Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to analyse and discuss how information technology (IT) and especially mobile technology can be successfully integrated in teaching practices to support and motivate students for subject-matter teaching. IT-supported learning does not solely depend on how the IT is designed, but also on how the students are motivated to use IT in a pedagogical practice. In this chapter, we argue that IT can help to mediate between teaching practice and learning activity when children’s everyday IT competences are taken into account in the practice of school teaching. Furthermore, we suggest, that provided as part of a coherent and inter-connected teaching practice and IT usage; IT can potentially motivate the ‘the double move approach’ in which subject-matter knowledge is naturally integrated into the children’s everyday life (Hedegaard 2002; Hedegaard & Chaiklin, 2005).

In the first part of the chapter, we develop a theoretical model for understanding children’s development of motives as a result of both teaching practice and learning activity. The model draws on Vygotsky’s distinction between scientific concepts and everyday concepts (Vygotsky, 1982, 1987). Following Hedegaard and Chaiklin’s line of argument that it is essential for children’s development to combine the subject matter taught in schools with their everyday life, we position IT as a tool for bridging both knowledge and motives to connect the distinct but intertwining practices of school and everyday life.