Integrating technology in classrooms: from the microcomputer to ‘the cloud’ - Teaching with Technologies: The Essential Guide - page 11

Just as Teachers' Centres had provided vital support for knowledge sharing and
building in the early days of the micro-computer in the 1980s, so the Internet has led
to the emergence of discussion forums in the late 1990s for supporting the build-
ing and sharing of new practice. Professional networks have become established for
teachers through their subject and professional associations, and special-interest
groups, such as Teachers.net and Mirandanet (www.mirandanet.org). More recently,
an online teacher network that exploits Web 2.0 tools for knowledge sharing has been
created by the Guardian to support teachers' professional practice (www.teachers.
guardian.co.uk).
The need for teachers to learn from one another about technology for learning
and teaching has been a central theme throughout the history of technology develop-
ments in schools. Bowles (1999: 31) argued that, since 1984, when TVEI first bought
computers into secondary schools, 'teachers have struggled with the new concepts
and skills'. The Trotter Report of 1989 identified three specific skills relating to the
use of technology that an experienced teacher might be expected to have: practical
technology capability; capability to relate technology to the curriculum area and the
ability to manage and evaluate technology use. Developing teachers' capability in
these three specific skills has been an ongoing challenge (Dawes 2001; Younie 2007).
In fact, there has been rather variable progress in actually developing the tech-
nology skills identified by the Trotter report (Bowles 1999). When government
evaluators were asked, 'what went wrong in the 80s?' with respect to technology
development in schools, the answer was an immediate identification of 'teachers' as
a key obstacle. As Scaife and Wellington (1993: 19) found 'this complex chemistry of
teacher attitudes has probably been the major barrier to success'. Locating a lack of
progress with technology in schools as being the fault of teachers was documented
by the National Council for Educational Technology (NCET). In the 1990s NCET
published an information sheet, 'Teacher Education and IT', which highlighted how
technologies potential to harness education had been largely unrealized - again, due
to teachers' lack of capability in employing technology in the classroom.
The learning potential of IT is far from being realized. There remain large
numbers of teachers, in all phases of education, who are not familiar with IT
and are therefore not using it in their teaching.
(NCET 1997: 5)
The notion of 'teacher resistance' emerged as a significant concept in the lit-
erature of this time and was held accountable for hindering the development of
technology in education. However, Dawes (2001) and Younie (2007) believe this is a
contestable concept, with little empirical evidence of its existence, and a lot of rheto-
ric in its explanatory value as to why technology has not transformed learning in the
ways visualized by politicians.
Following the development of major technology initiatives across the three terms
of Conservative office (1979-1997), the government commissioned a seminal national
assessment of the impact of ICT in schools: the ImpacT Report (1993). Conducted by
Watson, this was the first major evaluation, which notified government that: