Teaching with information and communication

technologies: preliminary results of a large scale survey

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Proceedings of the ACM
SIGUCCS fall conference on
User services conference table of
contents
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
SESSION: Tuesday, October 13,
2009 table of contents
Pages: 157-162
Year of Publication: 2009
ISBN:978-1-60558-477-5
Authors Serge University of Potsdam,
Linckels Potsdam, Germany
University of Luxembourg,
Yves Kreis Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Robert A.P. University of Luxembourg,
Reuter Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Carole University of Luxembourg,
Dording Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Claude Ministry of Education,
Weber Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Christoph University of Potsdam,
Meinel Potsdam, Germany

Sponsors ACM: Association for

Computing Machinery
SIGUCCS: ACM Special
Interest Group on University
and College Computing
Services
Publisher ACM New York, NY, USA
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ABSTRACT

On behalf of the Ministry of Education in Luxembourg (Europe), 821

teachers - from primary school to higher education - were questioned in an
online survey at the beginning of 2009 about their use of information and
communication technologies (ICT) in education. In this paper, we briefly
present the context of the questionnaire and will then focus on its outcomes.
The preliminary analysis of the results will mainly focus on the closed
questions of the survey and try to answer several fundamental questions
related to the availability, as well as to the current and the future usage of
ICT in schools. Most of the teachers use ICT in some way in education, but
printed documents remain the most popular source of information during
class. The main argument listed to use ICT is the increase of students'
motivation, while the major concern is the technical hardware dependency
or unavailability. Also, an important number of teachers is concerned about
the increased preparation time that is in most cases not rewarded. Finally, a
vast majority of the teachers is willing to take part in an e-learning training
program, probably because they feel unqualified or do not (yet) see the
advantage of ICT for their classes.

REFERENCES

Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the
full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only
correct and linked references.
 1 Butler, D. L., and Sellbom, M. Barriers to adopting technology for
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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
K. Computing Milieux
 K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education
Subjects: Computer-assisted instruction (CAI)

General Terms:
Documentation, Human Factors, Measurement, Standardization

Keywords:
assessment, communication technologies, e-learning, information
technologies, survey, teaching

Collaborative Colleagues:
Serge Linckels: colleagues
Yves Kreis: colleagues
Robert A.P. Reuter: colleagues
Carole Dording: colleagues
Claude Weber: colleagues
Christoph Meinel: colleagues

Organisational factors affecting teachers' use and perception

of information & communications technology

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Proceeding Series; Vol. 173 archive
Proceedings of the 2005 South East
Asia Regional Computer Science
Confederation (SEARCC) Conference -
Volume 46 table of contents
Sydney, Australia
Pages: 13 - 22
Year of Publication: 2005
ISBN ~ ISSN:1445-1336 , 1-920682-28-7
Authors School of Information, Technology and
Ryan Management, University of New South
Grainger Wales
Denise School of Information, Technology and
Management, University of New South
 Tolhurst Wales

Publisher Australian Computer Society, Inc.

Darlinghurst, Australia, Australia
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ABSTRACT

While the learning benefits of information & communication technologies

(ICTs) are widely recognised by academics and practitioners alike, the
context in which teachers operate often affects the extent to which ICTs are
used to achieve beneficial teaching & learning outcomes. The purpose of
the study reported in this paper was to explore what organisational factors
affected teachers' use and perception of ICTs, and the use of a new learning
management system. Teaching staff across all learning areas at a secondary
school responded to a survey. A subset of teachers and school system
personnel also participated in interviews. Document analysis was used to
place the results in the context of school-system planning. The study
focused on three factors affecting the use and perception of ICTs: the
characteristics and perceptions of leadership; the nature, relevance and
usefulness of training; and, management approaches to IS/IT system
implementation. Outcomes from the study are in the form of
recommendations to assist the ongoing implementation of a learning
management system and the integration of technology in learning
environments. The findings of this study have implications for many
learning environment that involve the implementation of technological
systems.

REFERENCES
Note: OCR errors may be found in this Reference List extracted from the
full text article. ACM has opted to expose the complete List rather than only
correct and linked references.

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3 BUTZIN, S. (2001) Using instructional technology in transformed
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Bellingham, Wash.: FNO Press
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(2003) No access, no use, no impact: Snapshot surveys of
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Technology in Education, 36 (1) pp. 15-27 O'Reilly, C., J. Chatman
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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
K. Computing Milieux
K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
 K.4.3 Organizational Impacts

Additional Classification:
H. Information Systems
H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
H.5.0 General

J. Computer Applications
J.1 ADMINISTRATIVE DATA PROCESSING
Subjects: Education

K. Computing Milieux
K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
K.3.1 Computer Uses in Education
K.3.m Miscellaneous
K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
K.6.1 Project and People Management

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Management, Theory

Keywords:
learning management systems, management approaches to system
implementation, organisational culture, perceptions of leadership,
technology acceptance, training

Collaborative Colleagues:
Ryan Grainger: colleagues
Denise Tolhurst: colleagues

Why Don't Teachers Adopt Technology?: A Survey of Teachers'

Use of ICT in the Republic of Cyprus

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Volume 2010 , Issue 4 (April 2010) table
of contents
Article no.: 7
Year of Publication: 2010
Author Charalambos Vrasidas CARDET
Publisher ACM New York, NY, USA
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ABSTRACT

Public education is compulsory in Cyprus and is under the auspices of the

country's Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC). The majority of re-
service teacher education is provided by local universities, while in-service
public school teacher training is provided by the Cyprus Pedagogical
Institute and other public and private agencies. This article contains
information from a survey in which teacher in Cyprus gave reasons for not
adopting technology.

Why Don't Teachers Adopt Technology?

A Survey of Teachers' Use of ICT in the Republic of Cyprus
By Charalambos Vrasidas

April 27, 2010

The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member state since 2004, spends approximately 7
percent of its GDP on education, the third-largest amount of education spending in the
European Union (Denmark and Sweden are first and second, respectively).

Cyprus is a small island

in the Mediterranean.
Following an invasion
and occupation of the
island by the Turkish
Armed Forces in 1974,
the jurisdiction of the
Republic, including its public education system, is confined to the southern 60 percent of
the island, populated by approximately 750,000 Greek-speaking Cypriots, many of whom
also speak English.

Public education is compulsory in Cyprus and is under the auspices of the country's
Ministry of Education and Culture (MOEC). The majority of re-service teacher education
is provided by local universities, while in-service public school teacher training is
provided by the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute and other public and private agencies. The
Cyprus secondary school curriculum is developed and supervised by the MOEC, which
also makes certain all the Republic's public schools conform to federal standards. The
Pedagogical Institute also oversees teacher professional development, including all
information and communication technology (ICT)-related professional development.

Technology and Education in Cyprus

Between the 1960s and 1980s, educational technology efforts in Cyprus public schools
were limited to the use of traditional audio-visual equipment and a few government-
produced educational radio and television programs. Cyprus has invested heavily in the
development of its telecommunications infrastructure, and an advanced ICT in the service
of education first arrived in Cypriot classrooms in the early 1990s, influenced in part by
the island's public and private IT development initiatives. The Republic now has an
extremely robust telecommunications infrastructure.

There was no public university in Cyprus until 1992, although there have been several
private colleges on the island for decades. After the establishment of the University of
Cyprus and the expansion of the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics, government
spending on research and development increased substantially. In January 1998, the
government approved a plan to improve research and development efforts and promote
Cyprus as a center for business and education. One of the components of this plan was to
improve the quality of higher education provided by both public and private institutions.
As a result, today there are several colleges and six universities offering undergraduate
and graduate education.

Founded in Nicosia, the capitol of Cyprus, in 2004, CARDET (the Center for the
Advancement of Research and Development in Educational Technology) is a non-profit
research and development organization devoted to next-generation education, innovation,
and social reform. Over the last three years, CARDET has led three large-scale
evaluations of the use of ICT by K-12 (child and young adult education) teachers in
Cyprus and the effectiveness of existing professional development programs.

In May 2009, a large-scale survey was conducted to examine how teachers use
technology in the classroom and what challenges they face.

The instrument was administered to a sample of 1,051 teachers using stratified sampling
procedures — the total population of primary school teachers in Cyprus, during 2008-
2009 was 4,150. The response rate of the questionnaire was 50.5 percent (531 out of
1,051). This survey was part of the project OnlinePD (funded by the Cyprus Research
Promotion Foundation, the EU and the Republic of Cyprus). The results of the survey are
in alignment with international studies conducted by CARDET and its partners in more
than 20 countries.

Many teachers who participated in the survey used ICT on a daily or nearly-daily basis
for the following:

• 72.3% for preparing educational material

• 67.7% for preparing tests and assignments
• 44.8% for preparing lesson plans
• 35.4% used ICT in the classroom

However, few of these teachers prepared activities which specifically required their
students to use ICT:

• 15% for playing educational games

• 13.9% for working collaboratively on classroom assignments
• 12.9% for using the Internet to complete school work
• 12.4% for working individually on the computer in order to complete school work
• 6.1% for working on word processing tasks in the classroom.

Why Don't Teachers Adopt Technology that They're Given?

Teachers cited the following factors as barriers to using ICT in their classrooms:

• Extent of the curriculum that needs to be covered during the year (81.4%)
• Time constraints (71.7%)
• Time required for preparing ICT-based activities (60.4%)
• Availability of infrastructure (53.5%)
• Amount of quality content (50.7 %)
• Lack of in-classroom teacher support (50.2%)
• Lack of participation of teachers in decision making (43.4%)
• Need for professional development (37%).

More than 80 percent of the teachers indicated the extent of the curriculum as one of the
most significant barriers in integrating ICT into the classroom. The pressure to cover the
required content and the limited timeframe in which to do so were two factors that
concerned participating teachers, especially in the final grade of high school. One of the
teachers stated during an interview, "It is impossible to be able to cover all the content
and curriculum requested by the ministry in a school year."

Furthermore, since current curricula and school manuals do not include ICT integration,
there is no supporting material for ICT integration for the required learning units. This
means Cyprus public school teachers need to spend an inordinate amount of time outside
the classroom searching for supporting activities, materials and tools, some or all of
which may require adjustments and revisions to fit the needs of students and satisfy
curriculum requirements.

Over the course of the survey, all the teachers cited time constraints as another challenge
to implementing ICT in their classrooms. More specifically, 71.7 percent of teachers
claimed the amount of lesson time required for integrating ICT in the classroom kept
them from doing so, while 60.4 percent cited the time required outside of the classroom
for preparing ICT-based activities as an insurmountable barrier.

Planning lessons that integrate ICT is a time-consuming activity according to these

teachers, which is one of the key reasons there is so little integration of ICT in Cypriot
public schools. As one teacher stated during the qualitative part of the study, "These
lessons with the use of technology require too much time� I can't just prepare them like
that� I need at least one to two days, and I only have time in the afternoons. I need to
find materials, web sites, check them thoroughly� Are they going to work out well with
my students or not?"

Many teachers feel the MOEC curricula and the Ministry's evaluation system are
designed in such a way that they do not have sufficient time for ICT integration, as they
have to fulfill a daunting slate of curriculum requirements by the end of the academic
year. This is why so many teachers choose not to experiment with ICT integration and
instead engage in reflective activities on the benefits of technology. One teacher claimed
that even though she realizes the benefits of using simulations with her students, they
take too much time to complete. Although the simulations might be beneficial for her
students in that they require the students to experiment with and engage in inquiry-based
learning, such activities would leave her with even less time to cover the required
content.

Moving Forward in Cypriot Schools

CARDET's findings reveal that public school teachers in Cyprus are willing to integrate
technology into their teaching practices; although ICT is available in most schools and
classrooms, teachers use it mainly for preparing educational material and planning
instruction.

However, even though they realize the benefits of ICT integration, many of these
teachers are resistant to integrating technologies and using online learning environments.
This is due to several factors, such as lack of time, the ill-structured design of the public
school curriculum, and the lack of infrastructure and tools to support teachers and
learners more effectively. In order to aid teachers in integrating technologies, more robust
professional development programs, as well as appropriate technologies, need to be
developed, programs that would provide continuous support to teachers, so they can
overcome these challenges and problems.

CARDET hopes the survey results spark the integration of ICT throughout the nation's
public schools.

About the Author

Dr. Charalambos Vrasidas is co-founder and executive director of the Centre for the
Advancement of Research & Development in Educational Technology (CARDET), a non-
profit research and development centre based in Cyprus with partners around the world.
He is also associate professor of learning technologies and innovation at the University
of Nicosia.