Using video‐stimulated reflective dialogue to learn from children about their learning with and without ICT

Abstract

The Interactive Teaching and ICT project explores the process of interactive teaching and learning with and without information and communications technology. A key technique in the authors' methodology has been the use of video‐stimulated reflective dialogue to assist teachers to reflect on key episodes in their teaching. In this paper the authors discuss how this technique was extended to encourage pupils to reflect on their learning. Children in parallel classes with and without interactive whiteboards were interviewed in a range of subject areas between the ages of 5 and 14. Analysis of reflective dialogues indicates that even very young children were able to articulate opinions about the ways in which ICT supported their learning. Pupils were able to talk more explicitly about the impact of ICT on their learning processes in classes that had a focus on thinking skills and learning to learn. The role of ICT in supporting learning was viewed in a variety of ways by pupils. Many of these were common across ages and contexts, but others were critically dependent on the classroom culture and the nature of the dominant style of classroom discourse. A wider range of affordances of ICT was exploited in classes in which the dominant discourse was dialogical.