The National Grid for Learning: A curriculum without walls?

Children's Use of the Internet: Reflections on the Emerging Research Agenda

“…However, while the 'digital divide' in access is clear, the existence of a more subtle but potentially more pernicious digital divide in quality of use remains controversial. Some suggest that, given access, disadvantaged groups make equivalent use of ICT, so that redressing access is sufficient (Compaine, 2001;Nie & Erbring, 2000); others suggest that inequalities in use are more persistent and difficult to resolve than those of access (Rice, 2002); still others suggest that providing domestic access to ICT may actually increase rather than decrease inequalities in class, gender and ethnicity precisely because of inequalities in the nature of ICT use (Furlong, et al, 2000).…”

“…In going beyond listing popular uses, qualitative academic research primarily takes a 'domestication of new technology' approach (Silverstone and Hirsch, 1992), focusing on how families are appropriating the internet into the home, contextualising this new object of consumption within domestic practices of space, time and social relations (Facer, et al, 2000;Van-Rompaey, Roe, & Struys, 2002) and integrating it within the already-complex media environment (Drotner, 2000;Livingstone and Bovill, 2001). For many families, the internet is still a fragile medium, experienced as unfamiliar, confusing, easier to get wrong than right, far from taken for granted.…”

Variations in Teachers' Work, Lives and Effectiveness

“…their personal and professional identities. Stronach et al's (2002) research with nurses and teachers, like others before it (Nias, 1989;Kelchtermans, 1993;Hoyle and John, 1995;Bowe and Ball, 1992;Furlong et al, 2000;Friedson, 2001;Hanlon, 1998) claims that 'professionalism' is bound up in the discursive dynamics of professionals attempting to address or redress the dilemmas of the job within particular cultures (p109). Their reading of professional identities and their own data from teachers in six primary schools in England, though limited, and, 'walking the tightrope of an uncertain being' (p121), resonates with much other empirical research on teachers' plurality of roles (Sachs, 2003) within work contexts which are characterised by fragmentation and discontinuities (Huberman, 1995) and a number of tensions and dilemmas (Day et al, 2000) within what is generally agreed to be increasingly intensive external audit policy cultures (Power, 1994) which are present in many developed nations.…”

Breaking down the confines: an e‐learning resource for all, at home and at school

“…Recent studies by Furlong, Furlong, Facer and Sutherland (2000) have investigated how young people actually utilise ICT at home and at school. A report relating to a preliminary An e-learning resource for all 139 study raises some fundamental points and highlights a range of social factors including unequal opportunities that are affecting home use.…”