Home ICT is important

Seventy per cent of Grade 3 (8 year olds) interviewed in the project identified an older member of their family as their prime source of learning how to use computers. 

By Grade 5 this had dropped to 50%, but the figure for learning at someone's (own, friends, peers, extended family...- especially grandparents) home is still approximately 80%. The implication is that ICT at home represents a substantial learning opportunity.

Similarly teachers who participated in the 2003 eMagine summer school report that taking home a computer at the end of the course was a significant factor in their progress in using ICT in the classes at school during 2003.

In terms of the action research findings (and from inschool interviews to a greater or lesser extent) the following factors contribute to learning with the ICT at home (as well as elsewhere)

• Being able to access a computer at home provide more opportunity (flexible access)
• The family provides a supporting network for learning through its members, extended family, friends, visitors and family contacts
• The family provides social support for learning which is important to members of a caring profession
• Having ICT at homes enables better time management: more time, flexible time, JIT...
• Being able to focus on learning to use ICT in a supportive and consistent environment shortens the learning cycle
• Having more control over resources creates part of the conditions necessary for self managed learning leading to 
• Gaining additional experience more rapidly leads to the acquisition of 
  • spontaneous concepts (Vygotsky)
  • maturing concepts: abstract + spontaneous
• The home situation will include members at a range of stages of development in relation to the use of ICT. Thus family members might provide a number of complementary roles
  • co learners: validating experience, shared experience, intuitive
  • tutors: operating knowledge/trouble shooting
  • even mentors...
• The family's collective working knowledge
  • is greater than any members individual working knowledge
  • is available (usually at short notice) for operating the ICT  and troubleshooting problems that arise
• Since the ICT at home is the family's it is also their responsibility leading to learning to about the  limitations ICT and the demands of managing it

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