Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're tackling
something, well, a lot of educators probably
find frustrating. Why is getting technology to
really work in schools so hard, even with all
the money spent? Yeah, it's a common headache,
isn't it? Lots of investment, but the results.
Sometimes messy. Exactly. And you hear so much
conflicting advice. So we've been looking at
research from several K -12 schools trying to
make this tech -rich thing actually happen. And
what we found isn't some magic bullet. But a
really solid research -backed way to think about
it, it focuses on how people actually use the
tech. OK, so what's the mission here? Well, our
mission for this deep dive is really to unpack
this concept called technology acceptance. We're
using a framework, it sounds technical, but it's
useful, called the Unified Theory of Acceptance
and Use of Technology, Utah for short. Utah,
got it. Yeah. And basically, it's a model built
on lots of research. It helps pinpoint the key
things that make people actually adopt and use
new technology. about using evidence, right?
So not just guesswork. Not just guesswork. And
we'll see how real schools use this Utah idea
alongside something called educational design
research to tackle some very specific, very real
problems. OK, educational design research. Let's
quickly touch on that. The sources suggest it's
like a cycle. Right, not a one -off plan. Exactly.
It's iterative. You identify a problem in the
school. You try out a solution, maybe informed
by research like Utah. You see how it works in
the real classroom. And then you tweak it. Yeah,
you adjust based on what actually happens. It's
ongoing. OK, so let's get into an example. There's
a principal. Jerry. Yes, Jerry. He was hearing
constant complaints from teachers about tech
problems that just weren't getting solved. He
called it endless griping. I can picture that.
Right. So their first attempt was a basic help
desk system. You know, log a ticket, someone
fixes it. Standard stuff. Standard stuff. But
Jerry and his tech committee realized, you know,
just fixing broken things wasn't really the issue.
Ah, OK. What was it then? It was deeper. They
needed to figure out what the technology should
be doing for teaching and learning, not just
is it working, but is it useful? Is it easy enough
to actually help? That's a big shift. From fixing
to in - enabling. Exactly. That shift seems crucial.
It's not just about the tech itself, but how
it's perceived and used. So Jerry gets his committee
to dig into this. Not just the symptoms, the
griping, but the root cause, the purpose. And
this leads them to create a more formal technology
planning cycle. But it wasn't just, you know,
more bureaucracy. It had a pretty interesting,
maybe slightly controversial part to it. What
was that? Well, the new guidelines actually said
that any complaints, any issues raised, had to
be discussed in terms of effort expectancy and
performance expectancy. So using the Utah language,
how easy is it? How useful is it? Precisely.
The leadership was apparently quite firm. Our
computers must work for students and teachers.
It was a very practical way to embed that Utah
thinking right into their process. OK, so how
did this play out? Did they test it? Oh, yeah.
Almost immediately, teachers found that students
couldn't get into the online gradebook, the SIS,
from the new laptops they'd been given. Turned
out, the tech coordinator, being cautious about
security, had basically locked down access at
the school level. His solution, he suggested
students could maybe use the teacher's laptop
or just check grades when they got home. Which
kind of defeats the purpose of having easy access
at school, right? Exactly. The principal actually
stepped in, sent a memo pointing out that this
workaround made things harder for students, that's
low effort expectancy, and made the online system
less useful right when they needed it, that's
low performance expectancy. So the principal
used the framework's terms. Yep. Directly. And
instructed the coordinator to fix the network
settings. It really showed how usability for
the end users, the students in this case, had
to be paramount. We see another angle on this
with Donna, right? A teacher of younger kids.
Yeah, a less formal situation, but just as telling.
Her students, like first graders, had always
used super simple logins. Easy passwords. Makes
sense for little kids. Totally. But then a new
server came in, and suddenly, the requirement
was for these complex, like, 20 -character passwords.
20 characters for six -year -olds? Wow. I struggle
with mine sometimes. Right. Donna immediately
saw this was a huge barrier. It completely torpedoed
the effort expectancy for her students trying
to use the computers independently. So what did
she do? Well, she flagged it. Initially, her
principal was a bit hesitant. You know, didn't
want to step on the tech department's toes. Understandable,
maybe. Yeah, but Donna kept at it. She explained
this whole idea of technology acceptance, focusing
on the ease of use part. She even got the principal
to come down and watch the kids trying and failing
to log in. Ah, seeing is believing. Pretty much.
Seeing the kids' frustration really changed the
principal's mind. They called a meeting focused
specifically on how these passwords were an obstacle
to the educational use of the computers. So again,
it's applying that ease of use lens. Exactly.
So the pattern here, the takeaway from Jerry
and Donna, is the cycle. Spot a problem, analyze
it using these Utah ideas, especially effort
expectancy. How easy is it? Try something, see
what happens with real users, and then refine
it. Keep tweaking until it works. It's practical.
Not just theory. Very practical. Okay, so moving
on. The research also talks about something called
reflexive curriculum design. Reflexive? Like
looking back at itself? Sort of, yeah. Think
of it like a mirror. It's not just about bolting
technology onto existing lessons. It's about
how the technology itself might make us rethink
how we teach, how students engage with information.
It influences the teaching and the teaching influences
how we use the tech. Okay, two -way street. Exactly.
We see this with Linda, a curriculum coordinator.
They had new standards coming in and she wanted
technology to be, well, essential, not just an
add -on. How did she approach that? Her goal
was specifically to increase the performance
expectancy of the tech, make teachers really
see its value for meeting those new standards.
She encouraged teachers to design lessons where
maybe a specific piece of tech they hadn't used
much became the key tool for teaching a particular
concept. Interesting. So finding the right tool
for the job. intentionally. Yes. And Scott's
project is another good example. He needed to
create an online course because students couldn't
fit the regular class into their schedules. Logistical
problem driving innovation. Right. And what's
cool is how different teachers approach this.
They started with their learning goals, but then
they were flexible. They adapted the actual tasks
to make the best use of the tech they had. Like
what? Well, one middle school math teacher, for
instance, found that using Excel just worked
better for her and her students for a certain
type of data analysis, even though, you know,
Google Apps were available, she felt more confident
it was easier for her. So prioritizing ease of
use and effectiveness for that specific task?
Exactly. And Scott, developing his online course,
he experimented. Tried discussion boards, then
blogs, then wikis, figuring out which tool actually
fostered the kind of student interaction he was
aiming for. So it wasn't just picking one tool
and saying this is it. It was iterative again.
Very much so. A lot of trial and error that reflects
a process, seeing what the tech could do, adjusting
the tasks, seeing how students responded, and
feedback was key. How do they manage feedback?
Linda actually set up a protocol, a process,
for teachers to document why a particular technology
was essential for their lesson. This wasn't just
for evaluation, it helped share effective practices
across different schools. Smart. building a shared
knowledge base. And it had a side benefit for
the tech coordinator, too. Oh, yeah. All this
feedback gave them really clear direction on
what kind of support teachers actually needed,
maybe what upgrades were necessary, or even what
new tools to purchase. It helped bridge that
gap between the curriculum side and the technology
infrastructure side. They started speaking the
same language, sort of. That communication piece
seems huge. OK, let's shift gears slightly. Curriculum
repositories, what are these? OK, so imagine
basically an online library, but specifically
for teachers within a district or school group,
a place to share lesson plans, activities, resources,
things they've created or found. Like a shared
drive, but more organized for teaching materials.
Yeah. And often with the idea of open educational
resources so things can be adapted and reused.
We have an example from Pam, a sixth grade teacher.
Pam's experience. So her school system started
one. Initially, they tried to be quite formal,
you know, asking teachers to categorize the resources
they uploaded using those UTAT terms like tag
this as high performance expectancy or easy effort
expectancy. Pam noticed it got kind of clunky.
Teachers didn't really stick with the formal
tagging. Instead, it just evolved more organically.
People started posting things they found useful,
sharing links, uploading files they'd used in
class. More natural. Yeah. Less like homework.
Exactly. And the collaborative part really took
off. Pam talked about seeing colleagues post
maybe a basic idea, and then others would jump
in with comments, suggest tweaks, upload modified
versions. You'd end up with several iterations
of an activity refined by different people. That
sounds really powerful, like collective intelligence
building. It really was. And this is where the
third UTAT factor, social influences, became
really apparent. Ah, right. What your peers are
doing. Precisely. The repository became the place
everyone went to find stuff, especially during
curriculum planning meetings. And importantly,
this wasn't top down. It wasn't the administration
forcing it. Pam called it a grassroots kind of
thing. Teachers driving it themselves because
they found it useful. Absolutely. Pam even took
it upon herself to create a little guide for
new teachers joining the school, showing them
how to use the repository. That really signals
ownership, doesn't it? Definitely. Shows they
value it. Did it affect Pam personally? Yeah.
Interestingly, she said that getting involved
with the repository actually made her feel...
much more comfortable with the school's main
learning management system, the LMS. How so?
Because she was constantly finding great resources
in the repository, things she could easily pull
into her online assignments or class pages. It
made the whole prospect of online teaching feel
less daunting. It lowered the barrier, reduced
the effort. Exactly. It improved her effort expectancy
regarding the LMS. What might have seemed like
a lot of work before finding materials, building
online activities, suddenly became much simpler.
Just a couple of clicks, as she put it, because
the repository was feeding into it. So the repository
hit multiple points. Easier effort, better performance
because the materials were good, and strong social
influence. A trifecta, really. It became this
really valuable ecosystem for them. OK, so pulling
these threads together, it really seems like
thinking about technology acceptance. ease of
use, usefulness, social factors, gives schools
a practical tool, a planning heuristic, as the
research calls it. Yeah, a useful shortcut for
thinking, basically. It helps you zero in on
what might be going wrong and how you might design
interventions that actually stick. We saw that
with Jerry and Donna, didn't we? focusing on
ease of use, the effort involved, led them to
push for changes that made the tech systems genuinely
more usable? Absolutely. And Jerry noted something
important. Having that shared language, those
clear targets, easy to use, useful for learning,
actually gave everyone, including leaders, more
confidence in making tech decisions. Even if
the leaders weren't tech gurus themselves. Right.
They felt they could ask better questions. Okay,
but how does this impact effort expectancy for
our teachers? How does it boost performance expectancy
for student learning? It empowers them. But it's
not always simple, is it? The sources point out
some complexities. Definitely not black and white.
For instance, people within the same school might
understand acceptance differently. Remember Donna,
the complex passwords weren't hard for her, but
she knew they were impossible for her first graders.
Right. Context matters. What's easy for one person
or one task isn't universal. Exactly. And perceptions
of ease and usefulness can change depending on
whether you're talking about, say, using email
versus using a complex simulation for a science
class. And social influences can pull in different
directions too, right? For sure. You might have
your colleagues in your department who are really
into a new tool, but maybe the broader school
culture is a bit resistant. Or personal friends
might recommend something your professional network
hasn't adopted. Plus, that potential disconnect
between how teachers see effort and how the IT
team sees it. That's a classic tension in many
places, isn't it? What seems like a minor inconvenience
to IT might be a major workflow disruption for
a teacher. So how do we navigate that? There
was an idea about conceptual artifacts. Yeah,
this comes from Beriter. The idea is basically
to make concepts like effort expectancy and performance
expectancy more concrete. Define them by observable
actions. What does it look like when a technology
is easy to use in this context? What are students
or teachers doing when it's useful? So you can
actually measure or observe if things are improving.
Precisely. It moves it away from just vague feelings
towards something more tangible you can assess.
Interestingly, the study mentioned that some
of the standard UTAC factors, like age or gender,
weren't strong predictors here. That's right.
In these specific school settings, things like
the teacher's age, their previous experience,
or whether using the tech was mandatory, didn't
seem to explain that much about who adopted it
and how. But something else did seem important.
Autonomy. Yes. Autonomy emerged as potentially
really significant in the educational context.
Remember Linda, the curriculum coordinator? Mm
-hmm. Making tech essential. Her goal wasn't
just usage, it was deeper. She wanted teachers
to understand when technology was the best choice,
and crucially, to feel they had the skills, the
confidence, and the freedom to use it effectively.
So autonomy here means what? Having a say. It's
a mix of things. A sense of agency, like, I can
make choices about this. Awareness and understanding,
I get why this is useful or not. Capacity, I
have the skills. And authority, I am allowed
to make this decision for my classroom. And we
saw glimmers of that. Teachers pushing back on
the SIS access. Teachers actively shaping curriculum
with tech tools they chose. Exactly. The research
suggests teachers might actually need more autonomy
regarding classroom technology than maybe tech
users in a corporate office setting, for example.
Their work is complex and context dependent.
That makes sense. And the final piece that seemed
to weave through all the examples was leadership.
Huge. Absolutely crucial. Think about Jerry's
and Donna's principals. They weren't necessarily
tech experts, but they listened, they observed
the impact on ease of use and usefulness, and
they made decisions based on those technology
acceptance principles. They facilitated the process.
They did. And their engagement seemed to directly
influence things like how much the curriculum
repository was used. If the principal was involved
and supportive, teachers were more likely to...
to participate. So leadership acts as a key facilitating
condition, another Utahier idea. Okay, so wrapping
this up. It feels like the big takeaway is that
using this educational design research approach
guided by these core ideas from technology acceptance,
especially making tech easy and making it obviously
useful, is a really practical path forward for
schools. I think so. It gives the structure a
way to focus efforts rather than just, you know,
buying more devices or trying the latest shiny
thing. It really emphasizes understanding the
people using the tech, the teachers, the students,
and being willing to adjust based on their actual
experience. It's iterative. Constantly learning
and refining, that seems to be the key. So a
final thought for you listening. Think about
your own school or district. What's that balance
like between support, teacher autonomy, and leadership
when it comes to technology? Is it working? And
maybe pick one small tech challenge you've noticed.
Could you try looking at it through this lens?
Is the root of the problem really about the effort
involved, or is it more about people not seeing
the value, the performance benefit? Just asking
that question might start to unpack it.