Technology as infrastructure for change: district leader understandings of 1:1 educational technology initiatives and educational change

Abstract

PurposeWhile educational infrastructure is consistently identified as a key lever for educational change, it is often overlooked in research and practice and specifically in relation to technology in schools. By using educational infrastructure as a lens to examine a group of districts' implementation of 1:1 programs, this work provides opportunities for understanding and approaching technology programs in new, and potentially more effective, ways.Design/methodology/approachUsing the concept of educational infrastructure (Mehta and Fine, 2015; Peurach and Neumerski, 2015), this multiple-case study explores the ways superintendents and district technology leaders understand and enact 1:1 technology initiatives to support educational change.FindingsThe authors find these leaders see 1:1 technology as both embedded in, and engaged in changing, the physical, cultural, instructional and leadership infrastructures. This suggests that 1:1 technology can act as an infrastructure itself and has the potential to support changes to teaching and learning across the system.Originality/valueThis study offers a new perspective to understand and enact the opportunities of 1:1 technology. Specifically, it helps to reframe technology programs away from discrete classroom or school-based interventions to consider and attend to the system-level resources they require and thus increase benefits they can produce. While always useful, such considerations are particularly important in the current context and the proliferation of online learning for so many.

The Impact of Educational Technology on Distance Learning in The Era of Post-Covid-19

“…Decision-makers represented by district leaders in one of the literature have identified technology as a mechanism of systemic change embedded in the physical, cultural, instructional, and leadership infrastructures that adopted the 1:1 programme approach to educational change (Lamb & Weiner, 2021). This programme refers to the concept of schools providing every student with their own computing device for learning purpose.…”

Enhancement or Impediment? How University Teachers’ Use of Smart Classrooms Might Impact Interaction Quality

“…From a theoretical perspective, the Smart Classroom architecture and philosophies are based on constructivist learning theories [26], which emphasize students' self-development via social interactions [27] (pp. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. As a result, the term "Smart" may thus refer to the ability to maintain a high degree of classroom involvement throughout the learning process, which emphasizes the exploration of interactions as an important point in studies of this phenomenon.…”

“…The term classroom interaction is generally understood to mean the communication between teacher and students and between students themselves [35] (pp. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. It is believed that quality interaction can enhance the classroom atmosphere, as well as promote students' learning behaviours and engagement, and thus improve the quality of classroom teaching [29,36].…”

“…Third, technology promotes the innovation of teaching modes. Fourth, technology-enabled teaching, experimentation, and management have improved teaching management [5]. Fifth, the use of technology can improve students' learning efficiency, in that technology expands students' learning resources and broadens their learning space, which enables students to learn more and faster.…”