What matter(s)? A didactical analysis of primary school teachers’ ICT integration

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper has explored teachers’ integration of ICT in a primary school practice, in particular how the content and its subject matter emerge in teachers’ preparatory discussions and how they are enacted in the classroom. The theoretical foundation lies in the tradition of Didaktik and the analysis focuses on the teachers’ choices of content in relation to ICT, and how the content and its matter are enacted in the classroom. The analysis indicates a lack of discussion of the subject matter and of the aims for how the educative substance could be opened up for the pupils. Further, the teachers’ choices to demonstrate different software resulted in enacting the software as the content. Consequently, the way the teachers demonstrated the software in classroom teaching could be seen as a shift to direct ICT use, i.e. an interaction between the pupils and the software. The way in which the teachers in the study chose to use their pedagogical freedom, in relation to the integration of ICT in the primary-school classroom, raises an important issue regarding the importance of highlighting teachers’ didactical competences in relation to ICT.