Participants expressed their needs and challenges of effectively implementing IT in the school. Participant S stated that, "technology integration should be treated as a major school goal" the teacher mentioned that the school needs leadership support which value technology in order to be effectively reinforced. Participant S also stated, I would say that one of the key factors that hinder the use of technology is parents' resistance. Not all parents are convinced with the importance of technology on students learning. They prefer the old tradition teaching method where the teacher explains everything for the
students and provide homework to be solved using school textbook. Parents still like the idea of children using textbook or other exercise books as their only mean of information. They sometimes feel that if there kids are using computer at home for watching videos, etc. then they are playing and wasting their time. Also, Participant M mentioned, “the lack of school system regarding technology integration is another factor”. The teacher mentioned that school leaders need to set a school policy on technology integration in order to be followed by teachers, parents and students. For example, the LMS system is not used in school as it's not part of the school system. Technology should not optional in should but rather mandatory. Participant M stated that, in order to promote the use of technology, both the administration and teachers should value technology, but first the administration should be a great believer in the importance and usefulness of technology and make it part of the system and then teachers and parents will follow. This indicated that the school needs to raise awareness for parents on how technology will benefit students learning (Stanley, Vaterlaus, Tulane, and Beckert, 2017). The other challenges teachers stated were:
• The lack of effective maintenance and troubleshooting; teachers agreed that
technical problems hinder the technology integration and waste the time of the lesson. Participant N2 stated that “the week lens of the projector make it very difficult to use the smart board in an interesting way to students. Also, the lighting in the class impedes teachers from showing visuals on the board as the board become so hazy.” Participant H1 stated, "if the school is willing to properly use technology then maintenance issues should be highly considered
because at this point it is not the teachers fault but rather it’s a school or administrative problem.”
• The lack of internet connection made teachers feel limited with what they can
do with students in the classroom. Teachers shared their willingness to integrate more online resources if they have accessibility to internet in the classroom and staff room.
• The lack of proper professional development. All teachers agreed that training
should be tailored according to the teacher's needs. Subject related training was considered as major need for all teachers. Teachers felt the need to have training relevant to the content they teach in order to gain knowledge and understanding on how they can properly integrate technology in their subject matters. Participant A1 mentioned that, “training also need to be offered in a language understandable by teachers”. Other teachers also shared the fact the training should be offered according to computer skills of the teachers. • Monitoring and supervision on technology integration is another factor that
teachers felt as a great need (Vogel, 2018). Teachers claimed that technology integration in school highly relies on teachers' personal attitude and will and is not monitored by school supervisors. Teachers felt the need to have regular monitoring on the use of IT and provide feedback on how they can improve their strategies. Also, the lack of school policy on technology integrations and the lack of supervision resulted in the fact that not all school teachers are using technology.
Conclusion
The findings of the study showed that teachers have positive attitude towards technology integration but they encounter challenges that hinder them from properly employing IT. The findings align with a study conducted by Canals and Al-Rawashdeh (2019) who investigated the attitudes of teachers regarding the use of IT. The study found that teachers have positive attitudes towards IT when given the appropriate PD based on their own individual needs. In this project study, teachers’ perceptions of the process of integrating technology in their daily instruction varied, but overall perceptions were positive toward its use. Even though technology is not used with full potential in
classroom and is mostly limited to guided PowerPoint and instructional videos due to the lack of knowledge, yet teachers believe that teaching methods and students' learning is more engaging with technology. All participants in the study reported that they integrate technology to the degree of their knowledge and the degree of availability in their classroom. However, teachers also shared that technology can be obstructive due to various reasons such as lack of knowledge and training, lack of technology skills, technical problems and accessibility as well as leadership support. The findings are aligned with other research (Ried, 2017). In their study examining the current state of technology integration in developmental education in Texas higher education,
Martirosyan, Kennon, Saxon, Edmonson, and Skidmore (2017) cited that “most
frequently technology barrier was associated with the lack of technology and support, and the lack of training on how to use technology. Another study conducted by Raulston and Alexiou-Ray (2018) found that the lack of knowledge on instructional methods is a major
barrier to successfully integrating technology. The findings are similar to the study conducted by Lynn and Michael (2019) who reported that the lack of IT knowledge and skills of teachers may create barriers to their ability to understand and design
instructional content involving technology.
Section 3 discusses the project developed for this study to addresses teachers needs and concerns regarding barriers to using instructional technology. The project selected for this study is a professional development program to help support teachers in effectively using instructional technology in classroom to improve teaching and students learning. The following section also discuss project description, outcomes, and how the project will be evaluated.
Section 3: The Project