Creating a teacher who successfully uses ICT

Brown (1998) lists a range of attributes he believes makes a "good ICT-using educator" (p. 7). I'll list them and comment on how I feel we as teachers may best be able to develop them.

1. A well developed philosophy of teaching which is based on a contemporary and critical understanding of educational theory. The key for me on this one is the understanding of educational theory. This understanding can come from personally directed professional learning (such as doing this eLearning paper) or professionally organised learning. The latter is far more powerful as it involves multiple members of staff which creates the possibility for professional discussion and reflection - in short, it creates a professional learning community. Darling-Hammond and Richardson (2009) outline research which backs up the power of these communities to effect changes in practice and understanding.
2. General Pedagogical Knowledge. This can be developed through reflective practice, discussions with other professionals and observation of others' professional practice.
3. Subject Matter and Domain Specific Knowledge. Developed through personal reading/research and possibly attending targeted PD workshops. Increasingly, as we move from being teachers of content to teachers of process, I would like to see this also being developed through dialogue with students.
4. ICT General and Specific Content Knowledge. This I understand to be the ability to use the tools and the understanding of how they can be integrated. E.g. to use wordle.net in the classroom you need to go through a few stages of development. a) become aware of wordle's existence (SEE it), b) become proficient at using wordle yourself (OWN it), c) plan and discuss how wordle might be useful in enhancing student learning (UNDERSTAND it), d) implement its use in your programme (TEACH it), e) reflect on its success and improve its use for next time (HONE it). That makes quite a nice acronym of SOUTH which I may adopt as my own model for raising teacher awareness in the use of ICTs in the classroom.
5. Specific Curriculum Knowledge. This develops with an awareness of the new curriculum. i feel it is slightly less important than when Brown was writing as the new curriculum, especially at primary level, places less importance on specific achievement objectives and their coverage although these still have a place in planning and teacher understanding.
6. Strategic Contextual Knowledge. This can be developed by doing exactly what I am doing currently i.e. analysing the e-Learning landscape and making judgments on how to best navigate it. These judgments can be well-informed by looking back at past successes and failures.
7. A capacity for Self-reflection and self-criticism. Brown discusses both personal reflection and school-wide reflection saying it occurs on "both and intra- and inter-personal plane." (p. 8). As I mentioned in point 1 above, it is through the reflective nature of professional learning communities (PLCs) that the greatest development of growth will occur and I feel that educational leaders need to create structures as well as distribute the ICT leadership around the school to help these PLCs evolve in a formal and informal way.

As an ICT lead teacher, I am seeing the different range of responses to using ICT in the staff in my school. As a cluster we are currently grappling with how to encourage teachers to OWN their professional journey around ICT so that they become producers of their own learning as opposed to consumers of ideas promulgated by isolated "experts" around the school. It feels like a long road at this stage!

References

Brown, M. E. (1998). The use of computers in New Zealand schools: A critical review. Computers in NZ Schools, 10(3), 3-9.

Darling-Hammond, L. and Richardson, N. (2009). Teacher Learning. In Educational Leadership (source to be completed)