Laptops for Teachers: An evaluation of the TELA scheme in Auckland schools

4. Early attainment of the Ministry goals

This chapter considers data gathered in 2005 and provides a snapshot of the implementation of the TELA project in its early stages. In 2005, data were gathered through a second survey administered in November⁹, teacher logs and focus group interviews. A total of 190 surveys were returned from across 11 of the original 13 schools, while focus groups and logs were completed in six schools, the first set of case-study schools.

Use of computers in 2005

The question regarding the use of computers was substantially changed for the longitudinal survey from those asked in the baseline survey. Rather than using categories of time, participants were asked to estimate the actual number of hours, in a typical week, they would use their laptops, a school desktop or home computer across different areas of use. The areas of use were also changed from those in the baseline survey to reflect better the degree of complexity in the range of professional tasks teachers undertake and to make greater differentiation between types of task. The areas of use in the November survey were for:

• pedagogical use (in the classroom with students as part of their learning)
• preparation and planning of classroom materials (creating worksheets, presenting materials using PowerPoint, accessing lesson materials on the web etc)
• administrative tasks (reporting, attendance, recording marks, communicating with colleagues etc)
• professional tasks (planning, analysing and interpreting achievement data, commenting on student work online, providing feedback to students)
• professional development and learning (membership of professional communities; online courses; accessing research etc)
• personal use (anything not work-related).

Table 4.1 summarises the findings for each of these types of use in terms of reported hours of use.

The responses to the question about extent of use of different computers showed that, in 2005, the laptops were being used more than any other form of computer in all areas except pedagogical use, where school desktops were the most commonly used computer. In this instance, it could be assumed that school desktops included those in computer laboratories, multimedia rooms and libraries. These are the computers students are most likely to have access to and the level of use described in this question was likely to include use by both teachers and students.

What these data also showed was that a marked increase was reported in the overall levels of pedagogical use of computers from that reported prior to receiving their laptops. Although much of this use appears to have been on school desktops, there was also considerable use of laptops reported for this purpose.

Findings from the focus groups suggested that the provision of laptops had enabled teachers to facilitate greater use of the school computers by their students. For example, one participant commented that “You can save their work on your laptop and you can go and show it in the classroom” rather than, as another participant commented, “wasting your precious computer time watching slide shows”. These findings suggest that, as early as 2005, the possession of laptops was having an impact beyond that anticipated by the participant teachers, particularly in terms of classroom teaching.

Teachers reported in the focus groups that their laptops were a valuable ICT resource in the classroom. As one participant stated “It’s that whole thing about having an extra computer in the classroom, it’s been a huge difference”. The value of the laptops in this way seemed to relate to their greater functionality, their speed, their ability to connect to the Internet through wireless networks and the additional programmes they offered. As one participant commented “with the updating and skills [the laptop has] definitely had an impact in my classroom, cause I can go, look, this is what we are going to do with our laptop……which I would never have done without a laptop”. This idea of the laptops as an additional resource for a school’s ICT development programme was one of the Ministry goals and these findings suggest this had been achieved in 2005.

Participants were asked in the focus group interviews how they were using their laptops for ‘cutting edge’ classroom use, what they saw as their most innovative use of the laptop. The responses suggested some very exciting teaching and learning was occurring across these schools at this time. One such example was the use of Google Earth to stimulate student interest in other countries in the world and to enable them to see other facets of life they had read about. In this particular case it was with reference to Argentina, which they had just studied.

“….they were able to go onto the main street of Argentina and look at it and the kids just thought it was amazing; I mean we couldn’t do that on the classroom computer it’s too slow, it’s not connected to the Internet.”

Another participant spoke of the creation and use of digital learning centres. In this instance the teacher had created a PowerPoint, which functioned as a learning centre for her students. The teacher created a number of digital learning objects on her laptop and then made these available on the server within a PowerPoint. A range of activities, tasks and sets of notes are linked by hyperlinks within the PowerPoint framework. These allowed students to select the activity or task they wanted to complete and to use only what they needed to, thus meeting both their different learning styles and their different learning needs.

A commonly reported pedagogical use of the laptops was allowing students immediate access to information sources, which could assist in the work they were doing. The two quotes that follow exemplify the way in which access to information stimulated student writing and promoted deeper understanding of a topic. They also show how using the laptop was allowing students to find answers to questions their teacher could not provide.

“One of the children was writing a Māori myth and they used a stingray and they didn’t know the parts of the stingray so they used Worldbook to look up parts of a stingray, things like that I don’t know.”

“Elena said to me, what do plankton eat then? I’m like, oh I don’t know …they went on and it was really easy to go on right there and then and actually do the research.”

Other activities mentioned include the use of KidPix, creating movies and creating digital stories. The teacher who spoke of using Google Earth (quoted earlier) was asked directly how this activity contributed to student learning. Her response was:

“You know it’s about the whole oral language development, you know when they’re using Google Earth, huge, you know like they’re so focused, their talk is all focused. You know, it might be about the computer skill that they’re using or its going to be about the images they’re seeing but it – you know huge development that you wouldn’t get by looking at a book.”

The comparatively high level of use reported for the preparation and presentation of classroom materials in the baseline survey was also reported in the November 2005 survey. While this might suggest little impact by the laptops, a tall order as use was already high, comments made in the focus groups suggested that some teachers, at least, had begun to do different things and to use their laptops to present material to students in different ways. For example, there was the teacher quoted above who had used Google Earth to present information about Argentina to her students. Another teacher explained how the wireless connection on the laptop meant she was able to show her students how to do things in the classroom, which she had not been able to do before:

“They take it back to the classroom [their work] and I can show them how to do things in the classroom with the wireless, ... before the only time we could do anything on the network or anything was in the computer room.”

Use of the laptops for professional development online remained the least reported type of use, suggesting the laptops were having little impact in this area in the early stages of implementation. The average reported level of use, for laptops at this time, was only 1.3 hours with a maximum of 10 hours. This was the only area of professional use where home computers almost matched the laptops in level of use.

The professional development that was reported seems primarily to have involved participation in web-based courses through universities. One or two participants mentioned sharing ideas and resources with other teachers through email or via the Internet but this was not common. However, there may have been an overlap here with the preparation and presentation of resources as some teachers commented that it was difficult to distinguish between what was for their own learning and what was for the preparation of resources. They felt that everything they did was ultimately for their students and any professional learning was what was necessary for that to occur. This may also be a result of the somewhat limited definition many teachers have of professional development. It tends to be seen as something that is ‘done to them’ as part of a structured course (Parr & Ward, 2005).

Figure 4.1 is a graphical display of the reported average levels of use of laptops in one week in November 2005 across the various areas of professional and personal work. What this shows is that, despite the high levels of pedagogical use of computers overall, the laptops were predominantly being used for professional work, planning and preparation and administrative use. As already discussed, the reasons for the high level of laptop use in these areas appears to be largely attributable to their portability. It must be noted here that this focus on the use of the laptop may be under-representing the indirect impact the laptops are having on the use of ICT in classroom practices.

Figure 4.1: Average reported levels of laptop use across the categories

The teacher logs also provided data related to the extent of use of the laptops. Teachers were asked to record their use of computers over a typical week across a number of identified tasks. Table 4.2 summarises the data gathered from the logs on overall use.

It should be noted that a direct comparison of the actual levels of use between the logs and the survey data is not possible. This is for a number of reasons:

• the logs were completed by only a small percentage of the survey participants, who came from less than half the surveyed schools. Their responses are not representative of the overall survey population and should not be used in this way
• there are large standard deviations in both the survey and log data, reflecting the breadth of responses from participant teachers further compounding the issue of non-representativeness
• the units of analysis for the two tools are not the same. The log asks for actual use over a working week, while the survey asks for an estimation of average use in a week. We cannot determine the extent to which the reported actual use in the log is indicative of average use over a longer period of time
• one of the limitations of the logs was that they did not include weekend usage. The discrepancies reported between the surveys and the logs could also reflect the extent to which teachers use their laptops on the weekends for professional purposes.

However, common trends in use can be identified, as discussed below.

These data suggest that, on average, the participant teachers were more likely to use their laptops than other computers, although this was approximately only 14 minutes more per week. The standard deviations suggest there is considerable variation in the extent of use of both laptops and other computers amongst the participant teachers.

In their logs teachers reported using their laptops most frequently for administrative work, followed by professional work. These findings supported those of the survey. They reported using other computers (not laptops) most frequently in classroom teaching. These computers were only rarely used for professional work. It is likely the computers referred to here are desktops for student use. The amount of time spent on professional work was found to be correlated with own development and learning, classroom teaching and administrative work. This is possibly owing to computer use on the other tasks coming about as a result of its use in professional work. For example, classroom teaching could have been prepared on the computer.

Impact of the laptops in 2005

In the November 2005 survey, participants were asked to quantify the extent to which the provision of the laptops had impacted on their professional lives. The scale remained one to six (none at all, to extensive). The areas considered were the same as those listed in the usage section and again these had been modified somewhat from the baseline survey.

Figure 4.2 shows a direct comparison between the expected impact of the laptops, as reported in May, and the actual reported impact at the end of 2005 in November on those areas which were the same across the two surveys. In all instances, the reported level of actual impact was not as great in November 2005 as the anticipated level of impact early in 2005. This is particularly marked for improving ICT skills and for professional development, two specific Ministry goals.

Figure 4.2: Expected impact compared with reported impact

Despite this, as shown in Figure 4.3, having a laptop had had a noticeable reported impact, on average, across all areas of professional life in November 2005.

Figure 4.3: Average reported levels of actual impact of laptops on areas of professional life

The areas of greatest reported impact were also the areas of greatest reported use: administrative work, professional work and the preparation of resources. Improving ICT skills and professional development were the next areas of greatest reported impact. Despite classroom teaching being an area where there was a marked increase in the reported use of computers, in general, the participant teachers did not seem to have perceived a major impact in this area attributable to the laptops.

In the focus group interviews teachers were asked what they perceived the value of their laptops to be in order to better understand the impact described above. In all schools, a recurring theme was the portability of the laptops, which was seen as offering teachers a degree of flexibility in terms of both work place and time that they had not had before. The following quotes exemplify this:

“I think it is valuable because it gives us flexibility in where and when you can work.”

“So you can take things home with you … which you wouldn’t do if you only had them up on the computer.”

“I wouldn’t have time to do it, or the information to do it, sitting in my classroom at school at the end of the day, but I’m at home on the couch.”

“Don’t have to spend hours trapped in the classroom.”

This idea of flexibility and being able to work at home was also related, by some participants, to less stress in their lives:

“In terms of stress I think it helps a lot, in terms of being able to like, OK, I’ve had enough of this environment right now, I wanna go home and have like my own cup of tea or like, do my own thing and then maybe come back to it or whatever –.”

It was also related to upskilling themselves in that they felt more readily able to ‘play’ and to develop new skills in a time and location that suited them.

“I tried that – because you have the laptop at home like for stuff I’ve learnt to do, it’s so I can practise on the laptop at home, so my computer skills are definitely going up”.

Other areas of perceived value, which help explain the reported impact, include the personal, almost exclusive nature of the laptops as well as efficiency in completing administrative and other tasks. As one participant stated “They’re their personal computer so they can organise how they…so they can find things easily, they get used to it and they can use it in the classroom as well”.

Efficiency included the idea of being able to “manage your own time” and “manage the way you do it” as well as not having to “do everything from scratch [but being able to] open up the file of the last time you did it and adapt it”.

Teacher readiness to use laptops

Raising teacher skill levels could be seen as the key purpose of the TELA initiative. The objectives of the initiative, discussed in chapter one, include raising competence and confidence while increasing teacher skill is a specific goal of the initiative. Added to this it could be claimed that without increased skills and, probably more importantly, increased confidence teachers are unlikely to use their laptops extensively. Indeed, in the focus group interviews one participant suggested that “People don’t feel confident about it when they’re only using it for their planning and think that’s you know, all that, all they need to do”.

For these reasons, teacher readiness, a combination of skill and confidence was again probed in November 2005. The relevant dimension was the extent to which participant teachers felt they had improved in both confidence and skill since the introduction of the laptops.

The mean extent of reported improvement for range of skills (3.6) and level of skills (3.5) was very similar, both being between moderate improvement and quite a lot of improvement. This would suggest that the laptops had had an impact on teacher skill level and that both their level of skill and the range of skill had improved over 2005.

Participants were then asked the extent to which their confidence had improved across a number of areas. Table 4.3 shows the percentage of participants reporting the different levels of improvement in confidence. Figure 4.4 compares the extent of average improvement across the individual areas over 2005.

Figure 4.4: Average levels of improvement across categories of use type in this figure is different?

The areas showing the most reported improvement, compared to prior reported practice, are professional tasks such as interpreting student data, presenting material to students and preparing materials using basic applications. These are all skills needed for the areas of greatest reported use of the laptops, namely, preparation and planning, professional tasks and administrative tasks. The implication is that there is a relationship between use and skill, as well as between need and skill. What is not determined is the causality of that relationship or whether it is even linear in nature.

Participants in the focus groups made comments that suggest that need is the most important determinant of increased skill but that there is a cyclical influence chain between need, use and confidence. The implication, from comments made, was that where there is sufficient need, or perceived benefit, teachers will learn the skills they require and, therefore, will be able to use computers in that way. The more they use them the more their confidence will grow and, therefore, the more willing they will become to try new things out and learn new skills. One participant was clear in her opinion that confidence came before skill in that:

“If you’ve got the confidence of using the computer you’re not going to worry – you’ll learn as you go, you can teach yourself a lot.”

That the laptops had impacted on teacher skills and confidence in 2005 was clearly evident. The teachers in the focus groups described the laptops as the “best PD we have ever had”. One participant went so far as to say “I didn’t have a clue until I got the laptop”.

This reported impact appears to have been related to the greater flexibility the laptop offered teachers, as well as the increased need engendered by having them. As is often the case, time was reported as being the greatest barrier to the development of new, or more advanced, skills. The portability of the laptops meant, however, that teachers were no longer restricted in where and when they were able to ‘play’ and to practise computer skills. One participant stated that:

“It doesn’t matter if you’re shown once or ten times if you don’t have the time to go away and fiddle about and practise yourself, you’re not confident to do it in front of the class.”

For many teachers, as already alluded to, the laptops meant they could now go home and “fiddle about” and that this was often“on the couch” not “trapped in the classroom”. Laptops, therefore, increased both the need and the opportunity to learn.

Teachers were also asked in the focus groups what they thought differentiated a very confident computer user from a less confident one. There was a strong consensus that highly confident users shared what they were doing; that “the key is demonstrating in front of others, their peers”. They were also more likely to experiment, to try new things. Confidence was defined, by one participant, as “willingness to have a go”.

Slightly confident users, on the other hand, were seen as “not very outgoing in terms of trying to get other people to use things”. They were, however, more likely to “approach people they think know more than them because they are not too scared about looking dumb because they do know some things” than low confidence users. As one such participant said, “If you think you are absolutely useless you don’t want anyone to know how dumb you really are or think you are”.