Digital transformation in Swedish schools – Principals’ strategic leadership and organisation of tablet-based one-to-one computing initiatives

Abstract


 This paper reports on a research study about principals’ strategic leadership and organisation of schools within established tablet-based one-to-one computing initiatives. The aim was to investigate how principals lead and guide one-to-one computing initiatives in K–12 education. The research questions focused on principals’ expressed intentions and their strategic leadership and organisation when implementing tablet-based one-to-one computing initiatives in Swedish schools. The empirical material was collected through semi-structured interviews with seven principals in five municipalities where the schools had used tablets for more than six months within a one-to-one computing initiative. The findings are organised by themes concerning one-to-one computing as a strategy to change teaching and working methods, using technology for adapting teaching and learning to every pupil’s needs, and strategies for organisation. The findings show that marketisation of schools (e.g. the school-choice reform) in combination with the annual presentation of national rankings have had an impact on the financial situations of schools because they receive a voucher for every attending pupil. The participating principals’ strategic leadership concerning their intentions and applied strategies on how to lead and organise the digitalised school are an attempt to meet the demands that the marketisation and digitalisation of Swedish schools requires.

Teachers’ Perception of Gamification as a Teaching Design

“…Despite the urgent national and global demands mentioned above, Swedish schools show a limited focus on developing these competencies, even though large-scale oneto-one computing initiatives have been implemented in recent years [31] [32]. Mårell-Olsson and Bergström [33] found principals to argue that their motives for the one-toone computing initiatives are to provide a potential opportunity for organisational change and that their primary focus and endeavour is to improve their school's rankings because doing so brings advantageous financial effects. In the study, the researchers showed that the principals were, so to speak, setting the scene for the oneto-one computing initiatives and were laying the foundation for the teachers' work with digital technologies [33].…”

“…Mårell-Olsson and Bergström [33] found principals to argue that their motives for the one-toone computing initiatives are to provide a potential opportunity for organisational change and that their primary focus and endeavour is to improve their school's rankings because doing so brings advantageous financial effects. In the study, the researchers showed that the principals were, so to speak, setting the scene for the oneto-one computing initiatives and were laying the foundation for the teachers' work with digital technologies [33]. The curriculum becomes an important part of the teaching design when teaching practices are digitalised and teachers begin to exclude textbooks and instead include an array of both digital and physical learning resources [31].…”

In Need of Development, Learning and Research?

“…This framework has been used to study digitalization and leadership (Dexter, 2018;Petersen, 2014), goals and policies (Vanderlinde et al, 2012), and the roles of school leaders in digitalization (Håkansson-Lindqvist & Pettersson, 2019). From another perspective, Mårell-Olsson and Bergström (2018) conceptualized strategic school leadership as the awareness of goals and motives and the implementation of actions and strategies for organizing and leading processes of digital and educational change. Researchers have also studied the enactment of school leadership by analyzing microprocesses from historical and sociocultural perspectives (Vennebo, 2017 see also Hauge, 2016).…”

University Students as Co-creators in Designing Gamification Teaching Activities using Emergent Technologies in Swedish K-12 Education

“…one laptop or tablet per child) that have been implemented in compulsory schools. Despite these digitizing initiatives, research shows that teaching designs in Sweden [5][6] [7] [8] as well as in Denmark [9], are mostly organized through teacher-centered instructions which, to a limited extent, promote studentcentered learning activities aimed at the development of student abilities to collaborate, reason critically, communicate, solve complex problems and use digital tools in teaching and learning (e.g. 21st century skills).…”