAL AUSTRIAN INITIATIVES

3.1 The E-Learning projects eLSA and eLC

One major Austrian top-down initiative, called eLSA, which is an acronym for “e-
Learning in everyday school live” has been launched by the Ministry of Education in
2002 in four schools. Up to now, about 80 schools all over Austria have joined this
still very active network. Within five years, eLSA has become a trademark for
successful integration of e-Learning for the lower secondary level. Even if there is no
more financial stimulation as it was at the beginning, the number of schools is still
increasing and profiting from the enormous practical knowledge which has been
gathered by innovative teachers within some years of classroom experience.
eLC, “e-Learning Cluster” (Austria), is another project, supporting the network of
upper secondary, mainly vocational, schools. Aiming at the same goals like eLSA,
the participating schools have to commit themselves to deliver regular reports and to
fulfil the ambitious project objectives. Implicitly most of them aim concretely at
introducing and improving a cooperative learning culture at the particular schools. All
project objectives can be referred at the informative project sites on the internet (see
ELSA, ELC).
The rhetoric of some very ambitious (and unrealistic) project aims reminds us of the
saying “All that glitters is not gold”. The author himself is involved in the eLSA
project and experiences the dichotomy of strategic goals and their operative
transformation in schools at first hand…
Being important parts of the new “FutureLearning” programme of the Austrian
Ministry of Education, these projects are currently in a very crucial state. It will be
interesting to evaluate the further progress of these projects and, above all, their
influence on schools which are not involved yet.

The future will show if eLSA and eLC will fade away before a critical and stable
mass has been reached. It may be assumed that these projects will be levers for a
successful and broader ICT integration in the Austrian educational system.
3.2 Edumoodle – Hype of a LMS in Austria

With this project, the Austrian ministry for education meets the European
recommendation to develop new services in the educational system. Financed by an
extra budget, the learning platform Moodle (see http://www.edumoodle.at) can be
regarded as the current technical backbone of many E-Learning activities in Austrian
schools. Former commercial solutions like Blackboard or Class-Server are therefore
obsolete and have been replaced by Moodle.
Although scalable in all dimensions (see “Moodle on a Stick”) and widespread on
many school servers, the central internet service Edumoodle is accepted very well.
Located in Linz, where also the biggest educational portal (see www.schule.at)
resides, it provides high quality service and thus takes the pressure off many system
administrators. At the beginning of 2008, the incredible number of almost one
thousand schools made use of this offer. These schools manage full instances of
this learning platform autonomously.
It is warrantable to characterize this development as an Austrian hype in a positive
sense. This quasi standardization of a learning platform has the potential to settle
the question of uncertainty what LMS to use now and in the future. At the moment
technical schooling of teachers has priority. There is hope that the main task of
purposeful and effective usage of Moodle will be accomplished, after the teachers
have become familiar with this platform.

3.3 EPICT (European Pedagogical ICT License) in Austria

As the open source software Moodle seems to get a synonym for learning platforms
and, which is rather a threatening imagination, even for (successful) E-Learning, the
trademark EPICT could dominate the Austrian market for teachers’ pre- and in-
service training in the near future.
As teachers need professional training in ICT and pedagogy, the philosophy of the
European Pedagogical ICT Licence is the amalgam of technological and didactical
aspects. “The European Pedagogical ICT Licence bases its pedagogy on teamwork,
development and focus on the process. In a Pedagogical ICT Licence course we try
to practice what we preach. This is not a 'sit-down-and-listen-while-I-tell-you-about-
problem-based-learning-and-active-involvement-of-the-students.- then-go-home-
and-do-exactly-what-you-have-always-done' kind of course.”
Educators are challenged and moderately pushed into describing and documenting
learning activities that integrate ICT, and simultaneously to develop ICT products
and explore the potentials of the computer, the internet, electronic communication
etc. (EPICT, 2008).
The first pilot courses in Austria will start even this year. In Denmark, where this
educational certificate has been invented, more than 80% of the teachers acquired
the EPICT certificate. Is it coincidence or a logical consequence that Denmark ranks
first in a recent report on the e-Readiness of nations worldwide?

4. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS

After many visions and a look into the near future, some numbers, facts and findings
about the e-Readiness of academic secondary Austrian schools (Gymnasium) are
given.

4.1 Results from an Online Survey in Austrian Academic Secondary Schools

An empirical online-survey (Micheuz, 2008) has been conducted in Austrian

secondary academic schools from March to April 2007. In order to make a rough
estimate about the scope of this survey here are some figures. Austria has about
1.200.000 pupils/students at primary and secondary schools and about 120.000
teachers. Academic secondary schools provide for about 200.000 pupils/students,
aged from 10-18. The online survey conducted in all 340 academic secondary
schools yielded an overall response rate of about 25%. Headmasters, informatics
teachers and students from the 9th and 10th grade were questioned.

• There is empirical evidence that, although more than 90% of the teachers do
use computers privately and for preparational work, a significant majority of
teachers does not apply the computer in classroom teaching.
• Still more than 70% of the headmasters at secondary academic schools
complain explicitly that they have an insufficient IT-infrastructure.
• The headmasters estimate that more than half of their teaching staff is well
prepared for the application of modern technologies.
• Asked about the current situation of E-Learning in their schools, about 25% of
the headmasters marked it “good”, the same percentage “satisfying” and about
the half “insufficient”.

In this online-survey also students of the 10th grade (16 years old) have been asked
about their usage of computers in other subjects than informatics.

• About 20% use the computer at school regularly and 60% rarely. The preferred
subjects are German, followed by English and Mathematics.
• About 10% use a learning platform regularly (at least once a week) and 40%
occasionally (the subject informatics included).
• On the other hand, but not surprisingly, about 50% use the computer for gaming
at least once a week. About 70% use e-mail at least once a week and only 3%
do not use this form of communication at all. About 50% are chatting weekly and
the same percentage is actively using discussion forums. 70% do not use P2P-
connections and almost 20% claim to have active experience with blogs.
• Finally, practically all pupils and students have access to computers at home
and almost 80% are connected to the internet.

These exemplary and quantitative results represent just the smaller part of a big
empirical study which focused on informatics education in general. From a
conservative point of view, e-Learning in Austrian secondary academic schools,
considering its obstacles, can be estimated as fairly well alas inhomogeneously
developed, whereas from an avant-garde point of view it is still playing a rather
inferior role at the moment, and the dissemination of e-Learning develops only
slowly.

4.2 E-Readiness of Academic Secondary Schools in Carinthia

From October to November 2007, a study “e-Readiness at Carinthian academic

secondary schools”, has been conducted. The province Carinthia with about
600.000 inhabitants and all in all about 400 schools, including also smaller primary
schools, is the most southern country of Austria at the border to Slovenia and Italy.
23 secondary academic schools, among them three schools involved in the eLSA
project, were investigated.
The study was part of an academic course at the Klagenfurt University. Eight
students and prospective teachers, voluntarily participated in a preparational course
for a so called e-Education certificate. At present, future teachers in Austria still do
not get prepared for ICT integration during their academical training at university on
a regular basis. Offering this “e-Education certificate” at university level for future
teachers is still an exception. But it is most likely that it will be implemented in the
regular course scheme. Hopefully other universities in Austria will follow.

The first part of the study consisted of qualitative, structured interviews with the
headmasters about the e-Readiness of their schools. They were rather surprised to
hear that the new generation of teachers have not been properly educated for ICT
integration at university level.
After these interviews at the beginning of the investigations, online-questionnaires
on the technical basis of a user-friendly and field-tested PHP and MYSQL solution
for all teachers and all pupils have been developed. By the end of November 2007,
the collection of data via the web ended and yielded a rather disappointing response
rate of about 15%. About 200 of 1400 potential teachers and about 1700 students
from 23 schools, aged from 10-18 years, responded.

Little response is also a response, although not the expected. Austria is in the lucky
position to provide the population with reliable power supply and internet access,
contrary to other regions in the world where this is still not the case. Therefore,
technical reasons for the low response can be excluded. On the one hand, it might
be due to a rapidly growing saturation with online-questioning, on the other hand it
presumably is the lingering indifference and negative attitude towards technology in
education in general.

A rough overview and analysis of the data shows that (most of) the headmasters
• highly appreciate innovative teachers and estimate the current number at most
one or two handful
• do not recognize the big difference in the attitude towards ICT between younger
and older teachers and see little technological engagement of teachers of
average age
• permanently plan an improvement of the technical infrastructure

Almost all of the responding teachers use computers and the internet regularly.
Some reasons leading to a decreasing enthusiasm of teachers were:
• The computer amplifies the social differences among pupils.
• Technical problems often serve as excuses for not delivered assignments by the
pupils.
• There is too much expenditure in preparing digital exercises.
• Some teachers mentioned worries about the loss of hand writing.
• One main problem is still the insufficient computer equipment.

Further qualitative and quantitative analysis will most likely lead to a complete
realistic picture. They will give some insight into the attitudes and preconditions for
successful e-Learning in the investigated schools in a special region of Austria. For
the students, this empirical study was an interesting and important experience.

5 CONCLUSIONS

E-Learning is considered an appropriate tool for creating a rich learning

environment. The use of ICT in education makes it possible to organize educational
processes differently. In this paper some recommendations have been made.
A broad variety of approaches can be identified regarding the development of ICT in
secondary education. These approaches are related to the situation in a particular
institution with respect to the growth of ICT. They are in particular: emerging,
applying, integrating and transforming. Schools may induce progress in various
areas where the ICT-approach will have an impact. These areas are: Vision,
Philosophy of learning and pedagogy, development plans and policies, facilities and
resources, interpreting the curriculum, professional development of institution staff,
community involvement and assessment (cmp. Weert, 2002). That is the (gray)
theory of ICT implementation in schools.

The Austrian approach of introducing e-Learning can be denoted as pragmatic and

observant. Practically, many Austrian teachers are not born “transformers” and
rather victims of the proverb: You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Some promising ministerial e-Learning projects in combination with innovative
teachers and early adopters provide for a smooth digital evolution, not revolution,
and an (hopefully) improving learning culture in schools.

At all events, it would be desirable to dispose of more empirical and comparative

studies in order to evaluate seriously the particular progress of ICT integration in
many schools on an international level. There are much more indicators for
successful E-Learning at schools than the mere comparison of the technical
infrastructure. It is mainly about real classroom activities. It proves beyond doubt
that ICT integration is “a must, and not just a nice teaching tool to have”.
As long as these comparative studies are not carried out, Austria, among other
countries, can consider itself an (European) e-Learning champion…

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Biography

Peter Micheuz has been a teacher for Mathematics and

Informatics at the Alpen-Adria-Gymnasium Völkermarkt since
1979. In addition he has been in charge of teachers’ education
for informatics at the Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt since
2000.
His current research activities deal with informatics education in
Austrias secondary academic schools. As generalist and digital
immigrant he publishes in the domains of informatics education,
standards and e-Learning.

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