Despite the imperatives of policy and rhetoric about their integration in formal education, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are often used as an "add-on" in many classrooms and in many lesson plans. Nevertheless, many teachers find that interesting and well-planned tasks, projects, and resources provide a key to harnessing the educational potential of digital resources, Internet communications, and interactive multimedia to engage the interest, interaction, and knowledge construction of young learners. To the extent that such approaches go beyond and transform traditional "transmission" models of teaching and formal lesson planning, this paper investigates the changing requirements and new possibilities represented by the challenge of integrating ICTs in education in a way which at the same time connects more effectively with both the specific contents of the curriculum and the various stages and elements of the learning process. Case studies from teacher education foundation courses provide an exemplary focus of inquiry in order to better link relevant new theories or models of learning with practice, to build upon related learner-centered strategies for integrating ICT resources and tools, and to incorporate interdependent functions of learning as information access, communication, and applied interactions. As one possible strategy in this direction, the concept of an "ICT-supported learning activity" suggests the need for teachers to approach this increasing challenge more as "designers" of effective and integrated learning rather than mere "transmitters" of skills or information through an add-on use of ICTs.
[Copyright of Language Learning & Technology is the property of Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://llt.msu.edu/]

Collaborating with universities in Hong Kong, Finland, the United Kingdom and Australia the research project outlined in this paper takes up one of the key initial findings related to the importance of children's online spaces away from school. The project brings together complementary strengths from each partner nation to assist our mutual need to understand the worlds of our young "netizens" - the new public citizens of cyberspace. Differing in social and cultural context, each setting is recognised as a strong contributor to understanding the competencies of young people's digital expertise. We work from the shared view that the arrival ofWeb 2.0 and 3.0 social networking tools is educationally challenging and demands futuristic thinking for sustainable education and social connectivity globally. Our research aim is to use a common research design to discover how young people are behaving in the new online spaces; what guides their decision-making; and what, if any, common values appear to emerge when results between countries are compared. Locally derived knowledge gained from samples of 12-year-olds will be subjected to cross-cultural comparisons and validation. In doing so, we make some assumptions about the homogenising process that shared global networks may be fostering. Bringing together these contributions will strengthen the decision-making process and provide new knowledge about meaning making, agency and citizenship for the twenty-first-century e-democracy. This paper reports on the conceptual process underlying the research and the research design.
[Copyright of International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382040903251158]

This study aims to provide recommendations on school-based planning for the use of information technology (IT) to improve the quality of school education. Focus group discussions and case studies were conducted to collect the views of school practitioners on the need for IT in education and related areas of school-based planning. The results of this study indicated that schools in Hong Kong recognise the importance of Twenty-first Century Knowledge, the role of IT and the need for school-based IT in education plans. The schools put considerable effort into curriculum re-interpretation to accommodate the use of IT to improve learning and teaching, and have shown determination in their leadership to provide and manage IT infrastructure in response to the trend towards the integration of IT into school education. Four sets of school-based strategies are recommended to promote the role of IT in enhancing school education, namely the use of IT to foster the capability of enquiry learning, the promotion of self-regulated learning involving the use of digital resources, the use of digital student learning records to encourage assessment for learning, and the creation of a digital campus for effective learning and teaching.
[Copyright of Technology, Pedagogy and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14759390903255627]