Using IT in classrooms

With increasing emphasis on school-based teacher education it is timely to consider how, and what, students might learn about using information technology during school placements. In 1992 a directive from the Department for Education (DfE 1992) indicated that courses should contain ‘compulsory and clearly identifiable elements’ for students to gain practical experience of using IT in classrooms, and that these opportunities should ‘provide a sound basis for their subsequent development in this field’. It may be relatively straightforward to make arrangements for students to work in school classrooms, but it is more difficult to establish favourable contexts in which they can learn that IT could be more than a supplementary activity in a school curriculum.