Teachers, Technology, and Change: English Teachers’ Perspectives

This article reports on a study of English language arts teachers' attempts to integrate technology into the English classroom. Informants included middle and high school English teachers with varying teaching and technology experiences. Conceptualized as an interview study, the study used an open-ended protocol and spontaneously generated probes to seek teachers' perspectives. Results from the study revealed that teachers described their attitudes toward technology through considerations of gains, dilemmas, and concerns with regard to their own or their students' computer applications. Governed by the "practicality ethic," as opposed to researchers' and legislators' "rationale ethic" (Doyle & Ponders as cited in Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1991), the teachers in this study were willing to accept change as long as they were convinced that it would allow them to see a gain for their students as well as for their own instructional practices. Administrators, on the other hand, were reported to push for technology, for they appeared to perceive it as the ultimate goal in any educational context. ********** In the past decade, computer technology has not only changed the nature of resources, communication, and information (Leu, Mallette, & Karchmer, 2001); it has also transformed contemporary society, changing the ways we live, work, and learn (Hill & Hannafin, 2001). As a response to such societal transformations, technology advocates have brought computer technology into classrooms, seeing it as a catalyst for change that will encourage information processing and problem solving, as well as student-centered learning and critical thinking (Getting America's Students Ready Report, 1996). On a state level, "No Child Left Behind Title II Part D: Enhancing Education Through Technology Legislation" (Bush, 2002) has mandated technology implementation for school systems within individual school districts. The positive goals envisioned for computer technology cannot, however, be realized by computers alone; computers are only a part of a complicated scenario of educational change. The key element in the change process is the teachers--because, as Fulkerth (1992) explained, "the most important component in a change process is not an innovation itself, but the beliefs and practices of the people who are affected by it" (p. 1). Teachers need also to be seen not only as objects of change, but also as change agents who can transform their interpretation of their practices through the use of technology (Bruce, 1997). Little attention, however, has been given to teachers' beliefs about technology and their experiences with it in their practices (Becker & Ravitz, 1999; Bruce, 1997; Dodson, 2000). Research reports have focused on the realization of the mandates for technology integration both in preservice (Rizza, 2000) and inservice educational settings (Peha, 1995; Reinking, Labbo, & McKenna, 1997; Clark, 2000). More specifically, there has been a lot of research documenting changes at the institutional level within schools, reporting on computer access (Becker, 2000; Dillon & Gabbard, 1998; Pianfetti, 2001; Technology Counts Report, 2001), professional training support (Kay, 1999; Vrasidas & McIssac, 2001), and successful or challenging attempts to use technology in practice (Kinzer & Risko, 1998; Strudler et al., 1999; Vannatta & Beyerbach, 2000; Hawley Orill, 2001). In this study, English teachers' perspectives are brought into the discussion on technology integration in the classroom. By exploring teacher perspectives and their origins as determined by their positions and responsibilities within the school and classroom culture, the study contributes to developing an understanding of English teacher perspectives. This understanding is significant in informing research and practice on how to synchronize educational change with English teachers' real perceptions, their actual capacities, and needs or desire for change. …