The technology dream versus teacher reality: Understanding technology practices in relation to beliefs, pedagogical context and affordance theories
Caroline Steel
The University of Queensland, Australia
Educational technologists dream about the potential for technology to enrich, enhance and extend university student learning. However the reality is quite different. Many universities offer Learning Management Systems (LMS) as the ‘one size fits all’ encompassing technology solution. In practice, students are dissatisfied with the extent and quality of LMS use (Steel, 2007). There are low levels of LMS integration into teacher practices (Coates, James, & Baldwin, 2005; Conole & Fill, 2005) and these systems are most commonly used for information dissemination (Garrote & Pettersson, 2007). Together, these realities indicate that there are significant barriers to their effective use, especially for teaching and learning purposes. Research suggests that there are both internal (intrinsic) and external (extrinsic) barriers at work (Ertmer, Addison, Lane, Ross, & Woods, 1999). While LMS technologies themselves may not be pedagogically neutral, it is teachers’ internal beliefs and their pedagogical contexts that are highly influential to technology integration. A pedagogical context includes variables associated with teacher and student characteristics and preferences, the pedagogical approach employed, the organisation of the learning environment as well as the omnipresent disciplinary and institutional culture and norms (Kennewell, 2001).This research is drawn from six qualitative case studies of teachers at different stages of their journey toward technology integration. The study used concept mapping and stimulated recall techniques to investigate teacher beliefs and practices. This presentation focuses on brief examples of how these teachers reconciled their pedagogical beliefs, beliefs about web technologies and their pedagogical contexts to help them identify the potential and constraints of LMS technologies for use in their teaching practices. Affordance theories offer an important way of understanding their decision-making. Three categories of affordances that emerged from the data will be discussed. These are pedagogical affordances, social justice affordances and administrative affordances.These findings have implications for university teacher education and development related to technology integration. They clearly show that there are complex and interactive factors at play that can enable or inhibit the educational technologist’s dream. These factors must be addressed and negotiated to assist teachers to progress their individual technology practices.Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of learning management systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11, 19-36.Conole, G., & Fill, K. (2005). A learning design toolkit to create pedagogically effective learning activities. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2005(8).Ertmer, P. A., Addison, P., Lane, M., Ross, E., & Woods, D. (1999). Examining teachers' beliefs about the role of technology in the elementary classroom. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 32, 54-72.Garrote, R., & Pettersson, T. (2007). Lecturers' attitudes about the use of learning management systems in engineering education: A swedish case study. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 23(3), 327-349.Kennewell, S. (2001). Using affordances and constraints to evaluate the use of information and communications technology in teaching and learning. Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, 10(1&2), 101-116.Steel, C. H. (2007). What do university students expect from teachers using an LMS? In R. Atkinson, C. McBeath, A. S. Swee Kit & C. Cheers (Eds.), ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning. Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007. (942-950). Singapore: Nanyang Technical University.