Interviews and a final overview of participants’ response categories

Within the case studies I have provided a reflection on each set of interviews which refers each Teacher to each other; therefore, I will not focus specifically on this section here, but rather a final overview which also incorporates the interviews.

While sorting and classifying the emerging themes, it became evident that certain themes were common across all the informants. The tables (49 and 50) provide an overview of the common themes as well as the frequency of each theme across the informants.

Table 5.7 positive comments in interviews.

Theme - positive Occurrence

Cross curricular links/usage 111

On line researching 1

Open ended approach 1111

IWB other new hardware 1111

New use of ICT - moving forward 1111

Use of school laptop at home 111

Enjoyment by teachers 1

Advantages of using ICT for admin 111

School ethos - support 111

Table 5.8 negative comments in interviews.

The responses varied but there were indications of frustration between what the teachers expected to do and what the technology allowed them to do:

"I would have liked to have had internet access for everyone, but in the end didn't have"

"[child's name] had not correctly saved his files ….but …was able to recreate the files quickly" and "there were problems with the laptops… sometimes the internet doesn't work on them…sometimes

the laptops hadn't been charged". This frustration with the equipment decreases the level of confidence in the technology and the teacher's ability to cope with the breakdowns (Cuban, 1999).

Recorded conversations which preserve the children's interaction with each other and the teachers predominantly centred around the specifics of using the technology, rather than on developing the child's ability to carry out the work:

T1: Can you hop up for a second; this program is a bit temperamental at times. Have you closed it? You closed the story?

(…)

Oh, that’s interesting. So it’s associating it with the wrong file type.

Theme - negative Occurrence

Problems with accessing internet 1

Not all children have equal knowledge of ICT 11

Loss of key people with 'knowledge' 1

No class-wide internet access 11

New hardware/software - unfamiliar 11

Infrastructure in place, but hardware not yet in place.

These comments, in general, were in the minority but reflect what Shortis (2001) has found in other professions – that the teacher often sees the computer operating system, the programme or other

hardware anthropomorphically. In this case, the teacher referred to the programme as being ‗a bit temperamental‘. By attributing such human-like qualities, the teacher tries to lessen the frustration of

the moment by implying that the next time it will work; often this is articulated in front of the

students so that they don‘t feel either ‗let down‘ or acquire a cynical approach to the reliability the

ICT systems. This may well prove an interesting area to pursue further – how students‘ attitudes to ICT are affected by the methods with which teachers combat their frustrations arising from

technological issues.

The majority of comments, however, extolled the upsides of the technology from independent

research using the enormously wide resource bank found on the internet (―I believe very strongly that

the Internet is an incredibly valuable research tool. It has loads there providing you’re capable of

using it with some discernment”), to the fact that the multi-media interactive resources helped in keeping the children's focus (―I think having research tools that are loaded that you can use off line for the kids to use is great”). OfSTED (2005) found this also to have some truth in their wider study that showed that teachers‘ competence and confidence has improved in using applications, but they also had a tendency to stay with familiar and consistent software.

There were a few comments linked to confidence:

"it's encouraging being in an environment ….. where all the other teachers [are] using it

[ICT] confidently"

"[colleague's name] won't be there next year and that makes a difference, so next year will be

This latter causes some concern (BECTA, 2004) but is not insurmountable.

Research from the interim findings of the Teacher Workload Study for the then DfES (Price- Waterhouse-Coopers, 2001) found that teachers who were given laptops to take home ended up making more use of ICT while Guha (2000) had feedback in her research to show that teachers using computers at home had less fear of using them. This was reflected in comments from this study's cohort where using the laptops at home for planning and familiarisation was highlighted as a positive move forward on the confidence front - "I do a lot of my work at home, and it's much, much easier". This factor could help to account for the higher positive responses than expected using the mind maps.

An approach to helping these teachers may also be through what Laurillard (2008) highlights as

‗personalised learning‘. Involvement in developing a personal digital portfolio can lead some

teachers to move swiftly from a position of non-user to mentor of others (Kankaanranta, 2001). Publishing these digital portfolios on the Web could enable a sharing of pedagogical expertise and practice (Kankaanranta, 2001), while sharing problems and success via a discussion group could give members the confidence to reflect on practice in their own schools (Parker and Bowell, 1998).

In any diffusion model, the assumption is that individuals adopt the innovation for their own use

rather than as part of the larger group. Providing ‗critical mass‘ (Markus, 1987) is reached, the

technology will be adopted (Rogers, 2003). In the responses from the case study participants, it can

not achieved. Confidence in the technology played an important part in the lack of progress, in addition the technology was not intertwined with what Nelson and Winter (1982) called

‗organisational routines‘ – using ICT for data handling, internal emails and other forms of routine