RESEARCHING THE USE OF COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN TEACHER-EDUCATION

The role and use of information and communication technologies in teac her education is of growing concern across Europe. The King's College London component of a five nation European experimental study (FETICHE Project) has been exploring the reality of communications between tea cher trainers in the university arid their co-tutor partners in school s. What effect does the establishment of email and conferencing facili ties have upon the initiation, content and range of communication, and indeed the pedagogy of teacher education. The trial involves three co llege lecturers, six of their teacher tutor colleagues in schools and their PGCE students. Preliminary results indicate that identifying and getting operational suitable means of communication are fraught with difficulties. Impoverished and differential resourcing is ii major inh ibitor to schools going ''on line''. Teacher educators, whether in uni versities br schools appear to have limited understanding and experien ce of ICT, with a complex set of perceptions that may be at odds with reality, The staff of university computer networks fail to understand users' needs of distributed and distance networks. But most significan tly it is clear that the existing partnership relationship between tra iners in college and schools is put of balance, operating in parallel rather than together, and based upon substantial misconceptions. Never the less both partners perceive the need for improved communications, and in the whole FETICHE project, it has been possible to analyse the role that ICT may play, and define a related conceptual framework of users needs. It is clear that other projects planning similar experime nts would need a greater commitment from institutions, including time for the actors to explore the systems, and a substantially improved te chnical and support infrastructure. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.