Report Sintesi Finalndia

National Report Finland

PATCH-WORLd – PArents and CHildren Working, ORganising and Learning together 135285-LLP-1-2007-1-IT-KA3-KA3MP Grant Agreement 2007- 3620/001-001 This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein

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General survey on the impact of the new technologies on family life in Finland 1. General use of ICT in the family 62,7% Of the Finnish population use Internet. Internet is used at least once a week by 75%.The use of Internet has spread to all areas of communication and is going to replace the time spent on using traditional media. Most popular online activities of Internet users in Finland - in the spring of 2006 - (% of Internet users) were: e-mail 87%, finding information on products and services 87%, Internet banking 81%, finding information regarding travelling and accommodation 68%, reading online magazines 60%. (Oksman Virpi: Children and teenagers' relationship with the new media and technology, 2000.) On the basis of the data given, young people use information technology mainly at home as consumers just for entertaining purposes. No major differences were observed in the use of information technology between boys and girls but network communication was mainly characteristic of girls whereas computer games interested the boys more. The home proved to be an important place for informal learning about information technology, too. The study also analysed the factors affecting the development of young people to becoming experts in information technology. Signs of digital generation gaps related to information technology turned up between parents and children. The biggest inequality among young people was caused by the lack of broadband access in one out of five families, even today. The opportunity to use information technology outside their homes, e.g. as an optional school subject, didn’t really compensate the opportunity to use information technology at home. (Lahtinen Hannu:The young and information technology - the mutual relations and how to measure them, 2007) 2. Family communication and relationships The ways of communication in families have changed a lot during the past few years.

In the family there are big differences as regards the need to

communicate. Older kids are much more interested in their friends.

It´s

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important for grandparents and parents to get closer to the kids by using new technologies. Kids would rather send messages than make a call to their parents on their mobile phones. They don´t want their friends to notice that they called their parents.( Komu Tommi, 2004) Since the autumn of 2000 the Family Portal-project has explored ways to increase communication and information sharing between family members, and how to organize family activities with the help of new communication technologies. As well, the project identifies and promotes the specific needs of family members, especially those associated with education, aging and gender. The Family Portal-project pursued these goals by gathering information about recent changes in family communication and uses this information to develop human-centred communication technologies for families. The Family Portalproject's multidisciplinary team combined psychology, communication and computer science researchers who work in close cooperation with Sonera (TeliaSonera Finland Oyj), a major Finnish telecommunications company. The first year of the project produced a report concerning the use of communication technology in the daily life of Finnish families. Fifty-seven Finnish families were interviewed about their experiences and perceived needs regarding

communication

technology

in

family

communication,

including

personal computers, the Internet and mobile phones. While the participants in general expressed positive experiences in using IT technology in family communication, the report indicated a strong interest in developing more family-oriented

communication

technologies.

Mothers

were

particularly

concerned about family issues and perspectives in the development of new technologies. The families in the survey represent a highly educated and motivated group who enjoy access to a wide range of different communication technologies.

(Family

portal

–project

by

researcher

Latvala

Juha-Matti,

University of Jyväskylä, 2004) The use of mobile communication devices is becoming increasingly common among children and teenagers throughout the world. This does not mean, however, that the development would lead to a universal communication culture for children and teenagers: usage varies extensively depending on factors such as the services and applications on offer and the traditional models of

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socialisation in the countries. The social innovations that children and teenagers themselves

produce

when

adopting

new

communication

devices

are

a

significant factor in the variation. Awareness of these variations and the ability to rapidly react to the needs that may be emerging within the youngest user groups of communication devices is clearly important. Comparable material assessing the changes and transitions in the mobile communication of children and teenagers is still rare elsewhere in the world. ( eFinland, Researcher in charge

of

the

project,

Ms.

Virpi

Oksman

University of Tampere, Department of Information Studies,2003)

3. Gaming and recreation The Finnish game industry is often considered to be too dependent on mobility, but actually this is not the case. Success stories such as Max Payne, Flat Out and Habbo Hotel prove that there is a wide range of alternatives in PC and console games as well. Success in the traditional game market combined with mobile know-how ensures that the Finnish game industry is also well-positioned to answer the challenge posed by multiplatform games in the future. International research shows that the creative economy is going to challenge the traditional industrial economy in the Western world, and the game industry is the most rapidly growing sector of the creative economy. In the case of Finland, this structural change has clearly been recognised, and measures have been taken to adapt to the new situation. The rise of the game industry in Finland is not a coincidence – it is the result of continuous investment in the sector. The future seems bright. Nevertheless, investments are still important, considering the future of the game industry. Both the industry and the public sector

have

the

will,

know-how

and

resources

to

implement

these

investments.(Centre of Game, Business, Research and Development, 2006)

4. Education

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In the spring of 2003, the communication skills of ninth-formers in 100 Finnishspeaking and 11 Swedish-speaking comprehensive schools were evaluated. The sample schools were chosen from different local government clusters, provinces and objective areas of the European Community’s Structural Funds. A total of 3,898 students took part in the evaluation. All participants filled in a questionnaire and 1,220 students chosen from the sample group took a communication test. Background information was also collected from principals and teachers. A total of 320 teachers of different subjects filled in a questionnaire. Communication was included in the curriculum of almost half of the sample schools, and to nearly the same extent in the curriculum subjects of the mother tongue and literature. Seven per cent of the schools had a separate curriculum for communication education. The questionnaire revealed that almost all teachers taught communication as part of their subject teaching. Slightly over one fifth of the teachers gave separate lessons on communication education and slightly more than one fourth taught communication as an optional subject. As regards recreational activities, using the library and reading fiction, newspapers and magazines had a positive impact on skills. Students with an email address and an opportunity to use the Internet in their free time outperformed those without them in all areas. Students who also spent a lot of time searching for information on the Internet, web-browsing or chats ranked best in the area of collecting information. Playing computer games, however, had a negative impact on results. IT is the most commonly used tool for collecting information in schools. The use of word processing programmes and e-mail, as well as editing images, came next. The students who had used the Internet a lot in searching for information at school got better marks in all sections compared with those who used it less frequently. 17% of the teachers reported that they used IT in teaching daily, while 36% used it weekly and 38% less frequently. Nine per cent of the teachers never use IT or use it extremely rarely. (Uusitalo Eira: Communication skills of ninth-formers in comprehensive school,National board of Education 2004) 5. Security and safety

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At school pupils get directions from teachers on how to act in Internet communications: what information you can give, how to find information safely, what is unethical and so on. They are also warned about bullying on Internet. In 2005 a Finnish association called “Pelastakaa lapset ry” arranged a survey dealing with safety of Internet. They asked children of age 4-12 about how often they use Internet, which pages they visit, do the parents know with whom they chat, etc. Results show that children have friends in Internet, including unknown friends. Most of the kids sometimes visit pages which

frightened

them. Parents claim that they discuss the Internet with the children, but they don´t know all the pages they visit or with whom they chat. Conclusions were that parents should spend more time with their kids and discuss the use of Internet more often. The computers are supposed to be in rooms where you can check your children´s doings. (Article 2005, Association of Pelastakaa Lapset)

6. Newsletter Patchworld. Issue I In Finland schoolchildren use computers a lot at home, less at school. “Young people share, apply and produce media content for themselves and for their peers, instead of being passive consumers of media”, Suvi Tuominen, a designer of juvenile work in the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, wrote in her article of a visiting author in Helsingin Sanomat, the leading Finnish newspaper July 12, 2008. There are computers in the homes of almost all 10 – 17-year-old children, according to statistics. Nine out of 10 children also have Internet access. Despite that fact, parents know little about what their children do on the Internet. Neither do parents keep tabs on their online pursuits, argues Suvi Tuominen. Parents do not know the web services their children mostly use, where they communicate and publish.

The Internet has a lot of influence on children’s lives at home

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IRC-galleria.net has 489,515 registered users (12-7- 2008), and the average age of users is 20, 1. Habbo Hotel in Finland has about 1,7 million visitors a month. The average age of visitors in Habbo Hotel is lower than in IRCgalleria.net. For comparison, there are about 500,000 teenagers in the age of 13 – 19 in Finland. Children in Finland learn together at comprehensive schools for 9 years. A recent doctoral thesis revealed that compared to the total time of these nine school years, children are at their computers for some 4,5 years in total outside school. The amount of what they adopt from the Internet must be quite big. Computers play a minor role in schools There are lots of computers in this country, but very little use of them is made for educational purposes. This is one result of a recent SITES research about the role of computers in Finnish schools. Finland belongs to the countries that have invested big sums of money in computers and in networking, but as teaching methods have not changed at all over the years, the advantages of computers were not used in accordance with the money spent on them. The capacity of computers is not utilized, as only few teachers have taken them into real educational use. The international

SITES research was performed in 19 countries in the year

2006. More than 9,000 schools and 35,000 teachers research.

were involved in the

The national study was coordinated by the university of Jyväskylä.

311 Comprehensive schools (grades 7-9) and 1,078 teachers of mathematics and science were involved in the research.

All these schools were able to

provide their students with computers and with data connections. The situation was not bad in other countries either. Finland belonged to eight out of 19 countries where pupils had the most devices per student. However, there were big differences between schools. The capacity of educational ICT increased a lot between 1998 and 2006 in Finland and in seven other countries. It did not mean that utilization of computers increased correspondingly. It was estimated that perhaps one third of students of the 8th grade used ICT in social subjects, in foreign language and the mother tongue classes.

Only

nine percent of math teachers and 15 percent of science teachers used ICT in their lessons once a week or more often. More than half the math teachers and

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about 40 percent of the science teachers had never used ICT in teaching 8th grade students. Teachers prefer traditional teaching methods instead of using ICT Teachers in Finland seem less inclined to adopt new technologies than their colleagues in Singapore, Hongkong or Canada. On the international level they took about an average position. It seems that traditional teaching methods are preferred by the Finnish teachers more than in the countries that were most advanced in educational ICT. The headmasters of the schools are the key persons in the development of computerization, the research states. - If we want to increase the use of ICT in education, it is important to proceed with the factors of the school level, says Marja Kankaanranta from the Research Institute of Education. - Increasing the number of computers can have more impact only after these factors have been apprehended, she concludes. Two surveys in Finland Teachers in Finland usually claim to have positive attitudes towards computers and to open and distant learning. Despite of that, most of them contribute only a little or nothing to ODL in their own teaching.

This contradiction is mostly

explained by making some general excuses as to why it is not possible to take ODL into use in one’s teaching. These general arguments were investigated in the Webropol interviews made by OPEKO, the National Center for Professional Development in Education, in cooperation with Euneos Corp. The results of this investigation were stated in the summary by Johanna Muurimäki from OPEKO and are included in the materials of Bridging Insula Europae. A second survey was made by Euneos in which the focus group of Finnish teachers expressed their opinions about the use of computers in their own teaching and about the situation of open and distant learning (ODL) in their schools. Teachers were given the opportunity to tell more about their individual thoughts concerning ODL. They were asked what kind of measures would motivate them in the best way in taking ODL into use. Barriers and limitations

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Teachers who had more experience in using computers in their teaching were also able to see that curricula also provided opportunities to use ODL, whereas beginners did not realize that. The more active teachers see systematic promotion, enthusiasm of students and internationalization of the school as motivating factors, and they feel the lack of these things more urgently, whereas others emphasize items such as development of materials and facilities and teacher-in-service training. Teachers who are less active in using computers more often also were of the opinion that the growth of ODL will be slow, or ODL will stay as it is and not grow any further. The worst barriers for introducing ODL in schools seem to be psychological and social ones in the first place. Science, didactics of online and live online teaching in this case, experience a long delay compared to scientifictechnological development. Teachers are offered more and more facilities of educational ICT, but this abundance of new means does not bring us new brains, unfortunately.

Utopia Students and pupils work on their everyday experiences and learn to see school subjects in the context of real life. Both teachers and students can give full flow to their creativeness, which gives rise to innovations. Working together with peers

intensifies

collaboration.

There

are

both

asynchronous

activities

regardless of time and place and contacts strictly bound to the time and place, on the other hand, such as live online sessions. Students and pupils learn competences, more than abstract subjects. They feel stronger as their competences grow better, and they can realize it by themselves, even with a less strict control system of notes. This leads to a rise of enthusiasm and engagement on both sides. Teachers have a better use for the unproductive time they have used for controlling students. Teachers coach their students and pupils, and let them set new and more demanding goals for themselves. Teachers are there to help students to construct their knowledge content and improve their skills. Evaluation is more versatile as there is more variety in products of students. Products are recorded and saved in digital portfolios of students. Sustainable competences of students are certified in documents such as EuroPass. Intercultural knowledge of students increases in educational

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collaboration across borders. Better self-confidence and self-respect lead to human

growth.(An

extract

from

Ilpo

Halonen’s

blog,

http://daf.eduprojects.net/blog/ , July 12, 2008)

Newsletter Patchworld. Issue II

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IThe project work of Patch-World is particularly important now that there is a growing concern about the safety of the Internet. This is what Mr. Fabrizio Boldrini, the director of Villa Montesca institute Italy, stated in the 2nd meeting of the project partners of Patch-Wolrd in Karvia, Finland, on Monday, October 6 2008.

-

The children and the adolescents may come across the most dangerous kind of people and come at web sites that are harmful for them, Mr Boldrini said.

-

There should more togetherness of children and their parents when it comes to the use of the Internet, the project partners from nine European countries concluded unanimously in their discussions about the role of families as regards the Internet. A great number of parents in Karvia started to participate in the Patch-World

project as early as in April 2008. They were highly interested in promoting the chances of cooperation between schoolchildren and their parents using web technologies. The interviews of families were recorded on video in May 2008. During the school holidays in June-July research was made about the current situation in families concerning the use of ICT in Finland. After schools started again in the middle of August 2008, there were discussions about the topics of Patch-World for parents in the local primary Kantti school where Mrs Marjo Yliluoma, the local teacher involved in PatchWorld, chaired the meeting of parents. Besides, there were so called “quarters of an hour for parents” were the parents participating in Patch-World were able to express their opinions and suggestions. The small municipality of Karvia (2786 inhabitants) was involved, to a great extent, in the preparation and realization of the 2nd meeting of the Patch-World

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project October 5-7, 2008. The meeting was held in the free time center of Karvia municipality, not far from the local Kantti school, where the participants of the meeting also visited. On Sunday, the day of arrival, the attendants of the meeting visited the Pohjankangas natural park, and they enjoyed an outdoor lunch

made

of

local

food

and

arranged

by

local

organizations.

The

representatives of Karvia municipality greeted the participants of the meeting and offered them a dinner in Loma-Raiso hotel in Karvia on Sunday evening. The results of the interviews in the countries of the project partners were presented and discussed by the partners on Monday October 6, 2008. The meeting continued on Tuesday, October 7, and the results of the research were further analyzed. The next steps of the project were discussed and decisions were made about the future tasks of the partners, then. The 2nd meeting of the Patch-World project took place in Karvia only 50 km away from Kauhajoki, the place where the tragic school shootings occurred just recently, on September 23, 2008. The sad coincidence emphasized the need of work done by the Patch-World project. This fact may also have incited the local press to report quite a lot on Karvia meeting.

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