Shock of the new

Teachers in many schools will tell you they are running hard just to stand still as they attempt to adopt new technologies for learning.  It is a real struggle to keep up with the rapid pace of change that defines the digital age. Often, this is a bewildering process, and one which many teachers try to avoid. And yet, with a clear framework or roadmap for adoption, many of the challenges of adopting new technology can be met, and many of the fears teachers have can be assuaged.

Mandinach and Cline (1994) identified four distinct phases of adoption of new technology in schools. In the first phase, known as survival, teachers struggle to define what they wish to achieve with the new technology, and attempt to learn how to use it effectively to support pedagogy. Often, schools make the mistake of purchasing new technology before they have fully considered the reasons they need it. This suggests that the survival phase could be shortened if forethought went into the design of learning, before technology was procured.

The second phase of adoption is known as mastery, and involves teachers moving beyond the survival phase and into a phase where they start to apply the technology to meaningful and authentic learning contexts. During this phase, the technology should become transparent to the users - that is, it should begin to be used without significant cognitive energy.

The third phase, impact, is evaluative, and requires users to apraise the extent to which the technology is being effective . It also involves an assessment of how well teachers and learners are coping with any new issues or challenges that may have arisen during the implementation of the new tools.

The final phase, referred to as innovation, is where teachers have developed enough expertise to begin experimenting with new and innovative ways to use the technology. This can be a particularly creative phase, and often gives rise to the incorporation of even newer technologies, or the development of new pedagogical techniques. Venezky (2004) suggested that this final phase is recognisable by the number of restructured learning activities that occur within the classroom and the extent to which these enhance or extend best practice. Schools that are in the fourth phase of adoption are generally staffed by teachers who feel free to adapt technology to their own particular styles of teaching.

[Adpated from John, P. D. and Wheeler, S. (2009) The Digital Classroom: Harnessing technology for the future. Abingdon: Routledge/David Fulton. (p 99).]

References
Venezky, R. L. (2004) Technology in the classroom: Steps toward a new vision. Education, Communication and Information, 4 (1), 3-21.
Mandanach, E. B. and Cline, H. F. (1994) Classroom dynamics: Implementing a technology based learning environment. Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Image by David Wright


Shock of the new by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at steve-wheeler.blogspot.com.