Business Correspondence OA Pionyrska, Brno.

Transcription

1 Code of Case Study: CZ 004 PART I: INNOVATION DESCRIPTION Business Correspondence OA Pionyrska, Brno DESCRIPTIVE BACKGROUND INFORMATION The studied activity is Fictitious Business Correspondence in Foreign Language via Internet project at Obchodni akademie a Vyssi odborna skola obchodni (Business School and Higher Business School) in Brno, Pionyrska Street ( OA Pionyrska Brno OA (Business School) Pionyrska has a long tradition. It was founded in 1952, and over the whole period (both as 1st Economic School and Secondary School of Economics) it ranked among the biggest secondary schools in the region and in the whole republic. Thanks to its unique structure of the fields of specialization, the school has been a much-sought-for destination for applicants from all over Moravia. In 1996 newly opened Higher School of Education was added to its structure. At the moment there are 650 students. OA Pionyrska is a school, where ICT has been a part of both educational process and school management since ICT has been used in teaching specialized subjects, foreign languages and other subjects, too.

2 SUMMARY OF THE INNOVATION The subject of the research is Fictitious Business Correspondence in Foreign Language via Internet project. The principal of the project is preparation and processing of a complete set of business correspondence concerning one business case between two fictitious business partners from two different schools specialized in economics in the Czech Republic or abroad. The project was inspired by one of the offers, which were presented on the server of PedF UK (Pedagogical Faculty of Charles University) in Prague. The department of English language of OA Pionyrska took over the project and since then it has been carrying it out repeatedly. PART II: ANALYSIS MESO-LEVEL CONTEXT OF THE INNOVATION School Background OA Pionyrska, Brno is a state secondary school and higher school of specialized education, one of two schools of similar specialization in Brno. It contains two kinds of school: 1. Business School four-year full-time studies after 9th class of elementary school (students 15,16 years old) in the following specializations: Financial control and company management Economic informatics Foreign trade This kind of education is completed by final examination called maturita (or Aexam in English). 2. Higher Business School - three-year full-time studies for students who graduated from secondary school in the following specializations: Foreign trade Economical and legal activity The school is a contract school for practical training of students of Economical Faculty of Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry and Pedagogical Faculty of Masaryk University in Brno. Students of these schools are provided possibility of sitting in on a class and also guided teaching during the lessons. Students of Faculty of Informatics of Masaryk University in Brno do sitting in on a class and guided teaching, too. This faculty also has an agreement about supervising of final theses of students in the field of Informatics and Computing technology. The reason for the faculty interest has been the level of Informatics, Computing technology and development of information technologies there. 2

3 School Culture Last year a group of students continued their work on projects initialized by an international organization I*earn funded by means of Open society Fund. For these activities, OSF has equipped the school with a computer workplace connected to the Internet. The students of this school have become the leading team for publishing of an international calendar with English texts and illustrations with the theme of international cooperation of young people. The means of communication during the project was Internet. An example of the project Calendar Association of parents and friends of the Business school (SRPOA) is also very active. It has built or runs important super-standard equipment and services. Not long ago it took part in purchase of sports equipment for a new weight room, in setting up a specialized classroom for Accounting on PCs, and permanently sponsors connection to the Internet. Teac hing of modern ICT was possible to implement as a standard to study plans, and students have unlimited access to the Internet both during their studying and leisure-time activities. The school has an agreement of special co-operation with BVV a.s. (Brno Fairs Ltd.), with the Chamber of Commerce and important software companies in Brno MP Soft and BitSoft. These companies commonly provide good jobs for practical training of 3 rd class students of OA and for 2 nd and 3 rd class students of higher business school. Selected members of staff take part in functioning of the School Communication System of the town of Brno by annual training of new educators from schools. In the school there are licensed training centers both for the School Communication System and Internet and for communication software of 602software company, as well as for program product SAS (administration system for schools by MP Soft Brno company). 3

4 In school year students committee was restored. The aim was to achieve more extensive participation of students on day-to-day school functioning, to teach students negotiate and reach consensus and goals on organization-to-organization level. The Student committee of OA has become a member of Secondary Schools Clubs Association. School WebPage for students ICT in the School and Beyond Equipment of the school with computing technology goes back to Since 1995 school computer network based on three brand Dell and Compaq servers has been in operation. Alcatel 5th class structured cabling forms the network backbone. Extra segments on thin Ethernet cable lead to computer labs. There are two Informatics and Computing technology classrooms connected in a local network, one free access PC room (7 PCs is available for students during their free time daily from 7.00 AM to 5.00 PM) and computers in every teacher s office (one PC for 4 teachers), altogether about 70 PCs. A Typing on PC and Commercial Correspondence classroom and an Economic Exercises on PC classroom work outside the computer network. The network software infrastructure is based on proved Novell Netware - at the moment Netware 5. Lately Windows NT Server 4.0 and also OS Linux server used for experiments with on-line shopping have become a part of the school network. Since the beginning of the school year 2000/2001, the school network has been connected to the Internet by microwave connection at 128 Kb/s and Linux router. The server providing Internet services is a PC with Windows NT Server 4.0, where Internet services are allowed by 602proInternet, which is also the base of internal electronic post. The secondary Internet 4

5 server is based on above-mentioned Netware 5 and Border Manager. The school itself runs its own Internet domain oapion.cz and it is also a licensed training and consulting center for 602proInternet product. School Web presentation Their own address is granted for all network users - both for teachers and students. GroupWise 5.5 is available for advanced communication and teamwork. The following peripheral devices are available for teaching purposes: laser printer, CD-ROM, scanner. These software is at disposal: word processor, spreadsheet program, database, graphics, accounting and financial programs, training programs, educational programs, Internet browser, client, programs for preparation of presentations, encyclopedias on CDs. The educational programs are available for Economics and Informatics. The school uses multi-licensed software through The Center of Multi-licenses at House of Foreign Services of Ministry of Education Czech Republic, and software by Software602, Novell and Microsoft prevails. Almost all the teachers at school use ICT during their work. They use them for communication ( ), getting data from the Internet, preparation of le ssons (word processors, presentations) and also for speeding up the necessary school paper handling. Except for Informatics, ICT are usually used indirectly in the other subjects (computer lab is used to its capacity by Informatics lessons). Teachers set homework and tasks that make students use ICT during their work (at home, at the free access PC room). ICT Support Structure in the School The school management supports use of ICT in various ways. Besides the above-mentioned equipment, at first place there are organizational measures aiming at maximum exploitation of ICT in running the school and teaching individual subjects. 5

6 According to internal organizational directive, every member of school staff must use school information system within school LAN in compliance with his or her position (web notice board, , system of filing and grading students). For these purposes, all the teachers have been trained in necessary PC skills. Their preparation is annually upgraded for new versions of user applications. "I have taken part in Transpro Course dedicated to the project method. Then I have taken part in courses organized by the school management (Internet, ECDL)." [T] The school has its Plan of development of ICT at school in the period This plan is based on State information policy in education passed by the government in 2000, and is directed to 5 areas: infrastructure, program applications, server system and information system, pilot projects and information literacy. The development plan contains among others also a timetable of achievement of information literacy of teachers, which has several stages tied to the targets of the State information policy in education. In this area the school - also due to the lack of funding - relies upon its own possibilities and so far has been providing most of teachers training in ICT within the school. One employee took part in training of network administrators outside the school. Besides the specific plan of development of ICT in medium-length term, integration of ICT to the lessons is implemented into short-term plans for the particular school year, and particularly in accordance with overall emphasis on educational skills the aim is Concentrated production of teaching material, informational sources for students and exercises for realization and improving of educational skills, particularly sets of exercises, sample solutions, scenarios supporting project method, improving students level of communication skills, materials for practice of decision making and development of analysis and synthesis, and also Managing work with computing technology and selected information technologies by all school educators and administrators to the target level of the school year, and their use for finding new information, use in organizational work and pedagogical administrative with the aim to gradually use them in the lessons, and To consider a possibility of creating and use of subject web servers (information sources for groups of related subjects). To establish groups of authors for this activity, its content and a year plan including suggestions of possible use of presented information within departments. 6

7 Work in the free access PC room Besides using ICT in lessons, students can also use computers and Internet in a free access PC room (daily from 7.00 AM to 5.00 PM) for a symbolic charge of Kc 300 a year. Interest in work on PC significantly exceeds capacity, a problem are also out-of-date terminal devices (working places). Therefore a lot of students use for this project partly also computers outside the school. Everybody who has his or her own PC has been or is going to be connected to the Internet. Some parents of students themselves use computers connected to the Internet at work and their children help them. "I've been working on computer since the elementary school, we've got a computer at home, too." [S] Learning materials on the school Web site 7

8 There is a technical coordinator (TC) employed full time at school. Several teachers do it part time and another network administrator full time. MACRO-LEVEL CONTEXT OF THE INNOVATION National Policies The concept of the state information policy in education (SIPVZ, was passed by the government in the spring of The concept expects massive introduction of ICT at all elementary and secondary schools in the Czech Republic, both material backup and maintenance of information literacy of teachers. The realization and financing is planned till However, at the moment the unclear state of actual start of introduction of SIPVZ generally leads to the situation, when a lot of schools hesitate to invest more into ICT, and point out a vision of huge, centrally financed implementation of ICT at schools in the future. The particular plans of the team, which is in charge of the program of the introduction of Internet and multi-media at schools, play their role, too. The plans consider complete coverage of all schools by a general provider of Internet connection and hardware, which, in fact, disqualifies schools more advanced in ICT implementation from decision making in this area, and so decreases their motivation significantly. In short-term perspective thus introduction of the State information policy rather curbs development of ICT at school, although in medium-term perspective it should represent strong positive incentive to further implementation of ICT. Since January 1, 2001 regions as higher administrative territorial units (VÚ SC) have come into existence in the Czech Republic. The town of Brno belongs to South Moravian (former Brno) region and it is the seat of its regional office. Since this date formally, and at the moment effectively, secondary schools have passed from state authority to the authority of regions. Ministry of Education as the top administrative body of the state in education retains so called Regional pedagogical centers in regional capitals, which are to control further education of teachers, provide methodical guidance etc. Functioning and economic management of secondary schools is a responsibility of Regional office, a section of education. Constitution of regional system means unprecedented change of the structure and cutting-off the existing links in school system. Because of reorganization most of long-term projects (for example electronic communication between schools and school board in the town) is being held back, postponed or their solvers no longer work in school administration. So in short-term perspective these changes hinder introduction of ICT at schools. THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE INNOVATION Curriculum Content, Goals, and Assessment Fictitious Business Correspondence in Foreign Language via Internet Project is carried on in these subjects: Information technologies (IT), English language and Business correspondence. The curriculum is sufficiently flexible so that the project work can be included in it. The 8

9 project is scheduled for in the lessons during 3 rd or 4 th year of studies at school, always after completing commercial correspondence course (Students have already mastered commercial correspondence theory). Students of one or two classes usually take part in the project, and, of course, corresponding number of fictitious business partners from cooperating schools. The subject of the project is fictitious business correspondence covering complete business case carried out with the help of ICT. Let us introduce the synopsis of the project: Title: FICTITIOUS BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE VIA INTERNET PROJECT Participants: Duration: The project is designed for students of business schools and higher business schools. 6 weeks (preparation 1 week, project work 4 weeks, evaluation 1 week) Goal of the project: Practicing of special knowledge and skills connected to dealing with business correspondence in English via electronic mail while solving simulated business cases. Ways of work: Project timetable: Students work individually or in pairs. Except for sending leaflets, the whole project is carried out via electronic mail. All the letters have to meet requirements for formal business letter. Necessary documents, e.g. invoices etc., are only listed in the enclosures part of the letter, but they are not send. Project is double-sided, i.e. both partners are the suppliers of their product and buyers of the product of their business partner at the same time. 1 st week Arranging number of participants at partner schools and assigning business partners. 2 nd week Preparation of aleaflet for a certain product in English language. It must be A4 format and it must contain aname of the product, a copy and an address of the company (fictitious) and address. Next stage is sending leaflets by post to partner schools for attention of the supervising teacher. 3 rd week After receiving leaflets they send an enquiry for particular product (it must contain inquiry about price, payment and delivery terms, transportation, possible discounts and fictitious address of the company) Next is a reply to the enquiry an offer (it must contain price, payment and delivery terms, way of transport, conditions of a discount) 4 th week 1. Order following previous correspondence 2. Confirmation of the order 3. Advice of dispatch 9

10 5 th week 1. Complaint about something wrong with the delivery (e.g. faulty goods, damage, delay) and a demand for discount. 2. Positive settlement of the complaint 6 th week Handing in printed documents concerning the business case. Each participant gives his or her supervising teacher 2 files containing the following: 1. A page with his or her name, name of his or her business partner and title of the business case. 2. A copy of the leaflet. 3. An enquiry. 4. An offer. 5. An order. 6. Confirmation of an order. 7. Advice of dispatch. 8. A complaint. 9. Settlement of a complaint. 10. Brief evaluation of the project and its benefit from the point of view of the student in Czech language, this is not a part of mark, it s used only for the purposes of appraisal of effectiveness of the project. Evaluation of completing individual business cases done by a teacher this can be used as a part of student s mark. Exchange of information about effectiveness of the project between teachers. An introduction of the project presentation at ESP 2001 Conference 10

11 Teacher Practices and Outcomes Cooperation of teachers at school is generally very good. As far as this particular project concerns, each year teachers who teach the subject in which the project is mainly done form a group, and this group agrees upon and coordinates further collaboration. Typically both experienced and less experienced teachers of different subjects (English language, ICT, Commercial correspondence) work together. "We work together with my colleague, who is working on the project in another class, and we also collaborate with the other colleagues, who worked on the project before - experience." [T] Generally speaking, the roles of teacher during the project vary a lot, they depend on the situation - he or she acts as a seeker for a partner school, instructor, organizer, assistant, coordinator, guarantee and evaluator. The whole project is at the same time based mostly on independent work of students, the teacher motivates them, introduces the project, methods of solution and the timetable, and further on just coordinates and finally evaluates the work. Working on the project I. The results of the project serve teachers as another criteria for evaluation of students. A relative advantage (and at the same time disadvantage) is, that no special training of teachers is needed for this project. According to teachers, no special course is necessary, although some teachers admit, that their participation in courses concentrating on use of ICT in the lessons and project method helped them in their work. When there are any problems with ICT, help of network administrator is available for them. The biggest share in making the realization of the project possible have teachers of Informatics and English language. "I've played the key role together with a colleague of mine. Substantial is also the partner at the other school." [T]: Informatics teacher usually 11

12 allows some time for the project at the beginning of the lesson, when students edit, receive and send letters. Also English teacher devotes part of the lesson to the proje ct. There students formulate and write their letters in English. Both teachers give advice to students during their work when they need it. The English teacher does final check and evaluation at the end of the project. Students themselves say that teachers are helpful not only during the project, but also in normal lessons and in other subjects, and they can t see any difference between the approach of teachers involved in the project and those who are not involved. Work on the project brings the teachers deeper understanding of students capability, their own professional growth in the area of project method, recognition by their colleagues and superiors, contact with partner schools, enrichment of the lessons and above all the sense of meaningful work. Student Practices and Outcomes Students work on the project in the lessons of English language, Information technologies (always only a part of the lesson), and they carry out the substantial part of work as homework at home or in a free access PC room. This perfects their ability to plan their work independently and finish it by the deadline, while they often have to cope with unusual situations happening in real life (business partner complains about non-delivery of goods, inferior quality, post doesn t deliver the letter, etc. "My team has sent the advertisement for the goods, but unfortunately we haven't received the answer. However, we received advertisements." [T] Teamwork supports organizational skills and increases possibility of self-realization. Work on the project leads not only to consolidation of knowledge gained in classic lessons, but above all to creation of very particular, objectively applicable practical skills. High proportion of student creativity is a positive feature, too. Most students say that they enjoy working on the project, which teachers also confirm, when they can see their bigger endeavor. "The work on the project is new for me and it's more fun comparing to other lessons." [S] More then ever, both individual and team work of students is employed during the work on the project. The project gives students a base for spontaneous evaluation and self-evaluation, in contrast to normal lessons none of the students have to feel incapable and inferior, which positively influences their motivation and school atmosphere. Thanks to the project, the students who are better at ICT skills are valued more among the schoolmates, too. 12

13 Working on the project II. Kinds of Technology and Ways They are Used Use of ICT in the project was versatile and quite fundamental. The whole life cycle of business correspondence is done with the help of ICT. Knowledge and ability to work with word processor applied above all when students were formulating and writing individual business letters (an offer, order...). The use of word processor brings the possibility (in fact necessity) to use spelling checker and tools for grammar checking of the English text. Students also used graphics editors for their preparation of graphic part of offers, leaflets and other promotional materials. Complete marketing presentations were created also in presentation software (PowerPoint type). Since some teams needed to include pictures from paper copies in their documents, they had to use scanner and relevant software. When there was a more extensive price list, students pasted objects in their documents - parts of charts created in spreadsheet program. Printouts of the above-mentioned materials were also a part of evaluated output, so a color inkjet printer was used and for the roughs or black-and-white outputs a black-and-white laser printer as well. Nevertheless, the substance of the project was business correspondence, i.e. transfer of created documents via electronic mail. So one of the necessary tasks was to send and receive electronic mail containing besides the plain text also attachments in various formats (.doc,.ppt, graphic formats, xls). 13

14 Problems and Solutions Related to the Innovation The first and basic problem was lack of interest at potential partner schools in cooperation on the project, "I'd be glad if we could manage to establish a good partnership (international as well), that could be used during the further co-operation." [PS] The project has sense only if it really works over a distance. It means that finding a partner school is essential. In the end a partner school OA Liberec got engaged this year. If a foreign school had been found, the situation would have been even better, because at least the motivation of students to communicate in foreign language would have increased. Another problem is considerable out datedness of technical equipment at school, i.e. insufficient performance of workstations, where the majority of work was done. This led to limitation of scale of the used program tools, especia lly for work with graphics or multimedia. This was also a reason why a lot of students worked on the project on computers outside the school (at home, at their parents work, etc.) some students were also complaining about the lack of high quality software in some areas (e.g. graphics). Some problems arise from the substance of teamwork and project work. Some students tend to hide behind the teamwork. As for the final evaluation by their teacher, more capable students are not always convinced that the evaluation of individuals is (due to the fact that they work in teams) very accurate. "I think the work isn t accurately evaluated according to real knowledge, because we work in ateam, and somebody can be weaker and somebody better, and there's only one result. It would be better if we worked on the project individually." [S] Sustainability The case doesn t show any characteristics, which would mean that it is unique and unrepeatable. On the contrary, thanks to the fact that it enriches and links to classic educational part of subject included in the long-term curriculum of this specialization, it is an ideal project designed for periodical repetition every year, if needed even twice as it was managed last year. Transferability Even under the current conditions the case can be easily transferred to other secondary schools with similar specialization, if need be also to grammar schools (gymnazium), where some economic subjects and/or administrative technique subjects are taught. Nevertheless the possibility of transfer is limited by several basic requirements, which must be met by participants in such a project. Among them it is particularly availability of Internet connection (electronic mail via modem is enough), a possibility to use computers outside the lessons is almost necessary, and at least partial cooperation of (information literate) English and related economics subjects teachers is needed. Unfortunately, these conditions are not common at similar schools, which showed itself during difficult period of looking for partners, which took part in the project together with OA Pionyrska. If the implementation of the State information policy in education is successful, the starting conditions for similar projects should improve within several years to the sufficient level - 14

15 both in technical equipment including penetration of the Internet to schools and in information literacy of teachers of all subjects. In Prague Tomas Pitner Masaryk University Brno Frantisek Vistein Charles University Prague 15

16 Appendix VIDEO SEQUENCES Video sequences taken at school during the observation. Available only on Internet at 1. The surroundings of the OA Pionyrska 2. In the computer lab working on the project I. 3. In the computer lab working on the project II. GLOSSARY Zakladni skola (ZS). Basic standard school in the Czech education system. It has 9 grades and is designed for the students aged from 6 to 15 years. Lower level of the ZS. The first part of the study program at the ZS. Designed for younger students (aged 6-11) and has 5 grades. It may be found similar to the English Primary School. Higher level of the ZS. The second part of the study program at the ZS. Designed for older students (aged 12-15) and has 4 grades. It may be found similar to the English Lower Secondary School. Gymnazium. A Grammar school (or High school) with 4 grades for the students aged 16 to 19 years. Professional school. A specialized secondary school (or High school) with 4 grades for the students aged 16 to 19 years. Besides the general compulsory subjects, also specialized subjects are taught here. Higher business School. It represents higher education outside university system. It s open to applicants who successfully past the leaving exam at secondary school (so called maturita or A exam). It s similar to "Fachhochschule" in Germany. Higher administrative territoria l unit (VÚ SC, region). According to a new administrative arrangement of the Czech Republic it is the second level of territorial autonomy (the first and the smallest is a town or a village). In the head of the region there is a "hetman" chosen by elected Municipal Corporation. Kc. Koruna (Czech Crown) Czech local currency. In December 2000 approx. $ 1 ~ Kc 38. Czech system of evaluation in education. In the Czech Republic there are five numeric marks expressing different grades (1-5). 1 stands for outstanding performance and 5 stands for fail. 16