Incorporating Internet resources into classroom practice: Secondary school teacher action plans

Abstract

Knowing precisely how teachers use Internet resources in their classroom practice is essential when seeking to explain what aspects support the real incorporation of information and communication technologies (ICT) in teaching, and in determining the mechanisms underlying the use of these resources in direct teaching situations. This article examines how five secondary school teachers assimilated different Internet resources into their teaching practice. Using a system for analysing classroom interaction that allowed us to segment teaching practice into categories differentiated by their level of generality, we studied the recordings of five class sessions in which Internet resources were used. The results show that common patterns existed in the way these teachers handled their sessions. The most outstanding pattern showed the overriding importance of curricular tasks and contents in the class sessions, and the subordination of the ICT resources to these curricular elements. It is also important to underscore the appearance of one type of task performance activity with ICT in all the sessions analysed, although more analysis about this activity is needed. The results pose challenges for the development of future research regarding consistency in the patterns of action found.