In most developed countries the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in education has become a significant part of education policy and has resulted in substantial expenditure. In 1999 OECD countries invested $16 billion in ICT in education, representing 1-2% of total education spending (OECD 2001a, p19). By the same year in the US, expenditure on ICT in education had exceeded that on textbooks (OECD 1999, p49). Although many national ICT strategies aim to encourage the use of ICT in support of teaching and learning of other subjects, the use of ICT within subject teaching has often been disappointing. Much of the use of ICT has been in computer skills classes (Becker 2000) and ICT remains an "expanding but marginal activity in schools" (Cuban 1993, p2). Teacher education is increasingly being seen as one of the keys to successful integration of ICT (OECD 2001b, Chapter 5), and many national ICT strategies place considerable emphasis on the development of teacher ICT skills. This paper examines the evidence relating to the impact of teacher ICT training, using evidence from the experience of Irish schools between 1998 and 2000.
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