Transforming learning with information and communication technologies: insights from three decades of research.

Since computers first appeared in classrooms, educators have sought to integrate information communication technologies (ICT) into teaching and learning. In Australia, as elsewhere, ICT are widely regarded as critical facilitators of student learning. The ability to use ICT effectively is specified in Australia’s national curriculum as a required general capability. However, despite the educational environment being replete with ICT related programs, our understanding of how students use ICT for learning is still limited. This paper presents insights from the past 30 years of research, which suggest that even though the current ‘climate’ in Australian schools is favourable, teacher confidence and capability to transform their pedagogy with ICT requires robust, evidencebased frameworks and tools that will support teachers to critically analyse the affordances of ICT, and plan transformative learning experiences for their students. A framework to guide teacher development and practice, the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) model is described, as well as the Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF) TPACK Survey, which assesses teacher beliefs about how their students use ICT to achieve learning outcomes. Attention is then focused on the potential for creative thinking that is enabled when ICT is integrated as a ‘mindtool’ for learning. The paper concludes by proposing an explanatory framework that describes a systems perspective for student creativity in classrooms, Distributed Creativity (DC), which accounts for variables that impact student creativity and provides teachers with a scaffold from which to plan and assess student use of digital technologies for learning and creative thinking