ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the potential benefits of ICT for beginning teachers and explores the ways that mentors can support their mentees to use ICT to teach history more effectively. As well as explaining some of the ways that beginning teachers can make good use of ICT, the chapter will discuss strategies for developing mentees’ confidence, open-mindedness, and willingness to be proactive and experiment with ICT. The chapter encourages mentors to support mentees to make best use of applications and equipment. It also makes the point that research has shown that the most significant impact of ICT on teaching is the facility it offers for history teachers to collect and share useful resources and ideas, and to make good use of history teacher networks to discuss and share good practice. Therefore, the chapter includes practical suggestions for which history educators’ and teachers’ blogs and social media accounts to follow. There are also suggestions for supporting mentees to develop their pupils’ civic and information literacy. The chapter makes the point throughout that it is not how much beginning teachers use ICT in their teaching, or how broad their areas of expertise in ICT are that matters most; rather, it is the extent to which they can use new technology to improve teaching and learning in history.
