Having reminded each interviewee of where they placed
themselves on the technophobe-technophile continuum, each one was invited to
describe more fully their relationship with technology. Collectively, there was
an over-representation at the technophile end, but this perception represented
their current relationship and what emerged from the data were stories of changing
perceptions and engagement with learning ICT, predominately outside of work. In
three examples, claiming to be a technophile was unambiguous because of
lifetime experience or a perception of being born into it:
Basically, I am bit of a nerd. I used to
spend hours writing up computer programs. [At university] we used a lot of
computer technology to run simulating software … the whole computer thing is
pretty straightforward for me ... I’m using really high-end software.
I was a computer programmer … then
website developer when the Internet first came about. I did my first online course before that ...
when we had something called ARNET … I don’t have any fear of anything with
technology.
I’ve grown up with the Internet and with
digital life and digital identity. I spend a ridiculous amount of time on the
computer. I’m very comfortable with [it].
Others were more cautious, concerned about technology
taking over, for example:
I don’t just naturally love computers,
but I’m not afraid, either … in the future it won’t be a fancy alternative,
just the norm, so I decided it was necessary to learn, to get comfortable … the
term digital immigrant resonates with me … my relationship [is] transitional,
experimental.
I love technology, but don’t like going
to extreme … like spending the whole day in front of the computer … I use it
half for my professional needs, half for my professional development.
I hope to lean towards the technophile
end … I’m very eager to try out new things [but] I’m not a real technical
genius.
The most interesting finding was a number of
interviewees who described their journey from one part of the continuum to another
or how they had integrated their increasing knowledge into their teaching.
Approximately half of the interviewees were introduced
at some point to David White's ‘resident-visitor’ paradigm.
Most of those, who expressed an opinion on this, placed themselves
closer to ‘visitor’, at least in terms of ‘strategically choosing tools’,
although this seemed to be changing, as confidence grew in using online forums
for professional development:
I have both social and professional
online identities, with my Diploma blog … and I spend a lot of time reading ELT
blogs and even commenting. Perhaps my
digital residency isn’t fully established simply because I’m a fairly new
arrival.
I am becoming a bit more relaxed about
my online presence. In the beginning, I
wasn’t so relaxed … I was a little bit intimidated by some of the other
participants [on] websites. I’m way over that now.
ICT/Web Tool Usage
During the interviews there was an opportunity to
clarify answers given for survey Q10 as the question had not asked whether use
of tools was specifically for teaching purpose or more general use. Teachers had interpreted the question in
different ways. Some assumed it was in
relation to teaching because the previous question had been. Others took it more generally, with one
explaining:
It’s definitely an [extension] of my
personal life. … I’ve realised a lot of the potential that connected learning,
and connected professional development can offer, so I’ve been integrating it
more and more into my teaching.
Three main areas emerged of where certain types of
tools were used. Social networking tools, for example, were limited to personal
use and accessed for professional development.
Materials creation and screen casting tools were used in teaching, but
mostly for preparation and feedback. Finally,
there are those, such as creative, integrative and presentation tools, used in
the classroom with or exclusively by the students. This was outlined by one interviewee as
follows:
For myself, I use almost everything [on
the list] but I do not necessarily use everything in class. That’s the
difference. I use Jing a lot, but I
don’t use Jing in the classroom. So there are effectiveness of tools for my
daily life as a teacher and what I then actually transfer to students.
Many interviewees were also asked for frequently used
tools. MOODLE was mentioned the most. This was clearly due to Learning Management Systems
(LMS) being introduced at the institutional level. For some, this was the starting point in
terms of integrating online tools and sharing information securely with
students. It remains a favourite for some, while others have used alternative LMS, such as Ganttproject, Engrade
and Edmodo. Collaborative wikis and
blogs also proved popular.
Reasons for selecting tools were influenced strongly
by options given on survey Q12. For students the tool had to be simple, easy
to use, intuitive, ‘plug and play’ and free to access. Many teachers, having discovered a tool,
allowed themselves a certain time to learn the tool before either using or
rejecting – stage three of the ‘innovation, decision, process’ model, referred
to earlier. Often this depended on whether it can be
pedagogically justified. Some tools may
be perceived as time-fillers, but, when asked, teachers frequently claimed
justification is essential. Tools which
enable brainstorming ideas, e.g. Wordle, Freemind, and ones which encourage creativity,
for example, Pixton, were also mentioned.
One teacher queried whether she would know if a tool was motivating, but
agreed that engagement could be judged.
When it came to the order of discovery and
implementation, there was no clear preferred method. However, the majority seemed to wait for
recommendations rather than purposefully searching, as one interviewee stated:
First I learn about this tool, somewhere
on the internet … then I see how and which point I can use this tool in the
classroom, for which purposes or activity.
I usually read about it, maybe watch some tutorial and I see whether I
personally like this tool or not and is it easy for me to use it? If yes, then I try to think how can incorporate
this tool into my lesson. (sic)
For teacher-trainers the process was slightly
different:
I do tend to wait until somebody points
the tool out to me and think I could see a really good use for that one and
then squeeze it into the classroom when I need it. From a teacher-training point of view, I do
tend to do it the other way round, though.
I wonder if there is a tool out there that will help my students or my
trainees benefit from it ... but for my own teaching, it’s the other way round.
A lot of it comes from my need and demand
– if I need to do a certain thing and I don’t have the immediate tool … at my
fingertips, I go onto sourceforge or some software website.
If the tool proved to be effective then it could be
used again. In response to how
effectiveness can be measured, some stated it was a ‘trial and error’ process.
The strongest responses, in passion, if not in number, were in terms of
students being able to demonstrate the target language, with one declaring it
to be pointless otherwise.
Whilst the majority of interviewees saw the potential
for tools, not everyone was enthusiastic and one respondent dismissed many tools as
‘frivolous’, before elaborating:
I think a person has to be really sold
on the benefits … web tools inherently are easily dismissible [compared to a
course book]. … by their nature, [they]
in their virtuality are ephemeral. Jing? Well, you can make a video and send
them to students, but it’s kind of narrow. I want a multipurpose or general set
which brings them all together.
The same freelance teacher above later
expressed how preparation and delivery had changed with Smart notebook
software:
I’m no longer sitting in front of a
blank sheet of paper, wondering what to do.
Now I have a series of slides to fill in and things are … slicker, more
efficient … I’ve got a record of what was done. … Given those characteristics
or features I find some endless benefits.
Having that ability to have everything in one place is
attractive for any teacher wishing to appear organised. As an example of someone who moves from
context to context, on a yearly basis, portability is essential. With so many tablet devices now, this is
becoming the future in ELT, as is the trend to BYOD - ‘bring your own device’.
Barriers
The financial cost involved was the highest polling
barrier in the survey. This was
affirmed by a number of interviewees. A
significant proportion of web tools are free to use, at least in their basic
version. While the perception by institutions that purchasing technology to
enable use of these tools was prohibitive, many interviewees revealed they either
used free tools where the opportunity and hardware existed or bought their own
technology for their classrooms:
You would have to go and buy more tools
[for MOODLE] and if nobody else asks for these tools … my university will not
get [these] additional tools. I got my
own iPad because my university won’t pay for it.
I buy a lot of licences and tools
myself, because that is the only way I can justify [to the institution] the amazing
things I’m doing with it.
One
interviewee, however, went to great lengths to explain how he had overcome cost
barriers by directly emailing several software developers. This was a somewhat unusual step, but showed a unique resourcefulness. He had managed to persaude several companies to provide full or educational accounts for 6 months to one year, free of charge.
Reliability, which also scored high on the survey, was
also reaffirmed, although tellingly the fear of technology breaking down was
projected onto non-confident work colleagues by some, describing it as ‘the
last nail in the coffin’.
Guaranteed access was also raised, especially in Nepal, where there are
frequent power cuts or in China, where a lot of useful sites are blocked
and proxy servers are not encouraged at the institution disclosed. In addition, state government networks can
also restrict access, even to sites like Blogger, if someone gets offended, as pointed out by an experienced trainer in Canberra, Australia.
Time constraints were also singled out, as well as specific
issues concerning online instruction:
Every tool takes a lot of learning and
adapting and experimenting and that takes a lot of time. It’s much easier to go
with what you already know.
Definitely my list of priorities is too
long. I can prioritise and I do, but time.
Connection speeds is another large challenge. … Infrastructures of
connection access. … With so many devices used now … I get feedback that things
don’t work with this device or browser.
More specific contextual problems arose. Non homogenous classes were mentioned as a factor associated with low-level learners. One interviewee spoke
of the disadvantage caused by easily distracted students and a liberal school
policy in Sweden, while another mentioned the problems of a self-described
‘developing’ country:
Because all the students have laptops,
all of them are connected to the internet and sometimes they use games, and
they check Facebook or they went to YouTube … [the school is] not allowed to
force [the students] not [to use] music ... the students said that they were
allowed to do that, while I am teaching.
In the context of Nepal, there is more
than one hundred students inside the classroom.
Another barrier is multilingual classroom, multilingual background. They
don’t have much English knowledge, and we have problem of different mother
tongues.
Many barriers, most notably that of institutional
resistance and the lack of teachers seeking to be autonomous learners, are
arguably ‘underlain by a lack of political will’. Thus:
when an organisation wants ICT or web
tools used, they will make them available, they will train staff and create an
ethos in which these things operate … therefore, the barriers which are left
will be the teachers’ own proclivities or disinclination to engage.
Institutional Support or Training
So what experiences do teachers have of institutional
support? There were many detailed
examples of an organisation making technology available, as above, and there
being some expectation for training. One
particular case involved the introduction of MOODLE, pre-loaded with ‘a bunch
of stuff’, with teachers told to ‘figure it out’, but no specific training
given. In that unionised
environment resistance from the teachers not prepared to invest their own time
in learning the tool, scuppered this innovation before it got going. Another institution, part of state
government, had very good conditions. Managers had fought hard for allocation
of Professional Development. Support was widely given, but some teachers chose not to spend time
learning technology, training was turned down.
Teachers can stubbornly resist development unless they see a direct
benefit for themselves. As the interviewee
explained:
There was someone who said [they had]
been teaching for 20 years and there is nothing else [she] could learn … I said
to my manager, well I hope you took her Professional Development money and time off her.
Some regional training was found, or funding for
online courses and more so with established providers, such as The British
Council, but generally any Professional Development in this area came from colleagues,
encouraged by institutions as part of a contractual obligation. General support and encouragement
for innovative teaching using existing technology was found. Commonly, however, there was no training
given and many had grown to not expect it either. There were many examples of self-directed
teacher-learners bringing new ideas and trying them out for themselves or
sharing with colleagues. The
institutions generally hired them on this basis and used them to give training
sessions when needed. For one young teacher,
about to start work at an institution in the Netherlands:
I’m not expecting to be given
anything. I’m expecting that I will have
to either figure it out myself or ask people who have been there longer … I
would hope it would be otherwise.
Especially as there is now a trend to try and incorporate more ICT in
education … and director of studies are quite interested by that ... they
really want to push for that, but they don’t know what to do with it. So I’m seeing [my employment] as being very
self-directed.
The interviewees consistently explained they had
received no training and quite often found their institution offering only
‘basic training’ or ‘not buying into’ the idea, often
because non-government institutions are run as profit-driven businesses or
are reluctant to offer full-time contracts. Locations where teachers have two or three
part-time jobs, such as expressed by one interviewee in Argentina, make it difficult to coordinate professional development.
As many of the teachers interviewed were also
teacher-trainers they demonstrated many of the skills required
by their trainees, but expressed that both managers and teachers often showed that
‘lack of political will’. As one teacher-trainer explained:
I think the institution should be
providing training. I think if you bury your head in the sand and get to the
point that you think it’s not important then you are going to lose customers in
the end, because people are so confident around technology that I think teachers
need to have that as well.
Those that possessed significant skill sets either
become hired as trainers or end up doing training:
This normally happens if someone has a
useful skill set that person then becomes the person as the expert in those
skills. So if I was a technophobe and my
senior teacher was a technophile he would have a more dominant role when it comes
to training on the IT side.
Being shown by an ‘expert’ on how to do something, however,
is not always helpful. There was a barrier for one teacher-learner, wary of
synchronous tuition, if the gap between the teacher’s and learner’s knowledge
is so great that it is off-putting. This can be avoided, however, with
asynchronous learning sites offering numerous screenshots of how to do
something. In addition, teacher training
sites, which use screen casting technology, can fill a gap because of the
step-by-step process where no assumption of knowledge is made beyond basic
ability to operate the device being used to access the tool.
The amount of responsibility that teachers actually take for their own training appeared very high amongst this set of respondents, reflecting the high response rate in Q17 on the survey about whether they should do this. The willingness to take responsibility was already evident in the younger interviewees, while the slightly older ones had come to realise over time, that waiting for training was often in vain.
A substantial number of interviewees expressed
how they had proven themselves over time. Not only could they be trusted, left alone to
teach or, as one put it, ‘not to break anything in the lab’, their very
actions have effectively earned their relative freedoms. Their professional development may have
indirectly, therefore, impacted upon their professional action. But to what extent do teachers have a
capacity from the outset, how did they learn to be autonomous and have they had
to become more so?
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