Chapter 8: ICT in the Classroom: The Pedagogical Challenge of Respatialisation and Reregulation

In 1992 a Committee of Scottish University Principals published a report entitled: Teaching and Learning in an Expanded Higher Education System. What was remarkable about the report was not its content, which merely presaged the current demand for greater technological support for learning, but its front cover. On it, neatly arranged, are three photographs. At the top is an old sepia colored photograph from the beginning of the Twentieth Century of three male students working in a chemistry laboratory. Their relaxed, patrician poses combined with the uncluttered, almost leisurely surroundings, indicate a learning space characterised by timeless thought. The second picture is again in black and white and shows two students seated together at a desk taking notes. Alongside and behind lie rows of similar students listening intently to the lecturer all engaged in an act of mass transmission. Although dating from the 1970s, the photograph would not seem out of place today, apart from a slight change in technology and fashion.