Over the past two years, Schools have shown an ever increasing interest in incorporating ICT across the curriculum. Many professional teachers have taken up the challenge and showed that they can hit the mark. Some teachers used ICT resources that related to a particular topic, while others encouraged their students to use ICT to present their work.

A number of schools have shown that teachers understood how to incorporate the use of ICT into their lessons. While encouraging others to take the first steps, we as professionals, should also try to understand that the most effective uses of ICT are those in which teacher and software challenge pupils’ understanding and thinking. Evidence shows that the effect on pupils’ attainment is greatest when students are challenged to think and to question their own way of looking at things. Teachers may need to develop new pedagogies to achieve this.

One of the major shifts in pedagogy will be the teacher’s role as a guide rather than as a “sage on the stage”. Despite this need to move to a facilitator role, teachers still need to adopt a leadership role in planning, lesson preparation and evaluation.

Literature reviews have identified a number of practices which should be part of teachers’ pedagogy if they are to integrate ICT effectively into teaching and learning. These include the need for teachers:

use their subject expertise to select appropriate ICT resources which will help them meet their specific learning objectives be aware of the potential of ICT resources both in terms of their contribution to pupil’s presentation skills, and their role in challenging pupils’ thinking develop confidence in using a range of ICT resources appreciate that some uses of ICT will change the ways in which knowledge is presented know how to prepare and plan lessons where ICT is used in ways that will challenge pupils’ understanding and promote thinking and reflection recognise which kinds of class organisation will be most effective for particular learning tasks

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