2. International Trends: ICT in Education/Laptops for Teachers

Internationally, governments have endorsed the need for teachers to be ICT literate and have invested heavily in computers for schools under the apparent assumption that access to hardware will transform schools and education. Despite the rhetoric about the potential for ICT to transform schooling, there is no definitive, unequivocal evidence that it does this, or that the use of ICT necessarily enhances student learning (Becker, 2000; Cuban, 2001; Dwyer, 2003). It seems that ICT is just as likely to support traditional as innovative pedagogy (Pelgrum & Anderson, 1999). It can just as easily replicate and reinforce current practices as it can transform them (Cuban, 2001). As Kerr (1991) pointed out in the early 1990s, it is not enough to simply acquire technology and leave cultural and pedagogical issues unattended. This said, some researchers have queried whether the methods used to assess learning and achievement gains have focused on the ‘wrong’ things by “looking for improvements in traditional processes and knowledge instead of new reasoning and new knowledge, which might emerge from the ICT use” (Cox, Abbott, Webb, Blakely, Beauchamp, & Rhodes, 2003, p.8). Still others have argued for a wider conceptualisation of the impacts of computers on teachers’ lives consequent on the introduction of new technologies such as the Internet (Beebell, Russell & O’Dwyer, 2004). A wider conceptualisation of impacts is consistent with the goals of the TELA scheme.

A portable computer

While much of the research into ICT in education has concentrated on teacher use of school computers, educational authorities in Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States of America, have moved recently to provide laptops to teachers. Research is only just beginning to explicate the impact upon teachers, schools and students of teacher use of a portable computer for their exclusive use. There is some evidence from the United Kingdom that laptops can support increased communication between teachers, students and parents and greater sharing of information between teachers (Cunningham, Kerr, McEune, Smith & Harris, 2003). Teachers reported increases in ICT confidence and competence with perceived positive impacts in the classroom. Nearly all teachers developed the quality and range of their IT skills regardless of the baseline from which they were starting (Cunningham et al. 2003; Deakin University, 2002). The portability of laptops was said to give teachers more options than desktop computers. They appreciated the continual everyday availability of laptops that afforded them flexibility in place and time of work. Teachers acknowledged the advantages of ‘having everything in one place’. Teachers reported that a laptop afforded them greater access to resources for lesson preparation and provided for the streamlining of management and administrative tasks. Teachers felt they were gaining maximum impact from their laptops when used in conjunction with peripherals.

Indirect benefits

Phillips, Bailey, Fisher & Harrison (1999) reported on the ‘Multimedia Portables for Teachers Pilot Project’ run in the United Kingdom by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA), where two teachers in more than 500 primary and secondary schools were presented with multimedia portable computers for one year. The pilot led to a significant enhancement of the IT skills of the great majority of teachers. Gains were evident regardless of the baseline from which they were starting; however one reason for the success of the scheme was the time teachers gave to it. The major benefits for students appeared to be indirect, through teachers’ increased expertise in creating high-quality classroom materials and improved access to resources. Amongst the claims made, increased student motivation and availability of information to students featured, as well as teachers being better able to address different learning styles with a laptop computer. A Scottish pilot study (Simpson & Payne, 2005) in both primary and secondary schools considered the reasons the project had been more successful in primary schools, and concluded that primary teachers had benefited from collegial support to integrate ICT use into the curriculum that was less ‘stuffed’ than the secondary curriculum. Simpson and Payne also attributed success to the fact that primary teachers had, over a long period of time, had a computer in regular use in their classrooms and had already generated models of how the teacher might use ICT technology in classrooms to enhance learning. In a laptop pilot where twenty-seven teachers at a school in the United States received laptops, the perceived benefits of teacher use of laptops versus their use of desktop computers were categorised as mobility and portability, accessibility and convenience, ownership and confidentiality, productivity and efficiency, and connectivity to a data projector (Sockwell & Zhang, 2003). Teachers who had formerly shared desktop computers with other teachers or students now had a sense of ownership of the technology they were using (see also the study by Deakin University, 2002). Exclusive access to a portable computer also encouraged teachers to think strategically about IT issues in schools (Deakin University, 2002). Unlike studies of laptop classrooms where both the teacher and the students have access to a personal computer, these reports do not go so far as to say there was an impact on student achievement as such.

This study builds on this research to examine the ways that New Zealand teachers used laptop computers over a three-year period, the benefits they experienced, and the factors they considered influenced the uses they made of their laptops.