This project is part of a larger study that is currently being carried out by the Grupo Stellae (1) of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain), within the framework of a research project entitled Case study of educational innovation projects involving ICTs in Primary and Secondary education centres, financed by the Ministry of Education and Science in its 2005-08 call for RDi funding. The study is based on one of our lines of research and its main aim is to analyse the factors involved, and the strengths and weaknesses generated when dealing with curricular innovation activities in which the innovation is focused on favouring new teaching and learning environments with information and communication technologies (ICTs). Thus, our basic aim is none other than to understand the processes and meanings of the incorporation of ICTs in innovation projects in Primary and Secondary education centres.

We start with the hypothesis that if there is no genuine innovation project at schools, its incorporation of ICTs is limited to reproducing or even upgrading old methodological and didactic uses. ICTs have potential if –and only if– their use implies rethinking the factors involved in the teaching and learning processes of a specific educational centre, within the framework of the changing conditions of the society it lives in, the educational system where it is implemented, and the community where it is integrated.

The focus of the research embraces a collaborative approach to research / action, in such a way that our study is contextualised in the tradition of those researchers that assume the value of reflection over practice and the protagonism of teachers in the construction of their personal knowledge, the development of the curriculum and the improvement of the school, understanding training as that geared to research.

In this presentation, we provide an account of the initial status of the research project, explaining the first steps of the project at a Centro Rural Agrupado (CRA), or rural school, one of the four schools we are working with. The study of the four cases is being carried out by means of regular meetings at the schools, direct observation of day-to-day practice, analysis of documents, holding in-depth interviews with key informants, integration in work groups and living the everyday life of the school in a collaborative manner. This process involves examining the demands, reflecting on them, theorising them, readapting strategies, clarifying and renegotiating expectations and positions, etc. A long path that we continue to walk.

* (1) Research group coordinated by Professor Mª Lourdes Montero Mesa and comprising the following professors: Quintín Álvarez, Adriana Gewerc Barujel, Mª Dolores Fernández Tilve, Rufino González Fernández, Esther Martínez Piñeiro, Eulogio Pernas, Jesús Rodríguez Rodríguez, Mª Dolores Sanz Lobo, Mª del Pilar Vidal Puga and the researcher Mª Helena Zapico Barbeito.