Twenty-first-century educational practice: research, evidence and knowledge management - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 185

Teacher quality is essential for student achievement. In this modern era of
global economic competitiveness, what teachers know and do to improve
student achievement is of critical importance for maintaining America's eco-
nomic strength.'
(US Department for Education 2006: 1)
Teacher education is the manufacturing machine for the Chinese education
undertaking.
(China Education and Research Network 2000: 1)
However, in these reports from many countries little analysis is undertaken of
how teacher quality is to be improved. Research in the UK undertaken by the Gen-
eral Teaching Council in England (GTCE 2007, 2006; Bolam and Weindling 2006)
pinpoints collaboration and networking as key features of effective teacher devel-
opment - both of which can be supported in a variety of ways through a national
e-infrastructure and acknowledgement of the role of knowledge management in the
twenty-first century.
Specifically missing from these reports is how the research and evidence base
underpinning practice is built by research producers and accessed by research users.
There are some notable exceptions and the OECD reviews (2003) which include
examination of the research evidence base underpinning practice provide some detail
of specific initiatives in different countries.
A number of national e-communications tools and environments can be identi-
fied, such as the Scottish Glow project, the Australian Ultranet project, the European
Schoolnet (Leask and Younie 2001), the Regional Broadband consortia in the UK, the
various e-communication tools used in universities (Blackboard; WebCT), as well as
the e-communication tools used by ministries of education and subject associations.
For the most part these tools and ways of working are either not focused on sharing
and building research-based knowledge or are only available for closed communities
and fail to connect up the various research producers and users in any systematic
way. This latter point applies particularly to the free e-tools on the Internet - without
some formal coordination these do not provide the kind of e-infrastructure to sup-
port research-based educational practice.
These developments, it is argued, while worthy enough within their own context,
are by their disparate and unconnected nature not contributing effectively to develop-
ing 'education as a knowledge industry' and to the challenge of building evidence-
based practice and providing access to this to education practitioners and research users.
E-systems and knowledge management (KM) tools now have a key role to play
in cost-effective knowledge transfer in the private sector and in branches of the pub-
lic sector outside education (Henley 2008a, 2008b; IDeA 2008, 2009; Collison and
Parcell 2006; and Davenport and Prusak 1998). Yet, in the reports on the quality
of education mentioned earlier, which identify the quality of teaching and teacher
education as critical to improving quality outcomes, there is little recognition of the
opportunities provided through e-systems to support these desired changes. The qual-
ity and content of the professional knowledge base underpinning educational practice