| Summary: | Professional Development programmes in Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT PO) in schools have had significant growth since the development of successive
national ICT strategies by the Ministry of Education. Since the late 1990s the Ministry has
provided funding to clusters of schools to carry out professional development programmes
in the use and the integration of ICT into teaching and learning. Research, looking at the
impact this ICT PO is having on teacher skills and attitudes, has amassed large quantities of
rich data. By the end of 2004 40% of New Zealand schools will have been involved in an ICT
PO cluster. This research sought to make a comparative analysis of ICT PO and non- ICT PO
schools. The project looked at data from those exiting an ICT programme, those about to
enter a programme and those who had had no involvement in ICT PO cluster programmes.
This project found that schools who had not been involved in ICT PO clusters had high
levels of personal ICT skills and confidence on a comparable level to those who had
completed three years of ICT PD. Differences in the cohorts were apparent in the amount of
time teachers attempted to integrate ICT into their programmes for student's use. It appears
that:
• ICT PO clusters are making a difference. The key difference is that they increase ICT
usage by teachers and students.
• ICT PO clusters create high levels of anxiety for teachers on entry cluster
programmes.
• Other ICT initiatives are having a positive effect on teachers unable to access ICT PO
cluster programmes.
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