LAW, N., YUEN, A., & CHOW, A. (2003, August 26-30, 2003). Pedagogical Innovations and Use of ICT. Paper presented at the 10th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction, Padova, Italy. Pedagogical Innovations and Use of ICT Nancy LAW , Allan YUEN & Angela CHOW Abstract This paper examines the various kinds of ICT tools used in a number of the cases studies collected through the SITES M2 1 (Second International Information Technology in Education Study) which is an international comparative case study of “Innovative Pedagogical Practices Using Technology” and explores whether and how the different ICT tools are used for different types of innovations as categorized according to their intended curriculum goals. The study found that most of the ICT tools used in these innovative practices were general-purpose tools that were not specifically designed for education or for specific domains. The only exceptions are those related to the goal of “effective learning of subject-related knowledge or concepts”. The paper argues that curriculum innovation and reform for achieving the other curriculum goals, especially those related to the development of collaborative and organizational skills for solving complex authentic problems can be further enhanced if more efforts be put into the development and popularization of learning support tools and platforms that are designed specifically for such pedagogical goals. Types of Pedagogical Practices using Technology The pedagogical practices found in the case studies 2 collected across 28 countries in SITES M2 (Kozma et.al., 2003) showed evidence of a worldwide shift towards more collaborative student-directed inquiry-based learning with associated changes in the teachers’ role and the type of classroom practice. The pedagogical practices found in these cases could be roughly grouped into six types. Three of the pedagogic types engaged students in productive learning tasks, namely project work, scientific investigations and media production. The other three pedagogic types were more closed and well defined, and therefore the demand on students was lower because students are only required to follow instructions. These were: task-based learning, virtual schools and online courses, and expository learning. Project work was a label often used to describe learning activities that were extended in time, with well-defined aims and intended products. Often it demanded students to work in groups and to go through the different stages of project task progression. However, a careful examination of the project descriptions revealed that these can be further distinguished into five types of projects. The most demanding of these were research projects . The other forms of project work were much less enquiry focused. By far the most popular form was the thematic project where students were assigned a theme for gathering information and 1 SITES M2 Study prospectus, which contains the definition of innovative and the selection criteria for case inclusion can be found at http://www.sitesm2.org/SITES_Research_Projects/SITESM2/prospectus.html 2 Altogether 174 cases were collected in SITES M2. Some of the case reports did not provide sufficient details at the classroom level for some of the analysis conducted for this paper. Altogether 83 of the case studies were analysed for the purpose of this paper.