Telecommunications and Teaching Practices: what leads to change?

This study explored the question: "What circumstances and experiences lead some teachers to incorporate telecommunications into their teaching practices, while others do not?" To investigate this question, six case studies of teachers involved in a telecommunications project were developed. Three teachers had relatively high levels of participation in project activities, and the other three were not participating. This was a qualitative study, and data were collected through the use of guided interviews and analyzed using content analysis. The elements of trustworthiness were established through triangulation of sources, peer debriefing, member checks, and thick description. The findings indicated that teachers who were integrating telecommunications into their teaching practices valued the use of an interactive learning network and had figured out how to use telecommunications instructionally. This study also found that the number of computers in a school, the principals' levels of knowledge and interest in telecommunications, and the actions of the project's facilitators, seemed to have little bearing on use. The major concerns expressed by the participants were: time, access to equipment and local nodes, training, and the lack of specifically stated protocols on network conferences. These findings should be useful for all who wish to promote the use of interactive learning networks to enhance instruction.