Abstract:
The United Nations launched their 'Decade for Sustainable Development', which
directly relates to Education for Sustainable Development, a new environmental
management system for schools. The formal education process provides a key testing
ground for the development of new Infori-nation and Communication Technology
(ICT) tools designed to raise environmental awareness. Several types of purpose
designed ICT tool are available, but there is a distinct lack of empirical research into
their design and effectiveness. Strategic objectives performance takes the central role
in the work reported here. A number of strategic objectives of the use of ICT tools
were identified; learning, education, trust, motivation, commitment, inclusion, justice
and openness. A number of prc-existing software platforms, each specifically
designed to provide environmental education and to raise awareness specifically
focussing on issues surrounding water were selected and forinally evaluated under
controlled conditions with small groups of evaluators. The respondents involved in
this investigation included the developers of the tools thernselves, school and
postgraduate students (representing users) and experts from academia and industry.
The developers of the tools were asked which strategic objectives they considered
when they designed their respective tools and the degree to which their tools
promoted the strategic objectives was tested in evaluation sessions involving the
users. The results from the evaluation sessions involving the users and the experts
revealed that strategic objectives such as learning, education, trust and openness were
promoted by the tools to some degree, whilst objectives such as justice, motivation
and inclusion were promoted to a lesser degree. Whilst it is possible that the tools
evaluated simply do not promote the objectives listed, the evaluation methodology
adopted in this investigation may go some way to explaining why only certain
strategic objectives were found to be promoted. A discussion into the possible
methods by which the presence of these strategic objectives could be determined is
presented in the concluding chapters of the thesis.
