New Information and Communication Technologies in Schools

Abstract

This paper presents the research project “New Information and Communication Technologies in the School”, currently being developed at Teacher Training Institute No. 6 in Chivilcoy, Buenos Aires.

There is a certain consensus regarding the need for ICTs in the school setting, although it is recognized that the main obstacle lies in transforming that consensus into concrete practices. It is therefore necessary to denaturalize current educational discourses in order to understand what kinds of practices they enable or prevent, encourage or discredit.

We will analyze the current social meanings concerning subjects—students and teachers—ICTs, and knowledge in the school, following as a criterion the construction of a corpus representative of discursive plurality. The concept of “possible semiotic worlds” allows us to address the contrast between the representations of different social actors and to explain the interactions between youth interpretations and teachers’ interpretations.

We assume cognitive semiotics and discourse analysis as the methodological perspective from which to design our path of research. By recognizing the constructive power of social discourses, we affirm that different discursive formations (Foucault, 1970) construct different social objects and practices.

As a contribution to the research project “The University of the Street”, we propose to explore both institutionalized pedagogical behaviors and extra-institutional behaviors that emerge and develop in relation to the knowledge acquired through practices involving ICTs. We also seek to evaluate the possible contributions of ICTs to the improvement of educational practices and to the construction of both individual and collective learning strategies.