Informing the Design of ICT Applications for Education: Requirements for Improved ICT Use by Teachers
Author(s)
Sun, Pei Chen
Finger, Glenn
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2012
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
There is an identifiable disconnect between the design of many information and communication technologies (ICT) applications in education and their actual use by teachers in their practice.
To inform and improve the constructive alignment between ICT design and teacher ICT use in professional practice, this research investigated this issue through eliciting teachers’ actual requirements for ICT applications in education.
To develop a better understanding of the key assumptions underlying the design of ICT applications for education, metaphor elicitation technique was selected and implemented as the methodology to collect ...
View more >There is an identifiable disconnect between the design of many information and communication technologies (ICT) applications in education and their actual use by teachers in their practice. To inform and improve the constructive alignment between ICT design and teacher ICT use in professional practice, this research investigated this issue through eliciting teachers’ actual requirements for ICT applications in education. To develop a better understanding of the key assumptions underlying the design of ICT applications for education, metaphor elicitation technique was selected and implemented as the methodology to collect and elicit the actual ICT requirements of teachers. A total of 151 interview data from school teachers were collected, and the ICT requirements were categorized according to their function themes with an analysis framework proposed by this study. Subsequently, a partial least square analysis was performed on the categorized results to test and validate our arguments about the design of ICT applications for education. Our findings suggest that the attempts of most ICT application design for education follow a classic story of automating education procedure. However, the study shows that teachers require ICT applications which are designed from an instruction perspective. We suggest that this would enhance ICT use in teaching and learning contexts, rather than the design being guided by an automated instruction procedure. The insights resulting from this research provide an important context and justification for recommendations made to inform improved educational ICT application design and assist in addressing the design disconnect between ICT applications and their use by teachers.
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View more >There is an identifiable disconnect between the design of many information and communication technologies (ICT) applications in education and their actual use by teachers in their practice. To inform and improve the constructive alignment between ICT design and teacher ICT use in professional practice, this research investigated this issue through eliciting teachers’ actual requirements for ICT applications in education. To develop a better understanding of the key assumptions underlying the design of ICT applications for education, metaphor elicitation technique was selected and implemented as the methodology to collect and elicit the actual ICT requirements of teachers. A total of 151 interview data from school teachers were collected, and the ICT requirements were categorized according to their function themes with an analysis framework proposed by this study. Subsequently, a partial least square analysis was performed on the categorized results to test and validate our arguments about the design of ICT applications for education. Our findings suggest that the attempts of most ICT application design for education follow a classic story of automating education procedure. However, the study shows that teachers require ICT applications which are designed from an instruction perspective. We suggest that this would enhance ICT use in teaching and learning contexts, rather than the design being guided by an automated instruction procedure. The insights resulting from this research provide an important context and justification for recommendations made to inform improved educational ICT application design and assist in addressing the design disconnect between ICT applications and their use by teachers.
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Conference Title
2012 Australian Computers in Education Conference
Publisher URI
Subject
Educational Technology and Computing