Technology in teaching and learning
Information and communication technology (ICT) is more than just another teaching tool. Increasingly the evidence suggests that
ICT has the potential to improve the quality and standards of pupils' education. Equally, its potential is considerable for supporting teachers, both in their everyday classroom role and in their continuing training and development.
The TDA's support for ICT was set up at a time of investment in ICT within schools and aimed to ensure that this investment was echoed in and supported by initial teacher training (ITT).
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Research on information and communication technology (ICT)
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Since 2003 the TDA has offered support for ICT in ITT through annual funding rounds open to all accredited ITT providers, with the aim of directly increasing provision for ICT equipment and new research into ICT in teacher training. The programme was intended to promote experimentation and to help create a culture of innovation and change which we felt was central to developing activity and quality in ITT.
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E-safety in learning and teaching
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We have worked with the European Pedagogical ICT for UK (EPICT) licence to develop an e-safety module for the teaching profession (including ITT), as well as working with Childnet and Becta to produce e-safety resources for the classroom. This is in addition to a suite of measures taken in response to the Byron report forming part of a larger body of work carried out by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety.
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Initiatives in technology in teaching and learning
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To further support the aims of a broad and balanced secondary curriculum, we are working to support BBC News School Report, a project which seeks to re-engage Key Stage 3 students with the news by training them to use journalism and ICT to produce their own news report. We provide support to engage trainee teachers with the project, something which provides a great opportunity for trainees to meet the qualified teacher status (QTS) standards, whilst developing strong partnership links for providers and CPD opportunities for schools.
There are numerous resources available to the ITT sector to support learning and development. We have worked with your Regional Broadband Consortia (RBCs) to ensure that the ITT community has access to their resources, and with software companies to provide free software. We have also worked with NAACE to produce the 'ICT CPD 4 Free' resource.
If you have any questions about the TDA in the area of Technology in Teaching and Learning, please e-mail ictsupport@tda.gov.uk.