Teachers, pedagogy and professional development - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 84

argue this is stifled by an education sector that fails to engage with its potential, to
such an extent that the profession risks becoming the 'Cinderella sector' of the tech-
nological world (Daanen and Facer 2007).The perception of teachers as technologic-
ally inept is part of a public discourse perpetuated by, for example, the Prensky thesis
(2001), which highlights the differences between digital natives and digital immi-
grants. With teachers defined as the latter, Prensky argues that educators struggle to
accustom themselves to working with new technologies. However, Prensky's thesis
of the young as digital natives oversimplifies generational difference. It is important
to examine issues in technology uptake, in order to understand more critically the
ways in which individuals are situated differently to technology, and, in particular, to
provide a more critically informed understanding about teachers and technology.
Theory and research base
This chapter draws on a broad range of research about how teachers learn to use
technology for professional practice. Research in this area was plentiful in the USA
and UK in the 1990s and 2000s, as computers and the Internet became incorporated
into schooling and government funding was available for technology implementa-
tion and research (Becta 1998-2010). The research from America was predominantly
large scale and quantitative, as it was in the UK with ImpacT2, ICT Testbeds and
interactive whiteboard research funded by Becta. However, research on teachers' use
of technology (as opposed to the impact of technology on pupils, which the former
research projects focused on, though not exclusively), focused on identifying the
factors that support and hinder teachers' uptake (Jones 2004; Leask and Younie 2001;
Scrimshaw 2004). Understanding what militates against use was also important. This
research tended to be more small scale and qualitative and concerned understanding
teachers' situated practices and ways of negotiating technology (Dawes 2001; Love-
less 2001; Younie 2007). To understand the processes involved in teachers learning
to use technology for pedagogic practice, it is important to start by understanding
the contemporary context in which teachers work. If technology is to be systemically
embedded in practice, it is essential to understand the nature of that practice from
the outset.
The contemporary context of teachers' work in schools:
political pressures and priorities
There is a need to understand the context in which teachers work and the priorities
that drive practice at the individual level of the teacher, which is situated within the
context of the school, and the priorities of school development plans. These priorities
in turn are situated in the wider context of a national agenda driving education from
government policy with particular curriculum and examination specifications. There
are complex, multiple and competing pressures and tensions, set within a national
and even global agenda of driving up standards as measured by external indicators of
educational performance (PISA tests).