Integrating technology in classrooms: from the microcomputer to ‘the cloud’ - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 13

2. Technology Resourcing - speciically, the need for more up-to-date hardware,

software, more broadband connections to external networks and cheaper
connection charges, improved access to computers by pupils and teachers.
Also, more human resources in the form of technical staff and teachers with
expertise and training in leading technology as a major curriculum area.

3. School Management - speciically, the need for senior managers to take respon-

sibility for developing a whole-school policy for technology and the strategy
for its implementation; setting realistic budgets for purchasing technology
hardware and consumables; training staff and clearly establishing support
for technology use at management level, giving technology a high proile.

4. Curriculum application - specifically, the need for schools to get a balance

between direct teaching of technology skills and their application across
subject areas; teachers to evaluate their use of technology and to share
good practice; to review how access to networks can help both teachers and
learners.

While these four issues were reiterated across all the reports, there were also ele-
ments that occurred in some reports, but not in others. For example, raising stand-
ards of achievement was referred to explicitly in the documents that originated from
government agencies, like Ofsted, but were an implicit sub-text in other reports. All
the reports discussed the need for change, to make more use of technology and the
benefits of making that change. However, one issue that seems to have been either
ignored or disregarded is 'the nature of the change that the use of technology will
have on a teacher's work in his or her classroom' (Bowles 1999: 24). More technol-
ogy use by teachers was to become imperative with the election of a new Labour
government in May 1997, which made statutory the use of technology across all
subjects.

Learning theories and developments with technology in schools - 1980s to now

Research has shown that it is very difficult to consider technology without under-
standing parallel developments in theories of learning that informed teachers' think-
ing (Hammond et al. 2009; Woollard et al. 2010). In the 1970s pedagogical thinking
was greatly influenced by the work of Piaget (1963) with a focus on discovery and
learning as inquiry rather than a traditional instructional pedagogy. This can be seen
in the work of Papert who created LOGO at MIT in 1967.
LOGO was an accessible way into programming, which was learner-centred and
enabled pupils to control a small turtle-shaped robot. In an open-ended and playful
context, LOGO enabled children to learn generic problem solving with a mathemati-
cal element and fostered creativity (Millwood 2009). Practitioners in the Hammond
et al. (2009: 50) research talked about their enjoyment of seeing pupils 'program'
each other around the room as a preliminary to on-screen work with the turtle com-
mands and of giving what they felt was control to pupils over the computer. In turn,
the influence of Piaget was superseded by Vygotsky (1978) and a social-cultural view
of learning. Today this influence can be seen in the social constructivism of learning