Management and the Use of ICT in Subject Teaching

Improving teaching and learning in the classroom is the key issue facing educational leaders in UK secondary schools and information and communication technology (ICT) is being employed in a range of ways to support this endeavour. However, it is in everyday classrooms that the benefits of ICT for teaching and learning are most immediately felt and this is where the leadership vision will be secured. Many teachers feel the pressure to use ICT in their lessons but they are often faced with the problem of where and how it fits within existing teaching frameworks or understanding how it enriches pupils’ classroom experiences. This paper argues that problems of ICT integration have a managerial dimension that relates to the planning and implementation of lessons. Drawing on experiences in science education, it presents frameworks that offer a means of analysing the beneficial features of ICT in relation to teaching and learning goals and identifying the skills of classroom application required to achieve these. It is suggested that many of these application skills find relevance in non-ICT activities that may be familiar and that teachers already possess professional skills that have relevance in ICT settings.