ICT use in special needs is a doubled-edged sword – it is capable of being both our salvation and our downfall. There are two questions to be answered about the management of ICT:How can we manage the ICT so that it does not cause us grief?
How can we manage ICT to solve our problems and meet our needs?
What are the steps we need to take to ensure that the ICT we use does not cause us grief? As in most areas of the management in schools, good practice is underpinned by good policies. Importantly, those policies need to be communicated to the staff and parents. There are three main areas:
■ Staffing and resources
■ Curriculum and schemes of work
■ Pupils and their individual needs
The staffing policy includes the provision for continuing professional development. This must include the continual development of staff ICT skills. This is not an easy area, as ICT-proficient teachers and support personnel can soon feel overwhelmed by the ICT demands if the new technologies introduced into the school are not accompanied by training and induction. Staff development needs to be coordinated and organised to be efficient as well as effective. The maxim ‘Just Enough, Just In Time’ (JEJIT) is as important in schools as it is in commercial enterprises.
We should not be burdened with training that is unnecessary or untimely; we should have and provide the support for ICT development, as and when we need it. Professional training in ICT has particular difficulties. Most teachers respond positively to staff development in most areas, e.g. literacy, behaviour, discipline, special needs. However, there remains a minority of staff who have negative attitudes towards ICT. Sometimes this is based upon a genuine difficulty in handling the physical aspects (using a mouse, navigating a keyboard) or a fear of doing something wrong. In other cases, the inability.
No Easy Answers
This challenge is not easily resolved. After 25 years’ experience of training teachers new to ICT, I do not have any easy answers. However, it is important to separate the ICT and the need for training from the personality of the trainer and teacher responsible. Having to train a reluctant learner can have negative impact upon the professional relationship at all levels. So, avoid having a sole teacher responsible for the training and implementation of ICT. Create a team by drawing representatives from different areas. In a large secondary school this would be a department representative, while in a small, special or infant school it may be staff group representatives (learning assistants, teachers, administration staff, parent helpers). In either case, the decision process becomes collegiate and the implementation becomes one step removed from having just one person responsible for the direction of the developments.
