Published as: Livingstone, Sonia (2012) Critical reflections on the benefits of ICT in
education. Oxford Review of Education, 38 (1). pp. 9-24. ISSN 0305-4985
Abstract
In both schools and homes, information and communication technologies (ICT) are
widely seen as enhancing learning, this hope fuelling their rapid diffusion and
adoption throughout developed societies. But they are not yet so embedded in the
social practices of everyday life as to be taken for granted, with schools proving
slower to change their lesson plans than they were to fit computers in the classroom.
This article examines two possible explanations – first, that convincing evidence of
improved learning outcomes remains surprisingly elusive, and second, the unresolved
debate over whether ICT should be conceived of as supporting delivery of a
traditional or a radically different vision of pedagogy based on soft skills and new
digital literacies. The difficulty in establishing traditional benefits, and the uncertainty
over pursuing alternative benefits, raises fundamental questions over whether society
really desires a transformed, technologically-mediated relation between teacher and
learner.