ICT as interactive creative technologies: Reconceptualising the pedagogy of technology in contemporary classrooms

Technology use in society has paved a new landscape for pedagogical practices in classrooms. Inlearning situations todayï'½s youth, or the 'netï'½ generation as they are often described, thrive on theutility of technology, creativity, social interaction and community (Nichols, 2007) which has enabledthem to develop new ways of interacting and communicating. In studentï'½s social lives in particular,community writing practices have generated capacities for producing different kinds of texts whichchallenge traditional pedagogical practices and understandings of meaning making andcommunication. With the ubiquitous presence of technology in the textual lives of people, writingpractices and pedagogy need to be revisited. This paper explores how the ranges of technologies andtechnoliterate practices have generated new possibilities for interactivity and creativity in multimodaltext construction in classrooms. This in itself calls for a reconceptualisation of the term ICT, familiarlyreferred as Information Communication Technology. To be relevant in todayï'½s classrooms, the paperintroduces ICT as 'Interactive Creative Technologiesï'½ as a way to represent the rich, multi-facetednature of literacy, technology and pedagogy as contemporary technoliterate practices move beyondinformation and communication. This paper specifically presents research exploring the changednature of the pedagogy of technology; in particular it looks at writing practices as design, creativity andtechnology converge in practice to change the face of classroom interactions around text production.Practical classroom examples and accounts from teachers and students, drawn from an 18 monthcase study, will be presented. These describe how seventeen teachers from six schools adjusted theirpedagogical practices to develop capacities for enabling students to create new and dynamic texts.