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As sophisticated electronic learning technologies become standard features of schooling, advocates envision a wider, richer range of educational experiences and more student-centered learning. Enthusiasts predict such uses will change the roles of students and teachers.1 Before such claims can be evaluated, however, teachers must accept and use technology in their classrooms.
We do not yet understand how teachers interpret the prospect of technological innovation. Summarizing a series of studies on classroom computer use, Sheingold, Hawkins, and Char conclude that more research is needed to understand the processes that determine change in the classroom culture.2 Ehman and Glenn find little research that examines the impact of technology on the teacher's role.3 They advocate studies featuring in-depth teacher interviews and observations. This study uses such methodologies to explore secondary teachers' perceptions of educational technology and its role in their classrooms.4
Schools have been resistant to curriculum innovations. Although researchers have identified school organizational structures and societal expectations about schooling as significant barriers to innovation, many studies highlight the key role that teachers play as the gatekeepers of classroom change. Research suggests that teachers will accept only changes that they perceive will help them do their job as they have defined it.6
Authorities in curriculum development have recognized the key role of teachers in curriculum reform. For example, Schwab identified four curricular commonplaces that must be addressed in all curriculum development: learners, subject matter, milieu, and teachers.7 Caswell argued that the primary means of changing the curriculum is changing teachers.8 Both of these individuals understood the difficulty of gaining teacher support. They stressed the importance of involving teachers in defining needs and planning implementation. Recognizing that the mainstream teacher culture is conservative and adverse to risk, Caswell emphasized the need for security and recognition if teachers were to entertain the uncertainty of change.9
Although theorists recognized the problematic nature of curriculum implementation, researchers did not begin to focus on understanding the process of school change until the late 1960s.10 Three perspectives typified curriculum implementation research for the next two decades: the technological, the political, and the cultural. House argued that although these perspectives coexist, the research emphasis has shifted over time from focus on the innovation itself, to the innovation in context, to the context itself.11
The...