Common Ground New Technology Meets School Culture Mart Laanpere, Centre of Educational Technology Tallinn Pedagogical University

IPM tools research framework Not looking for differences, but for common ground: between countries, between school levels, between theory and praxis, technology and teachers, old and new school culture Not looking for causes and effects, but trying to understand how the teacher make sense of ICT infusion into school Not looking for statistically reliable generalizations, but exploring and interpreting

Research questions What kind of adoption problems did the teachers have with PedaNet tools? What were the common strategies of coping with new tasks? What kind of influence did these new tools have on teaching and learning practices? How does the school culture influence the methods and content of Webmagazines?

The Languages of Theory Introducing ICT in schools is not only about improving computing skills of students, there are great ambitions to change learning and school culture, professionalize teaching Pedagogical theory behind this innovation is most often related with social-constructivist approache (Vygotski, Leontjev, Bruner) Knowledge building, anchored instruction, virtual learning communities, scaffolding and fading, metacognition, cognitive flexibility ….

The Languages of Practice Aristotle: theoria (audience for sports games), praxis (ethical-practical wisdom) In teaching, decisions cannot be proved, only defended Donald Schön: experts reflect in action, practical knowledge is tacit (hidden) Despite the decades of theory-based value- adding, teaching remains to be a practical task

Teacher professionalism & ICT Administrative and democratic view to teacher professionalism: competency standards and indicators vs. ethos and tacit knowledge Too radical ICT innovations tend to alienate participating teachers from colleagues Step-by-step strategy and simple, but useful tool could be the key to success

Predicting the adoption of ICT Betty Collis 4E model: an individual's likelihood of using a telematics application in his or her teaching or learning (assuming a voluntary choice is involved) can be expressed as the vector sum of four vectors: Environmental aspects of the institution Educational effectiveness Ease of use personal Engagement

Research methods Online questionnaire: Background information Organization of the work with PedaNet tools Prediction of use according to 4E model Interviews with principals, teachers and students in 3 Estonian and 4 Finnish schools Observations and videorecordings of lessons Analysis of Webmagazines

Online questionnaire: results

Background information 1 - students cannot use computers in our school at all 2 - students use computers only during informatics lessons or computer club 3 - students use computers in various subject lessons, not only informatics – but not after lessons 4 - students use computers also after lessons 5 - I do not know how it is arranged

Admin Supp ortEstoniaFinlandGaliciaLithuaniaNorway Grand Total Grand Total Perceived support from school administration (by countries)

EditorsEstoniaFinlandGaliciaLithuaniaNorway Grand Total Own class Changing Fixed group Other12216 Grand Total How the work is arranged?EstoniaFinlandGaliciaLithuaniaNorway Grand Total Subject Extra- curricular22239 Students find the time Ohter Grand Total

The 4E prediction The highest consensus among different countries and the highest positive rate is under Personal Engagement The lowest consensus (dispersed responses) among both countries and persons is related with Ease of Use, but also with one question from Educational Effectiveness block: “WebMagazine does not overload me with extra work - it helps me to accomplish effectively the tasks I have to do anyway ”

Webmagazines Language problem Types of content: school newsletter, student essays/poems/drawings, project reports, learning resources Enjoyable effect for younger students – parents can see their works published

School visits In elementary schools – greater enthusiasm, more simple tasks, more flexibility, more fun In secondary schools – more difiicult for Web tools to “fit into” institutional structures and traditions (except for specialized media courses) Strong support from school administration Computer lab is not needed

Conclusions There are clearly more commonalities than differences between countries and subjects in goals, ways and reasons of using Web tools in teaching and learning Adoption problems were related with not sufficient ease of use of WM, poor local technical support, poor access to computers Effective adoption strategies were related either with whole-school campaign of fitting the new tools to existing practices

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