Research into Educational Applications of Information Technologies

This working group provides a forum to identify issues and priorities for research and to map research policies arising from the differing cultures in IFIP Member countries.

Our aims are ...

  • Identification of research needs and topics in the field of education
  • Improvement of research approaches and methods
  • Production of synthesis of research on major topics in the field
  • Dissemination of research, in partnership with educational research communities.

 

Vale Dr. Andrew Fluck

4 July 2024

 

It is with much sadness we say goodbye to our collaborator, mentor and long time friend in TC3 and particularly WG3.3. Andrew wanted to maximise the benefits of information and communication technology (ICT) and minimise the harms. To this end he had undertaken world class research and development on using computers for educating children with special needs, e-assessment to transform curricula, and the improvement of learning outcomes by impact factors greater than 3.0. Andrew trained as a teacher in Bristol, England, then spent 2 years working in Afikpo, Nigeria. Returning to the UK, he taught in a high school, then became director of an advisory centre on computers for children with special needs. His family then moved to Australia, where he taught computer science before joining the University of Tasmania. Over the next 25 years, he taught and researched information technology education, authoring many academic papers. His PhD thesis was one of the most popular in the university library. He was Deputy Editor of the journal Education and Information Technologies. Andrew joined the IFIP Discipline Group for Quantum Computing in 2022. He was a passionate advocate for the inclusion of quantum computing programming in senior secondary schools. He was also mindful of the promises and threats of quantum communication systems. Andrew’s funded research investigated the transformative use of computers to teach integral calculus, quantum mechanics in primary schools, and e-exams, where students take their own computers into the exam hall. He was chair of Working Group 3.3 (research into educational applications of information technologies) for IFIP/UNESCO from 2016 to 2019 and was given the IFIP Service Award in 2019. Within Australia, he was a member of the ICT Educator’s Committee of the Australian Computer Society from 2017 to 2021. During this time, he led a national survey of digital technologies teaching. Since retiring, he has remained academically engaged, with several papers published and a book editorship. Outside academia, Andrew was an avid archer (preferring the longbow), continental archery judge and director of Archery Australia. He was awarded the silver medal in the Archery Australia 2017 Club Challenge (Veteran Male Longbow) and was a Level 1 archery coach.