About

ICT in schools has come a long way – well at least the gadgets that are available to us have come a long way – since I first began working in my role as a classroom teacher.

I started to experiment with computers, in a classroom context, in about 1988.

After using ink and tracing paper to create technical drawings, what a relief it was to exchange the razor blade (to scratch off the ink when making changes) for the click of a button to delete elements of a drawing, alter a drawing and then re-print it!

Other teachers at my school were using databases for sports administration, word processors, maths-drill software, etc. We were all busy “playing” – adopting and adapting.

Then came the Internet. The “web” became accessible to me in about 1995. As teachers we treated the web as a big encyclopedia. We consumed information. We built our knowledge of technology around a model of consumption.

We learned how to communicate using e-mail – we thought that we were very clever!

But the world has changed quickly. Sharing knowledge and ideas is now instant. The web is a medium for creating information.

Our students have a different understanding of technology to that of their parents. The “old” technologies, such as e-mail, now have little relevance to today’s teenagers.

We need to continually assess and, where appropriate, adapt new technologies for use in our classrooms, if we are to keep our schools relevant to the world in which our students live.

We can’t ignore this stuff. It is how young people communicate with each other.

Unfortunately many of the administrators of our various education systems are locked in their technological past – blissfully unaware (or not wanting to be aware!) of a world where every student has the facility to share their opinions with the world – all at the touch of a mobile phone screen!

The purpose of these pages is to consider and discuss how we can plan for, and create, school ICT environments that keep our classrooms relevant to this rapidly changing ICT landscape.