Teachers, pedagogy and professional development - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 89

changing attitudes towards technology innovation, which move from concern
about the immediate impact of technology, through to those which relate to intro-
ducing technology and concerns about its impact on working with other teachers.
The affective and behavioural components of the model are closely connected, so
each stage is associated with a level of use. Other models developed to capture 'levels
of use' have also come out of the 'concerns based adoption model', such as Loucks
et al. (1998), which devised a scale to determine quality of technology use.
With respect to typologies, in the UK Dawes' (2001) research led to the develop-
ment of a typology of different types of technology user, which her sample of teachers
confirmed through member validation questionnaires. Dawes (2001) concludes that
change occurs in individual and groups of teachers as they develop professional
expertise and the motivation to evolve from being 'potential users' (through the
stages of 'participant', 'involved', and 'adept') to 'integral users'. In America Hadley
and Sheingold (1993) had constructed a similar typology. These models of CPD and
stages of progression help us understand the change process with respect to teachers
and how they come to incorporate technology into their professional practice.
Legislative change: the first statuary technology competencies for teachers
The most important legislation regarding 'technology and teacher competence' came
in April 1998 from the DfEE with 'Circular 4/1998', which specified that teachers
must be able to use technology for teaching. The DfEE stated in detail exactly what
was expected in relation to technology for both newly qualified teachers (NQTs) and
for serving teachers.
The technology standards for qualified teachers set out in DfEE 4/98 were state-
ments about teachers' technology capability presented in the form of a list of compe-
tencies, which applied to all newly qualified teachers from July 1999. The DfEE (1998: 17)
stated 'it is concerned with the ways in which technology can be used effectively
in teaching' and set out an Initial Teacher Training National Curriculum for the use of
technology in subject teaching, which would 'equip every newly qualified teacher with
the knowledge, skills and understanding to make sound decisions about when, when
not, and how to use technology effectively' (DfEE 1998 Annex B: 17).
This led to the development of the 'technology standards', which had to be met
to achieve 'qualified teacher status' (QTS) in the UK. At the time of writing these
standards are under review.
Factors affecting teachers' uses of technology
Even if teachers received effective technology CPD, the landscape is more compli-
cated than simply receiving training and then implementing it seamlessly into peda-
gogic practice. Hence, it is important to understand the issues that affect teachers'
uses of technology in the classroom. The first issue concerns research on factors that
prevent teachers from using technology. The second on factors that encourage teach-
ers to use technology, and third, the learning experiences of teachers in technology-
rich and support-rich contexts.