Recent research has shown that students' use of information and communications technology (ICT) on teaching practice is necessary for effective future use of ICT in the classroom. However, this paper reports that there are a number of factors affecting the use of ICT by student‐teachers in their school placements. All 110 student‐teachers attending one university's eight Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses completed a questionnaire on their attitudes to ICT in learning and teaching and their initial experiences of the application of ICT in schools. In‐depth interviews with the student‐teachers, as well as univer‐sity tutors and teachers, revealed a range of issues that reflected how student‐teachers perceive their school‐based ICT training and what they think could improve their experiences. Recommendations are offered for the improvement of the ICT school experiences for student‐teachers until teacher training is completed and improved ICT infrastructure is in place in schools. The overriding conclusion is that schools must be supported and resourced properly, and teachers must have effective ICT training, before improvements in school‐based ICT development for student‐teachers can be achieved.

This article reports on the use of e-portfolios to assess aspects of a one year, post-graduate pre-service teacher education programme in Northern Ireland within the specific context of special needs education. The rationale for using an e-portfolio for programme assessment and the potential it offers in demonstrating a range of teaching competencies is examined, with participants in the study challenged to develop their individual e-portfolios by selecting and presenting evidence for assessment drawn from a wide range of sources. In so doing they were asked to reflect upon their personal, academic and pedagogical learning and development across the pre-service year. The article also reports on the individual student experience of building an e-portfolio and attitudes towards its use for assessment purposes within pre-service education and beyond. Finally, it considers the potential for using e-portfolios across all phases of teacher education.

In this article we argue that the need to integrate information and communications technology (ICT) into teacher education courses goes beyond facilitating the development of student teachers' ICT skills. Such skills need to be developed in ways that will enhance students' ability to teach effectively and will also enhance pupil learning. We illustrate this need by reporting on the experience of requiring student teachers to complete a reflective ICT portfolio during their Postgraduate Certificate in Education course, which is designed for students wishing to become teachers in secondary schools. The perceptions and experiences of 110 students across seven curriculum subjects were explored, as well as the views of university tutors and placement teachers. While the reflective portfolio has many benefits, we show that when attempting to integrate ICT in teacher education there are many challenges, not least the perceptions of the tutors and the students regarding the role of ICT in teaching and learning. We show that reflective practice in the application of ICT in teaching needs to be more than an account of incidents of the use of ICT but that the presentational and communicative qualities of ICT shadow its real potential for improving the teaching and learning cycle. Rather than develop personal skills in the use of ICT, we argue that higher education institutions should develop students' ability to reflect on the use of ICT in the context of teaching in the placement schools in which they teach, so that students learn more effectively about teaching, and pupils in schools can explore new ways of learning offered by ICT. Background to the Study

No abstract

Technology and design was added to the Northern Ireland curriculum in September 1992 and through it, teachers seek to address the need for pupils to understand the ever-changing man-made world by developing skills and understanding in its four elements of designing, communicating, manufacturing and the use of energy and control. To be effective in attaining these goals, it is important that teachers allow pupils to have a voice in their learning. They should do this by taking account of pupil responses to the tasks they issue and using those responses as a basis for making choices about instruction and support strategies. This is particularly important in technology and design as pupils need to interpret instructions in light of their design ideas. This paper outlines how three case studies of technology and design teaching were used to identify a range of teaching and learning strategies and evaluate them for their potential to create a learning dialogue with pupils. Drawing on aspects of the effective teaching debate, this learning dialogue was then applied to how teachers exploited pupil histories, managed a range of collaboration strategies and provided effective task orientation. The case studies were based on observations, interviews and content analysis of work over a complete design-and-make project in each school. The paper outlines three continua for effectiveness in each of the three areas observed. The first continuum shows that teachers need a more individualised view of building on pupil histories, the second outlines a range of strategies for the management of pupil collaboration in learning and the third suggests that pupils need to be orientated into complex tasks in ways that support a progressively increasing level of independence in their thinking.