Research Review: The Danger of the Downward Spiral: Teachers and Digital Literacy

The Danger of the Downward Spiral: Teachers and Digital Literacy
Caroline Stockman and Fred Truyen, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

The paper that I'm offering for our literature review provides a frame work for thinking about the risks that could jeopardise the adoption of new technology in an educational setting and for monitoring progress towards adoption. The framework described by the authors suggests that progress towards successful adoption (the top of the spiral) is influenced by a variety of factors comprising three ‘inner’ and four ‘outer’ factors. The presence, or absence of these factors influence the successful integration and eventually adoption of technology. This paper adds to the Straub paper (Understanding Technology Adoption: Theory and Future Directions for Informal Learning) which Michael has posted above in that it focuses on risk – the risk of staff taking a downward spiral (away from successful technology integration) and the risk that our efforts to engage staff in new technologies and in associated pedagogic practice could be undermined. The authors of this paper suggest that this could be a useful framework for monitoring progress in institutions and for making context sensitive interventions to support progression up the spiral.
One further thing about this paper – it’s very readable and that’s important to me!
The conference proceedings in which this research was published are not available online, but the paper is available online as follows: Caroline Stockman, Fred Truyen (2011) The Danger of the Downward Spiral: Teachers and Digital Literacyhttps://lirias.kuleuven.be/bitstream/123456789/324465/1/TheDownwardSpiral_StockmanTruyen.pdf