the quality, authority and reliability of the items on the list provided requires linguistic sophistication, awareness of sources of bias, and social and political shrewdness. Online information is thin in its indicators of provenance and its hinterland of assumptions about the world. While it is relatively straightforward to discuss with students the differing assumptions behind a report in the Guardian and one in the Mail; it is far more complex to locate, for a British reader, the assumptions behind the Sydney Morning Herald or the Des Moines Register. Similarly, when seeking health information, finding the hidden commercial sponsors of a medical information site, and thus adjusting for the special interest that may be promoted there, is hard. (and politicians) alternately present us with a heaven of unlimited services and opportunities and a hell of threats, frauds and dangers. We have to learn how to navigate between a naïve trust and a debilitating fear – and for this we need social skills and a technological awareness. A basic understanding of what happens when we click on an icon or a hyperlink is also necessary. We do not yet have a guide to how far to explore the insides of our machines and, of course, this will vary with the interests and aptitudes of different groups of students. What will intrigue some will mystify and alienate others. Decisions as to what to do when are best left to competent teachers and their students and not to national politicians prescribing for an unknown universal pupil.

for curiosity These are essential skills for twenty-first century information literacy, that must be part of any ICT curriculum. Otherwise, unwary readers may be led to believe Mr Gove’s pronouncements to be well-informed and authoritative.

Appropriate register Communication is equally important. The internet allows us to communicate with people distant from us both culturally and geographically. We do not know how our reader will understand what we write; whether that which is inoffensive in our home town may be deeply offensive elsewhere; how to find an appropriate register and language for a multitude of forums. We need the skills and insights of English and language teachers to inform our ICT teaching efforts. Finally, this is a technology, or more accurately an array of technologies; and erratic and troublesome technologies at that. We all need to learn how to keep our technologies working well and deal with mysterious error messages and sudden breakdowns without panicking or spending excessive money and time on ill-qualified repair services. The media

An added complication is that whatever technologies we teach now will be dated in 10 years time, unusable in 20 and museum pieces in 30. We need to ensure that learners are curious and flexible in their approach so they can adapt, adapt to and embrace unthought-of future devices and not be left floundering as they grow older: a curriculum for curiosity not certainty. We need a discourse of engagement with ICTs to accomplish tasks which are important and meaningful to learners, not the mandating of one menu of irrelevant skills in place of a redundant set. Teaching about and through ICTs is more complex than imaginatively summoning a phantom cohort of software engineers to drive the economy forward. A thoughtful curriculum will foster a generation of thoughtful users and co-creators of information and sufficient programmers to code all our dreams.

Mike Cushman is a member of the London School of Economics Department of Management. He worked on the LSE/NIACE Penceil Project on how to engage non-users in the use of ICTs: http://www.penceil.lse.ac.uk.

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