Helen Bound Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 66, Tasmania, Australia, 7001. Telephone: +61 3 6226 7678 Fax: +61 36226 2569 Helen.Bound@utas.edu.au TENSIONS IN TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Helen Bound Annette Salter University of Tasmania, Australia ABSTRACT In this time of evolving demands on vocational teachers to use flexible delivery methods through the use of information and communications technology professional development can be adhoc and disparate. This paper identifies and analyses the tensions experienced by one group of trade teachers as they work towards developing ICT resources for flexible delivery. The theoretical framework draws on Marx’s conceptualisation of the social relations of production; the ways in which tools such as ideas about teaching and learning, ICT knowledge and skills are consumed or used by teachers and their access to them. It is argued that context in the form of policies, historical practices, discourses and mode of production are embedded in the tools, contributing to tensions in the activity of producing ICT resources. 1. INTRODUCTION: EVOLVING DEMANDS ON TRADE TEACHERS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT The increased pressure on vocational teachers to use flexible delivery methods means it is increasingly urgent to develop better understandings of how the use of ICT mediates teacher practices. In the trades, apprentices traditionally attended face-to-face sessions on campus in two to four week blocks of time, with the remainder of their time working on the job. Recent policy changes (Australian National Training Authority (ANTA), 2001 Department of Education Science and Training (DEST), 2002) and skill shortages have increasingly seen trade teachers move to assessing apprentices on-the-job, and using flexible delivery methods including the use of information and communications technology (ICT). Trade teachers are faced with considerable challenges in meeting these changing needs. The use of ICT instruments by vocational education and training practitioners is identified as a key staff development priority, for practitioners both internationally and nationally (Loveder, 2005). In Scandinavian countries, the United States and Australasian countries teaching and learning methodologies in relation to ICT instruments are becoming ‘increasingly important’ (Loveder, 2005, 6). This priority is reflected in the recognition of the challenges and issues facing vocational education and training practitioners in keeping pace with changing work practices and changing skills demands for the workforce they train (Curtain, 2004; Loveder, 2005; Trood & Gale, 2000). As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2004, 11) notes, the use of ICT has been seen as an integral part of a strategy to improve teaching and learning. As with other OECD countries, Australia has seen a strong policy push for the use of ICT in the delivery of VET. In this time of evolving demands on trade teachers’, professional development for these teachers can be adhoc and disparate. Institutions embrace government policy changes, develop a language and rhetoric around the new policies, such as the move to flexible delivery and the use of information communications technology