The impact of long-term ICT projects. Chandler Page 1 of 10 THE IMPACT OF LONG-TERM ICT PROJECTS ON STUDENT ATTITUDES AND CAPABILITIES Paul D. Chandler Australian Catholic University Abstract This study draws on pre- and post-surveys of 574 upper primary students who engaged in intensive work over two school terms to produce a multimodal narrative using desktop animation software. It was thought that factors such as general ability with computers, interest in composing stories and persistence with long-term projects might be influences of successful completion or higher quality products. Over the course of the project, there is evidence of student growth in the ICT-related skills as well as enjoyment and capacity with story composition. However, concerns remain over the pedagogy of extended project work and the impact of this on student learning in the affective domain. The impact of these findings for classroom teaching and the planning of long-term ICT projects are discussed. Introduction Over a period of three years (2009-2011), the 3D multimodal authoring pedagogy (3DMAP) project 1 engaged over 1200 students from 48 level five and six classes across five Australian states in the construction of a 3D multimodal narratives – a sort of desktop-equivalent to live-action filmmaking. Students undertook two units of work, each with a minimum of 20 hours of engagement, using the software Kahootz (Maggs, 2008). Details of the program have been described elsewhere (Chandler, O’Brien, & Unsworth, 2009, 2010; Chandler, 2014/forthcoming), but notably whilst it was clearly located as a literacy project for the students (and multimodal semiotics in particular), it would not have been possible except for intensive engagement with Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The departure point for the present investigation occurred as the researchers reflected on the second year of the project, as the engagement with classes in the final year was being planned. Throughout the first years, there were some difficulties with students presenting completed work. Some of that was attributable to intrinsic difficulties with the software (resulting in ‘lost’ or corrupted files), but to what extent such problems were partly or wholly a manifestation of a broader problem (i.e., students’ work habits or file management practices) was unclear. Certainly, a 20 hour unit of work will reveal chinks in the armour of work practices that a one or two hour task would not, and most likely cause greater distress to the student concerned. But equally we wondered about students’ familiarity with extended project work (whether involving ICT or not) – is, for instance, maintaining focus and application to projects something that they are used to doing? And furthermore, do students actually like writing stories or enjoy using computers to be creative: could it be that some of the problems were motivational? Broadly, the concerns, then, are the extent to which affective dimensions of student learning and allied areas of knowledge are impacted by, and themselves impact on, student performance in 3D multimodal authoring tasks. This concern sets the background for the present investigation and which have broader implications. Across the world, literacy is being reconceptualised in response to our increasingly digital, multimodal information and communication world (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2013; England Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 1999; Singapore Ministry of Education, 2010). The 3DMAP project is but one instance of cutting-edge literacy projects which require intensive engagement with ICT in Australia alone (e.g., Ryan, Scott, & Walsh, 2010; Walsh, 2011). Within the use of the term by Grant (2011), the 3DMAP project was also an example of project-based 1 The Australian Research Council Linkage Project “Teaching effective 3D authoring in the middle school years: multimedia grammatical design and multimedia authoring pedagogy” (LP0883563) was funded for 2009-2011. The Chief Investigators were Prof. L. Unsworth (Australian Catholic University) and Dr A. Thomas (University of Tasmania), in partnership with, and also funded by, the Australian Children’s Television Foundation.