Teachers’ resistance to taking up a technological innovation: a case study

Abstract

There are clear pressures on educators to innovate through the use of ICTs. iPads and Google Docs are ICT tools that have become preferable in some contexts. This paper investigates the take-up of a technological innovation, using iPads and Google Docs, by three Geography educators. This study reviews the affordances that ICTs make available to educators, as well as the knowledge structure through which educators come to know and use ICTs in order to take advantage of these affordances. An account is given of the pressures to take up and adapt technological innovations by teachers, as well as the success factors already investigated in literature. This investigation seeks to answer the question: do teachers take up the technological innovation and, if so, why? However, review of the adapted documents showed that the educators did not take up the technological innovation completely, specifically with regard to the tool. The HOD and the educators were interviewed with the goal of describing their beliefs and reasoning behind the innovation and its take-up. The case study found that educator knowledge of a tool should allow them to use it in the manner for which it was designed. If a tool is designed for generative use and educator knowledge does not allow them to use the tool in that way, as was the case in this study, use will remain representational or absent.