Whole school development,change and leadership - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 122

Technical support is also an important element in embedding tools alongside
teachers' competence and confidence. Teachers should not be expected to manage
and maintain equipment.
Learning platforms are useful in extending the teachers' range of pedagogic
approaches seamlessly as long as the design is flexible and adaptable.
There are, however, a number of factors hindering implementation - the key
one being the assessment system. If the ability to demonstrate technology-tool use
as appropriate across subject areas was a required part of the assessment system, then
adoption and implementation would be accelerated.
Those choosing technologies to support learning are advised to consider the key
factors hindering the embedding of digital tools in practice as set out in Table 6.5.
Less important factors that teachers identified as hindering embedding tools in
practice are listed in Table 6.6 in no particular order.
Effective use of staff time
A critical factor supporting the successful adoption of technologies in schools is the
impact on staff time. Who should enter the data from pupil assessments? If teachers
are entering data, this leaves less time to be spent on learners' issues.
Improving the transferability of pupil data between schools was raised as an issue
by teachers contributing to the Leask and Preston Education Futures research (2010).
These concerns were around:
• datathatdonotprovidethenextschoolwithenoughinformationaboutthe
learners themselves, where they are up to and what they need to do next
• thevariabilityofdatabetweendifferentfeederschools
• thevariabledataneedsofdifferentsecondaryschools/colleges
• theinordinatevolumeofdatacollected,makingitincreasinglydifficult
to gain a meaningful overview as well as a useful picture of the individual
learner.
Leask and Preston (2010) found factors that inhibited teachers from master-
ing adequately the knowledge and practice required from complex administration,
accountability and monitoring tools included the following:
• copingwith24/7access
• findingtimetolearnnewprocessesandprograms
• incompatibilitywithhomesystems
• appropriatelevelsofaccess
• thecomplexitiesofconvertingdata.
Other concerns were the need to:
• backupdata,offsitestorageofdata-securityissues/dataprotection
• operatesafelyandremainwithinthelaw