ICT in the Primary School

Perhaps the heart of this volume is best encapsulated in the fundamental question that Loveless poses at the end of her initial chapter: 'What are schools for in a Knowledge Society?'

In answering this challenging question, the various contributors draw upon some long-standing traditions in primary education. Primary teaching is associated with child-centred learning where the acquisition of performance and thinking skills provides the context for professional thinking in practice. Primary practitioners think across subjects as well as teach across subjects. ICT is itself an integratory factor and, within the primary perspective, we are seeing more innovation using ICT in the classroom in the teaching and learning process than is often evident elsewhere. From the earliest days of the introduction of computers in schools, much of the software developed was for the primary curriculum, at first to teach well established topics in new ways, but later to teach new things made possible only through the new technologies.

The present volume continues the tradition of primary innovation. Although individual chapters necessarily deal with discrete elements of the curriculum, the volume as a whole represents a commonality of ways of thinking which permeates the chapters. Establishing practical and intellectual links between the chapters, and a common thread of thinking across them, constitutes an essential element in the book's construction and in this way itself reflects the practice of the good

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