ABSTRACT
Although PE teachers have been using information communication technology (ICT) for years within their teaching, it is only since the National Curriculum (1999) made its integration into Key Stage 3 PE teaching statutory that teachers have heightened their awareness of its possibilities. ICT use in PE is not as radical an idea as it first appears. The use of whistles, stopwatches, tape-measures, photographic equipment, video and audio cassettes has been widespread for several decades or longer. More recent emphasis on health-related fitness within the curriculum has led to the recruitment of skin-fold callipers and heart-rate monitors. In all cases the primary role for the particular piece of equipment is to ‘communicate information using technology’, whether that be to stop a game (e.g. to communicate an infringement of the rules to the players), or communicate an assessment of how fast an athlete has performed or how hard they have worked. It is, however, the rapid advances in digital technology that have offered the modern PE teacher the opportunity to champion the role of ‘trail-blazer’ within the teaching profession. Our subject, having teaching and learning opportunities for auditory, visual and kinaesthetic learners, perhaps lends itself to recent advances in ICT better than many other curriculum areas.
