Country Specific Developments: The Norwegian Network for IT-Reach and Competence in Education: Semantic Web and Wireless Networks in Teacher Education

Many countries are implementing educational objectives aimed toward preparing citizens for the information society. The Norwegian teacher education is still in the relatively early stages of adopting ICT. Although there seem to be numerous shortcomings in teacher education , a number of relatively innovative projects are under way several places. This paper will present to innovative cases. ICT in teacher education shifts the emphasis away from lectures, where students passively take in information which they are expected to parrot back, towards more active ways of acquiring information. Experiments and new practices where ICT has been courageously applied to teacher education have been motivating and important experiences for the participants. A national web-site; LUNA develop dynamically generated results from projects and share the collective knowledge from innovative practice. The Network Is The Message "Internet is the fabric of our time " (Manuell Castells). Many countries are implementing educational objectives aimed toward preparing citizens for the information society. The pervasiveness of ICT is seen as both the genesis and potential facilitator of this goal. In this vision of cyber schools, the increased flow of information is associated with more autonomous learning environments, environments rich with ICT and people that support pupils/student learning. The Norwegian Research and Competence Network for IT in Education's (ITU) goals for its research projects are that they should contribute to raise the Norwegian educational system from the traditional, teacher-focused transfer of knowledge, towards more active, participatory, problem-oriented, project-based learning and work. Pedagogically, this points in the direction of a constructivist classroom and collaborative learning. At the same time, this also implies a reorganization, where schools leaders' development and teacher competencies are central. ITU's projects aim at optimization in the use of ICT. ICT must be adapted to the various learning situations, the teacher, context, pupil/student and content. Through its activities, ITU can contribute to the implementation and use of ICT in education, as well as to draw implications of ICT's incorporation in education, where ITU also focuses on multicultural and gender aspects. ITU's development projects are built on the results of research. PLUTO, which stands for Programme for Teacher Education, Technology and Change, is an initiative in the Research and Competence Network for IT in Education's (ITU) priority focus on innovative change in teacher education. The programme is anchored in The Ministry of Education's action plan "ICT in Norwegian Education Plan for 2000-2003" , where ICT in teacher education is one of six prioritized areas. In the Norwegian ICT action plan "ICT in Norwegian EducationPlan for 2000-2003" the aims for the period are formulated as follows: "ICT is to be used in education in order to contribute to better organization, greater skills and pedagogical competence within an education system that develops and exploits ICT as a subject. The potential of ICT is to be exploited within teaching and learning so that the skills requirements of the individual and the society as a whole can be met." (ICT in Norwegian Education Plan for 20002003:9)[1] The PLUTO-programme is anchored in the Ministry of Education's Action plan (2000-2003). The main goal of PLUTO is: To contribute to innovative restructuring of teacher education through the use of ICT. The project's aims are: To develop pedagogical and organizational models for the adaptation and accomplishment of study and learning activities in teacher education, where ICT makes up a substantial part. Although there seem to be numerous shortcomings in teacher education , a number of relatively innovative projects are under way several places. This paper will present to innovative cases. Case 1: LUNA Semantic web or beginning of a national learning community for teachers and teacher educators? LUNA is the Norwegian national teacher education web: A learning community for teacher educators (teachers and teacher students) for exchanging experiences and do network building. The collective information of the LUNA web-site is stored in an Proceedings of the International Conference on Computers in Education (ICCE’02) 0-7695-1509-6/02 $17.00 © 2002 IEEE