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‘You can't not go with the technological flow, can you?’ Constructing ‘ICT’ and ‘teaching and learning’
Author(s) -
Dale R.,
Robertson S.,
Shortis T.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
journal of computer assisted learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.583
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1365-2729
pISSN - 0266-4909
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2004.00103.x
Subject(s) - information and communications technology , framing (construction) , constitution , sociology , mathematics education , information technology , pedagogy , computer science , public relations , knowledge management , political science , psychology , engineering , world wide web , structural engineering , law , operating system
This paper seeks to show how ‘policy’, ‘management’ and ‘information and communications technology’ (ICT) were constructed for schools in England between 2000 and 2003 and to discuss some effects of these constructions on teaching and learning in the institutions involved in the InterActive Education Project. It argues that their contribution collectively constituted ‘ICT’ as a particular kind and form of challenge for schools, and that recognising the nature of this constitution is crucial to understanding the relationship between ICT and teaching and learning. Informed by an abductive methodology, this paper draws on analyses of policy documents and interviews with the head teachers of the educational institutions taking part in the InterActive Education Project to show how the possibilities and opportunities of using ICT were shaped by those constructions. It suggests that the main policy framing ICT in education over the period in question, the National Grid for Learning, had the provision of hardware and infrastructure as its main target, but offered little advice on how they might be used. This constituted the core of the management problem of ICT for schools. The final section of the paper outlines some of the mechanisms through which schools addressed these issues and discusses some possible implications for what counts as ‘teaching and learning’ with ‘ICT’.