Ms. Chips and Her Battle Against the Cyborgs: Embedding ICT in Professional Praxis

Abstract

This chapter is written for practising teachers, and examines the institutional and individual factors that inhibit the implementation of information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool for teaching and learning. The affordances of ICT are identified, together with their contribution to attainment, creativity, and learning. The author argues that many of the obstacles to meaningful uses of ICT are embedded in the assumptions inherent in many institutional frameworks that are predicated on an outmoded industrial model that drives many school timetables, which process learners through the school machine. Individual change is easier to effect than institutional: the author provides some suggestions to liberate creative teachers from constraints of the system.