ICTs: Teachers’ and students’ preconceptions and the implications for present and future teacher education

This paper reports upon recent findings from research into perspectives of ICT within formal education in England and Wales and is part of a sixteen year longitudinal study in this area by the authors. From earlier studies undertaken [1-3] we expected teachers and students to hold a number of informal perspectives, and this paper refers to a research project established to explore these, to identify commonalities and differences, and to determine the implications for initial and continuing teacher education. The focus at this stage of our investigation is on recently trained teachers. We also discuss how the learner’s and teacher’s perspectives relate to the dominant political view. This holds that ICT is critical and at worst intrinsically neutral but generally beneficent, and that competence in using ICT across the whole population is vital for economic survival; as conveyed by politicians over the last thirty years