Intentional ICT : curriculum, education and development

Abstract

This paper argues for a new intentional ICT (Information Communications and Technology) approach in which a relevant, sensible, and coherent curriculum guides the appropriate and defensible use of ICT for educational quality improvement. This approach focuses on the value of ICT to curricula efforts for educational improvement. In doing so, we may be better able to articulate the direct links between ICT in education and economic and social development. The paper seeks to explore concentrations of discourse, research, policy, and practice that occur around ICT in education. I use the curriculum as a lens and sensitizing concept to explore in a critical manner how ICT are implicated in educational quality improvement. As such, I employ discourse analysis to look at how ICT are talked about and thought about in current literature (applied research and theoretical scholarship) and in public and private forums. A critical analytical approach will inform recommendations for research, policy, and practice by illuminating both the opportunities and potential perils of ICT in education contexts. A critical analysis of the current discussions and practices involving ICT may serve to interrupt more common enthusiasm with respect to these innovations and may contribute to the emergence of a balanced collective discussion of their development and implementation in the field of education.