What will help you identify the areas that need to change in order to implement ICTs in your school?

The tool you use here is called a SWOT analysis. Many organisations, including corporations, universities, and businesses, use this approach to planning and development.

SWOT stands for:

S = Strengths
W= Weaknesses
O = Opportunities
T = Threats

Strengths and Weaknesses refer to things inside your organisation or school.

Examples of a Strength:

Staff are very advanced in their ICT knowledge and are able to use it to enhance instructional activities and to do administrative tasks. Management is organised and efficient in leading the process of introducing ICTs at the school. The school has good infrastructure. The buildings allow for good security arrangements, so that the risk of theft of ICT equipment at the school is minimised.

Examples of Weaknesses:

Staff are not equipped with ICT skills. There is not any clear planning at the school around using ICTs either for administration and management and/or instructional purposes. Staff have negative attitudes towards learning how to use ICTs for administrative and instructional purposes.

At your school, you should seek to build on your strengths and address your weaknesses. Planning will help you to achieve this. Planning is the basis of organisational improvement.

Opportunities and threats refer to things outside your school or organisation, in its context or environment. While you do not have direct control over these things, your plans need to take them into account.

An example of an Opportunity:

The Department of Education is willing to increase the budget for staff development at schools so that educators' ICT skills can be improved. A large corporation has donated 5 well-functioning computers to the school, after the school approached them for assistance.

An example of a Threat:

In the community in which the school is situated, there are high levels of violence and crime due to poor socio-economic circumstances and a general lack of employment in the area. This makes the school vulnerable to the possibility that ICTs may be stolen or that the buildings in which they are housed are vandalised.