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Faculty of Social Sciences

Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, DSV

ICT-enhanced education in a primary school in Moscow

Author

Roman Fekolkin

20.02.2015

Final Report, Field Study (15hp)

Master's Programme in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D)

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Abstract

In this work, the description of the field study, which was conducted in a primary

school in Moscow, is described. The pre-study of the context with regard to the

non-school usage of ICT solutions by children as well as the ICT readiness of the

teachers in that school was conducted. Then, the already existing ICT solutions

were overviewed in order to determine how it is used during the lessons. The

introduction of several ICT solutions that were previously unused in this school

was done based on the consultations from several teachers in other schools. And

finally, the review of the personal experience that was received from conducting

this study was presented to get an overview of the general progression of this study

and what aspects of it were valuable for personal development within the area of

ICT implementation in school. In general, the purpose of this field study was to

make the usage of the available ICT solutions more efficient both for the teachers

and pupils at that school.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 4

1.1 Background ..................................................................................................................... 4

1.2 General Context Description ........................................................................................... 5

1.3 Overview of the field study process ................................................................................ 7

2 ICT in Use.............................................................................................................................. 7

2.1 Results of the teachers’ survey ...................................................................................... 13

2.2 Results of the parents’ survey ........................................................................................ 20

3 ICT proposals ...................................................................................................................... 26

3.1 The 1st proposed ICT solution ....................................................................................... 26

3.2 The 2nd proposed ICT solution ...................................................................................... 29

3.3 The 3rd proposed ICT solution ....................................................................................... 30

4 The results of the final survey ............................................................................................ 31

4.1 Acceptance of the online-builder (1st proposal) ............................................................. 31

4.2 Acceptance of the proposed Projector usage by pupils (2nd proposal) ........................... 34

4.3 Acceptance of the cloud-based storage as a substitution to an e-Learning platform ..... 38

5 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 41

5.1 What was supposed to happen and what actually happened? ........................................ 41

5.2 The achievement of the set goals and personal achievements ....................................... 44

5.3 The lessons learned and what to consider for others ..................................................... 46

References ............................................................................................................................... 48

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1. Introduction In this work the results of my field study are to be presented where the pre-study of

the contextual aspects of the school were analyzed and the ICT solutions for taking

a greater advantage of the available technology were proposed. The acceptance of

the proposals was then measured by conducting another survey among teachers.

But before going in to the details of the field study, it’s important to give an

overview of some of the relevant aspects related to school education and its

structure in Russia in general.

1.1. Background

In Russia there are 53, 500 schools that are being attended by around 20 million

students [2]. Out of the total number of schools about 2.7% (1727) are located in

Moscow [3]. The literacy rate in Russia is 99.7%, where 95% of population have

completed upper secondary education. Furthermore, 53% of population have a

University degree or completed some kind of college education. In 2014 around

4.3% of the country’s GDP was spend on education.

There are both public and private schools in Russia [1], however, the number of

private or as they are also called non-governmental schools is very insignificant and

has been rapidly decreasing [2] because of the lack of support from the government

and from the local municipalities. Now around 95% of all school students study at

public schools. The public schools include both the general-purpose schools which

either have or have no emphasis on specific subjects, as well as they include

gymnasiums.

The general-purpose schools are regular schools where the educational plan is

based on the standards established by the Ministry of Education and it teaches the

basic courses. The gymnasiums, on the other, hand have a wider curriculum where

instead of having only one foreign language they have the required minimum of

two (often it’s German or French). Besides, the English as a subject starts in the

first grade rather than the 5th one as it is the case in general-purpose schools. The

gymnasiums in Moscow constitute about 4.5% of all public schools (79 schools).

The pro-gymnasiums are basically just the first 4 grades of the full gymnasium.

The registration at public schools used to be done by having a registration queue

where the first student in line for registration would get the place at the desired

school. In 2012 the Ministry of Education has established a law that made the

registration at schools to be based on the place of residence of the students, where

the students who live in the same area as the school would be prioritized, while

students from other areas would only have a chance to get accepted if a class had

free places (which is often not the case especially in Moscow where the density of

the classes has been growing with each year) [4].

The average age of teachers in public schools in Moscow is 44 years, while the

average density of classes is 26 students and in classes the students often sit in pairs

at the school desk. During the day the students usually have 4-5 lessons in primary

education and 6-7 lessons in secondary where the duration of each lesson is 45

minutes. The school education consists of 11 compulsory grades and it has been

divided into 3 categories: primary, secondary and upper-secondary [5].

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The primary education in Russia covers the grades from 1st to 4th, where children

first go to school at the age of 6-7. The education in primary schools provides

children with the basic skills which will prepare them for further studies. Until the

year 2007, the primary education concentrated on teaching children basic subjects

which required children to be able to read and perform basic mathematical tasks

etc. A new subject called “Informatics and ICT” became one of the core subjects

starting from the 3rd grade. However, in the 1st and 2nd grades the ICT tools are

often used for enhancement of other subjects. The pprimary education is of course

compulsory for all children at the age of 6 unless some valid reasons are provided

by the parents.

The secondary education covers the grades from 5th to 9th and it is compulsory as

well. The informatics at this stage are taught on a more advanced level where the

students are required to know the basics of programming, computer structure etc.

The upper secondary education covers the 10th and 11th grades and it is the last

stage of the school education and it has become compulsory since the year 2007

and its completion is required for students to apply to University or college.

1.2. General Context Description

The school №1723 in which the field study was conducted is located in Solncevo

which is one of the districts in Moscow. The population in the district is around

90,000 people according to the official census [6]. In the district there are 17

schools, while 15 of those are the general purpose schools. There is also 1

gymnasium and 1 pro-gymnasium which I will study in this case.

The budget of this school and basically any school in Russia is defined by the

division of the municipal budget and in this case it’s the budget of the Solncevo

district. The municipal budget is dedicated to maintaining the functionality of the

local services and accomplishment of the goals in a specific municipality. The

amount of financial resources assigned to a particular school is established each

year defining the share from the total municipal budget. The additional financial

resources can come from donations, charitable organizations etc, but it has to be

completely voluntary.

The organizational structure in the school is divided between several parties. The

governing council of this pro-gymnasium deals with discussion and approval of the

educational plans and maintenance of the school’s facilities. It also monitors the

attendance rate of the students and their educational progression, in order to detect

possible problems and various tendencies. It’s also responsible for school

fundraising and allocation of the school budget. The council includes the principal

of the school, representatives of the parents and several members of the teaching

staff.

The teaching committee occurs when the school teachers attend meetings

initiated by the principle to discuss various topics and education- related issues. It

also chooses the educational plan, school books, arranges certain activities like

book clubs as well as it deals with the student related issues, for example if

someone shows low performance, which might require the parents to attend a

meeting and discuss the situation.

The parents committee consists of several representatives of the students’ parents

and it assists the school management and cooperates with the teachers committee in

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organization of educational processes and creation of the suitable conditions for

establishment of a successful and student-accurate educational process as well as it

makes it possible for parents to have cooperation with the school and make them

involved in the educational process. The members of the committee are chosen at a

parents-teachers meeting in the beginning of each school year and the choice of

representatives is approved by the principle of the school. The committee does not

have a direct influence on the structure of educational processes but rather it gives

recommendations on how to improve them and make them actually accountable for

students’ worldviews.

The methodological association usually consists of volunteers from the teaching

staff and it is responsible for ensuring the achievement of educational goals,

introducing corrections into educational process and improvement of the

qualification of the teaching staff for example by asking teachers to attend some

conferences or take additional training courses in order for them to be able to use

the teaching techniques which would satisfy the standards established by the

Ministry of Education. In general, at the initial stages of the ICT integration in this

school, some of the elderly teachers were concerned that there would be a

preference towards younger teachers who have a more intuitive understanding of

using various ICT tools in everyday life, so this was actually one of the

motivational factors for the teachers to attend short training courses and improve

their technical skills during their free-time.

In the school there are 20 “multifunctional” teachers who teach a variety of

different subjects such as math, reading, language etc and they are responsible for

the class they’ve been assigned to lead. So, throughout the 4 years of primary

education, each class have one primary teacher that covers most of the school

material, while the teachers in subjects such as Design and English language are not

class-specific. There are 5 English teachers and 20 teachers that teach additional

subjects such as music, design and also some of them offer additional education

which allows children to stay after school and do some homework until they get

picked up by their parents after work in cases if the pupil lives a long way from

home.

This pro-gymnasium has 4 grades and it has slightly more than 500 students. The

standard density of the classes each year is 25 students, however that is not always

true. Some classes, especially in the 1st and 2nd grades, have usually 26-28 students

nowadays. There are 20 classes in total, where each of 4 grades has 5 classes. In

the 1st and 2nd grades the ICT is used to enhance such school subjects as Reading

and Mathematics but it is not taught as a separate subject. In the first grade, the

pupils attend school 5 times a week and each school day last for around 4 hours.

They usually have 3-4 lessons a day but as I mentioned previously it’s possible to

stay after school and do homework and get help from the teachers. So, for the first 4

month of the 1st grade the duration of each lesson is 35 minutes. But after that,

starting from January, the duration of each lesson is 45 minutes. This gradual

increase in lesson duration is done in order to avoid putting an overwhelming

amount of pressure on the children and let them adapt to the educational process.

Starting from the 2nd grade each school day consists of 4-5 lessons of 45 minutes

each. Starting from 3rd grade the ICT is taught as a separate subject for 2 hours a

week. It describes the various ICT tools and how they can be used to perform

certain educational activities and whatnot.

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1.3. Overview of the field study process

The Case Study was performed as part of my field study, which allowed to get an

insight into the internal situation related to the ICT usage by teachers and students

as well as it covered the exploration of the ways in which the ICT during the

teaching and learning processes in this primary school. The questionnaires were

used for exploration of the background of the teachers and students. The informal

interviews allowed exploring the experience of using ICT as well as what kind of

opinions the teachers have about using the technology in every day practice at

school. Based on the explored aspects, the ICT proposals were made, the main goal

of which was to introduce a positive change into the teaching and learning

processes, by means of financially-independent technological solutions. To

produce the solutions, the aforementioned questionnaire-based pre-study was

performed as well as the consultations with two teachers who I met during my

search for the placement to conduct my field study. The consultations helped to

establish a “bridge” for the exchange of experience, where some of their teaching

and learning practices could be transferred to the school in which the study was

conducted. The various education-oriented discussion forums and documents were

analysed in order to possibly get an insight in the related issues and try to find

some solution to them. As it was mentioned previously, the main requirement for

the ICT proposals was that they had to be free. What I mean by that is that, they

had to be possible to implement without the need to spending any financially

resources on them, allowing avoiding the tedious process of approval of the

technology by the governing council of the school, which could take a lot of time.

The ICT solutions, which were structured considering the results of the pre-

study, the received consultations and the personal ideas, were afterwards presented

to the teachers during the teacher’s committee meetings, where the general concept

of the proposals was presented to and discussed with the teachers. After the

meetings, the teachers would choose whether they actually wanted to give it a try

and use the proposed at least one of the three proposed solutions.

The field study was concluded by doing a final survey of the teachers, which

actually explored whether the teachers actually used any of the proposed ICT

solutions. Depending on the results of the final survey we could determine if the

proposed ICT solutions managed to achieve acceptance among teachers.

To summarize, the main goal of this field study was to achieve a successful

integration of financially-independent ICT solutions by teachers for enhancement

of the educational processes in a primary education.

2. ICT in use In the school in which the field study was performed, there are various ICT

solutions already implemented for enhancement of the teaching and learning

processes. Furthermore, the ICT as a subject in this school is being taught starting

from the 3rd grade, where children are taught about basic benefits that ICT might

produce, for example, for social and educational purposes. So, this subject does not

involve any extensive usage of any particular ICT tools, but rather it concentrates

on theoretical examples, presenting various types of ICT and how they can be used

for enhancement of various services. However, this ICT subject is strictly for

theoretical knowledge, while the practical experience in using the ICT is provided

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by means of using various ICT tools during lessons in all classes regardless of the

grade level.

Besides, the school has a broadband connection, where the access points are

distributed evenly across the school providing a wireless Internet connectivity in

any point in the school removing the need for the wires, which is especially

important considering that the laptops used by the pupils are constantly getting

moved from one class to the other, so there is no need to have a separate set of

laptops for each class which would require significantly larger investments.

The laptops are used both by the teachers and the pupils as well as the stationary

computers are used by the administration staff. In case of teachers, each of them

has been given a laptop 2 years ago (previously they had stationary PCs). The

teachers use laptops for various work-related purposes like administrative duties.

For example, they store student records for each of their lessons such as their

grades, which the teachers give them as part of their performance evaluation, and

they also record students’ attendance rate. The plans for upcoming

activities/schedule and subject material are also structured using a laptop, while

previously all this was done using a regular journal where all of the information

was written by hand in a regular journal. So, all the information about the entire

class was stored in one place and in case the journal got lost then all of those

records were practically lost together with it, which required teachers to go through

all of the grade-notebooks of each student, which each student has for teachers to

put their evaluation grades in, and rewrite those grades into a new journal. This was

incredibly time-consuming and unreliable because the grades could be falsified by

pupils and the teacher might easily overlook it especially if the grade was given a

significant amount of time ago. However, regardless of the digitalized logging, the

students still have grade-notebooks in a physical form, but now this is used to give

students feedback that they would remember, while the grades are still submitted

via email to the parents by the end of each month or term. Thus, the digitalized

means of administration of school work for each teacher introduced a great amount

of flexibility for the teachers and generally decreased their workload, which is

especially important considering that the class density increased by average 15%

during the last 2 years and now there are about 29 students in each class.

The laptops are used during the lessons for presentation of the school material.

Furthermore, the teachers very actively use the laptops to access the Internet when

searching for additional material for their teaching sessions. So, basically they

extend the material that is included in the established curriculum by additional

education-oriented videos and exercises. All of the material found on the Internet is

first reviewed and it is determined whether that material has any educational value

that would make it worthwhile to show the pupils. In general, the usage of the

subject material from various Internet sources is a common practice that is used to

complement the standard educational material and further diversify the contents,

making sure that the lessons are educationally valuable and engaging at the same

time. So, after finding some particularly interesting topics that the teachers would

like to discuss during the lessons, they would simply connect their laptop to the

projector and show the material which might be, for example, some practical

tutorials and various educational videos. Previously, this was done in a little more

complex way, where all of the material either had to be described in words by the

teacher or written on the blackboard, which was time-consuming and especially

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unsuitable for pupils who sat on the back rows of the class and could not see a

thing. Thus, the increased accessibility of the information and its presentation by

means of using different equipment during the lessons is an effective way to

increase the productivity of the educational processes.

As for the communication among teachers, they mainly use the traditional

methods such as talking during meetings and finding the time to discuss certain

issues between the lessons, however when certain information or file is to be

shared then they use email or even Skype. The email communication is also used

for contacts between teachers and parents, so that the parents don’t have to come to

school for discussion of issues that might be insignificant but still require parents to

be informed about. The usage of email also allows to avoid spending time on

trying to reach the parents via the phone or sending some written notes together

with the child relying that it would be handed over, which was commonly done

previously and which was impractical because the child might simply hide the

message causing the teacher to call the parents in either case. Furthermore, the

teachers use emails, in cases if a certain pupil is sick and can't come to school, then

the tasks and reading material could sometimes be send to their parents so that they

can be notified about the tasks their children have to perform during their absence

period. In cases if the reading material is non-digital, then the teacher would first

scan certain material and then send it to the email of the parents, who would later

give it to their children, allowing them to keep up and not lay behind in their

studies. Previously, either parents had to come to school and get the material or

alternatively some of the classmates would be actually asked to bring the tasks to

the fellow classmate who was sick or unable to attend school for some other

reason. Otherwise, the child would simply had to wait until he/she came back to

school and just realize that they are far behind in their educational progression

compared to other students. So, with the presence of the laptops the teachers are

now able to make the education more accessible, versatile and engaging, which are

some of the crucial factors in keeping the high quality of the educational outcomes.

As part of their security policy the teachers are not allowed to take their own

laptops to school and they have to perform all of the work-related duties using their

school laptop. Furthermore, at the end of the day the laptops have to be locked in a

safe room, so that no computers are allowed to be left in the classrooms unattended.

However, the teachers are allowed to take the laptops home so that they can

perform their duties outside of school, but in that case they would need to notify the

security guard that they will take the computer. This allows achieving a non-

repudiation where teachers would not be able to deny the fact that they took the

laptop outside of school.

As for the laptops for pupils, the school uses movable sets of laptops, meaning

that rather having 1 laptop for each child in each class, they use 2 sets of 17 laptops

in each of 4 grades that has 4 classes. Furthermore, since the pupils sit in pairs

during the lessons, they usually get 1 laptop to be used by two children. So, in total

there are 8 sets of movable laptops, excluding the older laptops that still remain in

school after they were replaced with the newer ones a couple of years ago.

Considering that in each grade there are 4 classes and only 2 sets of laptops, the

teachers have to schedule when the laptops are to be needed for their lessons so that

there are no collisions with other classes when it comes to using the equipment. In

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the near future the school is planning on purchasing more laptops to cover a larger

number of pupils at the same time.

In this school, the laptops to be purchased were chosen to be MacBooks. The

choice was made based on the school budget on a higher level by the governing

council of this school. It's not necessarily true that all of the schools in Russia or

even Moscow have Macbook laptops or even have laptops at all, but rather this was

decided in this particular pro-gymnasium only.

The majority of the official course books are still paper-based while others are

provided in digital versions. The additional material is presented purely in the

digital form using a projector connected to the teacher’s laptop. This kind of

mixture of traditional and digital material allows not only to decrease the amount of

books the pupils have to bring to school (which might result in very heavy school

bags) but also it allows having a certain variation in the type of presented material.

For example, besides the established course material, the teachers might find some

other material on the Internet and present it during the lessons, allowing covering a

wider range of aspects about a certain subject. Previously, when there were no

accessible computers, the teachers had to stick to the books, which was somewhat

limited in terms of material coverage. Furthermore, during the lessons, video

tutorials about various topics tend to be presented by teachers, demonstrating some

practical examples rather than having something described in theory only.

The school purchased various educational applications which were chosen with

regard to the grade level and thus the complexity level. An example of the 1st grade

application that is used during the Math lessons can be seen in the figure 1 below:

Figure 1: Screenshots from the math application for the 1st grades.

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So, some applications, for example for the 1st grade, might have relatively simple

puzzles and tasks in subjects such as math, English language and others, while

other applications might require students to perform more complex exercises

related to the respective subjects (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Screenshot from the math application for the 2nd grades.

The applications intended for each grade level are pre-installed on the computers

that correspond to that grade only. This is done in order to decrease the license cost

of the software, of course.

As I mentioned previously, the pupils sit in pairs during the lessons, so 1 laptop

is used by 2 pupils to solve particular tasks that are either aimed at collaborative

problem-solving processes or are simply preferred to be solved in pairs in order to

for pupils to be actually able to communicate when trying to understand what is to

be done (see figure 3).

Figure 3: the usage of laptops in classes

However, when the pupils are asked to perform some kind of control tests that need

to be done individually, then considering the limited number of laptops, the class

gets divided into 2 groups of 14-15 pupils, where one group does the test on the

laptop, while the other group does either the written part of the test or reads some

kind of material and then the groups switch. The tasks in the used applications have

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both written as well as oral instructions, so it requires pupils to both be able to

understand what they have to do in written form and be able to listen to what they

are asked to do for a certain task. Some of the applications also included short video

tutorials which presented some particular topic for the pupils, who would later be

asked to solve the tasks which are based on the explained topic testing the

knowledge they got from the tutorial. While the pupils perform their exercise on the

laptops, the teacher walks around the class and assist the pupils in case if anyone

has certain questions and checks that the pupils actually understand what they are

doing.

The projectors are located in all classes where the lectures are conducted. They

are primarily used by the teachers to present lecture material as well as for

presentation of additional material that is not included in the regular course plan but

which according to the teachers’ opinion might have certain educational value for

the pupils (see figure 4).

Figure 4: The usage of projectors for demonstration of various tutorials.

Previously everything was written by the teacher on the whiteboard with a pencil,

which made it difficult for pupils on the back rows of the class to actually see what

exactly was written there. With the projectors the teachers can show any material,

allowing for the whole class to see clearly what is written instead of just having

pupils sitting through the lecture without the ability to properly comprehend the

presented material.

The pupils, on the other hand, are merely receiver of the content presented by

teachers, so they just observe what is being shown to them and occasionally they

are asked to solve some particular tasks in front of the class, where other pupils and

the teacher discuss what is being done. However, the pupils don’t generate any

content themselves.

So, we’ve looked through the used ICT tools that are used as part of the

educational process in the school in which study was performed and now we can

move on to an overview of the ICT proposals that were made to the teachers in an

attempt to introduce a certain positive change to their teaching processes as well as

to possibly create more engaging activities for learning.

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2.1. Results of the teachers’ survey

When the teachers were asked about how often they used computers at home, the

majority of the teachers stated that they used it often, while only every 1 out of 10

teachers stated that they don’t use it at all at home (see figure 5).

Figure 5: The frequency with which the teachers use computers at home

When the teachers were asked to evaluate the quality of their computer skills, the

majority stated that they had basic computer skills that allow them to perform their

teaching duties without hindrances (see figure 6).

Figure 6: Level of computer skills of the teachers

Interestingly enough, when the teachers were asked about the level of their

computer skills before the ICT was first introduced in school the majority still

stated that they had basic skills, while almost every 3rd teacher had poor skills and

the proportion of teachers that would consider their skills as advanced was almost

three times as smaller(see figure 7).

56%

30%

13%

Often (everyday/severaltimes a week)

Rarely Don't use it

0%

62%

38%

0%

Poor skills Basic Advanced No skills

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Figure 7: Level of computer skills before ICT integration

So, according to the results it appeared that it was not obligatory for the teachers to

attend special training courses, but rather they had an opportunity to improve their

computer skills in their free time and this was chosen a preferable option for the

majority of the teachers(see figure 8):

Figure 8: The way in which the teachers developed their computer skills.

From the results of the survey it appeared that the majority of teachers use the

computers not only before the lectures for creation of the material, but also they

used it for the actual presentation of the material (see figure 9).

Figure 9: Usage of computers for teaching

31%

53%

12%

4%

Poor Basic Advanced No skills

9%

62%

29%

Atteneded special courses During my free time My skills were sufficient

18%

82%

0%

Only to prepare for lectures Prior and During lecturesfor demonstration of the

material

Don't use it

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The majority of teachers, whose lessons involve the usage of laptops, also stated

that the pupils during their lessons use laptops 3 or 5 times a week, while in general

38 teachers stated that the pupils on their lessons use the laptops at least once a

week, which actually highly depends on the number of such lessons the students

have each week (see figure 10).

Figure 10: Frequency of using laptops by pupils

In the graph above, the lessons when the pupils don’t use laptops are primarily

during the gym classes and lessons where the pupils are required to crate things

with their hands as well as the lessons when there is practically no need for pupils

to use the laptops, since it might be sufficient for teachers just to demonstrate

something on the whiteboard with the projector.

It also appeared that 4 out of 5 teachers had a permanent access to the projectors

that they could use at any time during their lessons, while other would have to use

another classroom that does have a projector installed in it, in cases when the usage

of projectors is highly important for their lesson (see figure 11).

Figure 11: Permanent access to a projector

Furthermore, the majority of teachers use the projectors during their teaching

sessions on a regular basis (see figure 12).

55%

29%

16%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Often (3-5 times) Rarely(1-2 times) Never

76%

24%

Yes No

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Figure 12: Frequency of using the projectors during the lessons

The projectors are primarily used by teachers, where the majority (73%) of teachers

stated that the pupils use the projectors either rarely or never (see figure 13).

Figure 13: The usage of projectors by pupils during the lessons

By the “usage of projectors” is meant anything other than just sitting and watching

what the teacher has to show during the lesson. Thus, the usage of projectors in

that context is not exactly usage per se, but rather an interaction with the material

being chosen by the teacher to be projected onto the whiteboard for the students to

try and solve various tasks. This kind of pupil-projector interaction is still primarily

aimed at consumption of knowledge rather than the participation in creation of

knowledge by the student however this interaction help to achieve a certain

engagement of the pupils in the actual learning process, instead of just having the

pupils as receivers of the content that is being shown to them by the teachers

during the lessons. So, from the survey it appeared that the primary usage of

projectors by teachers during the lessons is concentrated on the presentation of the

lesson material and the demonstration of the various videos/tutorials, while some of

the teachers also use the projectors for initiation of the different competitions that

are aimed at increasing the entertaining as well as educational and communication

value of the lessons (see figure 14)

89%

7% 4%

Often Rarely Never

27%

42%

31%

Often Rarely Never

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Figure 14: What the projectors are used for by teachers during their lessons

To the question about the purposes which the projectors are used for, the majority

of teachers stated that the projectors are used mostly for the presentation of the

subject material and demonstration of various videos/tutorials, while some of the

teachers stated that they use the projectors to engage students in learning process

by means of asking individual pupils to solve certain tasks that are projected onto

the whiteboard in front of the class. Furthermore, certain teachers try to initiate

certain intellectual competitions, where the students who’ve been divided into

several groups try to solve the projected tasks gaining points for every correctly

solved task. During the teachers’ committee meetings, the majority of teachers

stated that the usage of projectors and laptops significantly decreases the time

required for coverage of the school material. Some teachers even stated that as

much as two times the amount of material can be covered in just one lecture with

the projector as it would be without one. The teachers also mentioned that with the

projectors the teachers can show any material, allowing for the whole class to see

clearly what is written instead of just sitting through the lecture without the ability

to properly comprehend the taught material.

So, in the survey the teachers were asked to define some of the benefits of using

the ICT (see figure 15).

Figure 15: Benefits of using ICT from the perspective of the teachers

84%

60%

49%

20%

For presentation of the material by theteacher

For demonstration of various practicaltutorials by the teacher

When an individual pupil solves aprojected exercise in front of the class

Pupil group tasks / competitions

79%

31%

83%

69%

38%

62%

22%

More flexibility for material creation

Easier to reach parents

Easier to present material

More material coverage in one lesson

More variant tasks during lessons

Easier to perform administrative tasks(e.g. scheduling activities)

Increased accessibility of material forpupils (via email)

18

From the results of the survey it appeared that the majority of teachers stated that

some of the benefits of using ICT is the actual flexibility in the material creation

for the lesson as well as the more productive material coverage during one lesson,

simply due to the usage of projectors that remove the need to always manually

write explanations on the whiteboard.

Furthermore, to the question about possible issues with the ICT usage, the

teachers pointed out certain aspects (see figure 16).

Figure 16: Issues related to the usage of ICT from the perspective of the teachers

From the results it appeared that the most frequently noted issue was the actual fact

that in order for pupils to use laptops during lessons, the teacher would have to

schedule those laptops, so that there is no collision with other teachers in the same

grade who might want to use the computers at the same time. This issue requires

teachers to think far ahead and structure their educational activities appropriately,

clearly defining when the laptops are to be used. Another problem was with the

technical support that might be required in case if the equipment does not work.

The reception of the technical support tends to take some significant amount of

time, because the staff, who is responsible for technical support, is located in the

gymnasium with which this pro-gymnasium is associated. So, even though both

schools are located in a walking distance from each other, it still takes time to fix

the issue, which can practically destroy the plan for the entire lesson. Some of the

teachers also stated that sometimes the computers and projectors don’t work

properly and that’s where the problem with the technical support becomes even

more influential.

73%

41%

22%

16%

9%

Need to shedule laptops for lessons

Difficulties to adjust educational plan touse ICT

Takes time to receive technical support

Sometimes computers don't workproperly

Issues with signal when starting theprojector

19

The educational apps that are pre-installed on the student-laptops offer different

sort of benefits for the students as well as for the teachers, while the issues with

those apps have to be also accounted for, because the simple presence of the

technology does not make it useful (see figures 16 and 17).

Figure 16: The most frequently noted benefits of using educational apps during the lessons

Figure 17: The common issues with the educational apps

So, from the obtained results it appeared that 27 teachers, or in other words 70% of

all teachers who occasionally require their pupils to use laptops during the lessons,

stated that among the benefits of using those apps is the actual diversification of the

lesson contents, where the pupils can be involved in various types of activities

besides the traditional technically-unrelated ones. While, at the same time, almost

half of those laptop-using teachers stated that the available apps lack certain

variation in the exercises that they offer, meaning that after the completion of those

exercises the apps would not offer any particular educational value the next time.

This is especially problematic since many teachers also stated that there are not

33%

14%24%

29%

Benefits of apps

Diversification of thelesson contents

Loads pressure off theteachers

Engagement of students

Collaborative problem-solving

12%

38%33%

17%

Issues with apps

Occasionally certain apps"freeze"

Small variation ofexercises provided byapps

Small number of availableapplications

Some apps have low user-friendliness

20

such a large number of available applications that can be used during certain

lessons. However, in general, 37% of laptop-using teachers thought that the apps

are useful also in a sense that they decrease the amount of pressure the teachers

have when performing their teaching sessions, especially considering the fact that

many teachers have lessons one after the other without particular breaks, which

might be highly tiresome and decrease the quality of the teacher’s performance and

thereby negatively impact the educational outcomes. There were some teachers

who said that certain applications “freeze” occasionally which prevents certain

pupils from doing their exercises.

In general, considering that the classes in each grade have a movable sets of

laptops, the teachers quite often complained about the fact that in order for their

students to use laptops they always need to schedule the time when they need to

use them, in order to avoid collisions with other classes in the same grade who

need to use them as well. This is issue is planned to be dealt with in the near future

by purchasing more laptops, which would definitely give the teachers more

freedom when it comes to structuring their lesson activities.

2.2. Results of the parents’ survey

The survey of the parents was done in order to explore the usage of various ICT

tools by pupils outside of school. The results of the parents-survey did not

influence the structure of ICT proposals that were later created, so they were used

simply to get an insight about the technical background of the pupils. Besides,

considering that the pupils are still children, the parents are the ones that were

chosen to be asked about the technical skills of their children, rather than giving the

questionnaires directly to those children. The questionnaires were completely

anonymous, so the parents could answer the questions sincerely, instead of

answering the questions in a way that would make them look good on paper, but

the actual situation is far from reality.

So, the ICT proposals, that are going to be described later in this research study,

were structured based purely on the results of the teachers-survey. For the

interpretation of the results only the fully answered questionnaires were considered

and we managed to collect answers from 447 respondents, while in total in school

there are more than 500 pupils, where one parent represented 1 pupil on the

teachers-parents meeting during which the questionnaires were distributed. So

basically we managed to collect the results about the ICT background of the

majority of pupils.

The first thing the parents were asked to specify was whether they had an access

to a computer and Internet at home. It appeared that the majority of the respondents

confirmed that they did have access to both of those things (see figure 18).

21

Figure 18: Possession of a computer and Internet connectivity at home.

The noted overwhelming presence of computer equipment and Internet

connectivity in households of a majority of families might be significantly differ in

the schools that are located in the regions outside of Moscow or larger cities in

general.

Furthermore, from those parents who claimed to have computers and Internet

connectivity at home it appeared that the majority of their children use the

technology at home (see figure 19).

Figure 19: Proportion of parents whose children use computers at home.

The parents were then asked to mark the activities that the children usually do on

their computers (see figure 20). Out of those who had computers at their

household, the majority (89%) stated that their children used them mostly for

games. At the same time many parents also stated that the computers tend to be

used by children also for doing their homework, while some of them also even use

social networks for communication with their friends and classmates.

96%

4%

Yes No

88%

12%

Yes

No

22

Figure 20: The primary purposes of using computers by children at home.

The usage of computers by children might expose them to potentially harmful

information, thus it could be useful for parents to monitor the ways in which their

children use the computers and what information they access on the internet. From

the survey it appeared that every 8 out of 10 parents, whose children use computers

at home, stated that they keep an eye on the things their children do on the

computers, while 3% of such parents don’t monitor children’s activities and rely on

their own judgement to do the right thing (see figure 21).

Figure 21: Proportion of parents who monitor the activities their child (ren) perform on the

computer

Furthermore, the majority of all surveyed parents stated that the security of their

children on the Internet concerns them, namely the concerns are raised by the

harmful information that the children can be exposed to. There were also some of

the parents who raised their concerns but still relied on their children to not access

14%

74%

37%

89%

21%

All of the above

To do homework (search for info)

Search for information for personaldevelopment

For games

For communication on social networks

83%

3%14%

Yes

No

I (we) try, but sometimescan't. Thus, rarely.

23

information or do some undesirable activities (e.g. talking to strangers) (see figure

22)

Figure 22: Proportion of parents who worry about their child’s safety on the Internet

The access to potentially harmful information is indeed one of the greatest threats

that comes together the openness offered by the internet, especially when talking

about children using the Internet. Thus, outside of school where teachers can not

monitor the activities of their pupils, it’s up to the parents to make sure that their

children are not harmed by the technology.

However, besides the concerns related to the harmful effects of technology, the

majority of all parents stated that they do support the usage of technology by their

children as part of education in school (see figure 23)

Figure 23: Proportion of parents who support the usage of technology by their children in

school

84%

4% 12%

Yes

No

Worried, but I trust mykid to do the right things

87%

4% 9%

Yes

No

I have my doubts

24

When it comes to usage of computers in school, the role of the teachers is crucial

for keeping that usage strictly education-oriented and making sure that the

technology is not misused.

Furthermore, it was noted that majority of parents stated that their chid(ren) first

used the computer at the age of 3 to 4, while there were even some who stated that

the computer was used as early as at the age of 1 or 2 (see figure 24).

Figure 24: Proportion of parents who specified the age of their child’s first interaction with

the computer

When it comes to the assessment of the computer skills of the parents, it appeared

that the majority of the surveyed parents claimed that they had sufficiently good

computer skills that allow to use computer and the Internet without any hindrances,

while it was also noted that there were no parents who would confess having no

computer skills at all, even though some of them don’t have computers at home,

but perhaps they use it at work or elsewhere (see figure 25).

Figure 25: Proportion of parents who specified the age of their child’s first interaction with

the computer

30%

64%

6%

1-2 years 3-4 years 5-6 years

1-2 years 3-4 years 5-6 years

24%

69%

6%0%

Advanced skills Good Skills - use acomputer and

Internet withouthindrances

Poor skills I have no computerskills

25

To the question about parents involvement in helping their child(ren) with the

educational usage of computers at home such as for completion of the homework,

every 6 out of 10 of all surveyed parents stated that they do help with those kind of

things, while every 3rd parent at least tried to help but sometimes they didn’t have

enough time to fully engage in their child’s learning process (see figure 26). The

compensation for the lack of time of the certain parents is achieved by means of

providing the pupils with the possibility to stay after lessons and do their

homework at school with the assistance of the teacher.

Figure 26: Proportion of parents who assist their child(ren) with educational usage of

computers at home

Furthermore, the majority of the surveyed parents stated that the teacher

occasionally sends various subject material and additional links to the material to

the parents’ email, so that the children can do certain educational tasks at home in

order to improve pupils’ performance (see figure 27).

Figure 27: Frequency with which the teachers send various school material to the parents’

email.

61%

7%

32%Yes

No

I (we) try, but don'talways have enough time

31%

59%

6% 4%

Regularly Occasionally Rarely Never

26

In order for parents to be able to keep track of their child’s progress in school, the

teachers are required to regularly submit progress reports to the parents’ email

addresses. The reports tend to include the grades and general performance

evaluation of the pupils. From the survey of the parents it appeared that the

majority of parents agreed with the statement that teachers regularly submit reports

to them (see figure 28).

Figure 28: Proportion of parents who agree that the teachers regularly submit progress

reports to them.

3. ICT proposals

As it was mentioned previously, the main goal of the ICT proposals, which were

presented to the teachers during the teachers’ committee meetings, was the

enhancement of the teaching processes without needing to spend any amount of

financial resources to be implemented. All of the proposals were simply presented

and explained to the teachers during several meetings and if the teachers would

find the proposed ICT solutions interesting, they simply had to contact me for

additional information or assistance in getting things working. So, in other words,

the proposals were not imposed, but rather the usage of the solutions was

completely voluntary.

3.1. The 1st proposed ICT solution

Considering that from the survey it appeared that the many teachers stated that the

available educational applications were somewhat repetitive, meaning that they are

not exactly reusable, because once the tasks are completed it would simply be of no

interest and would not present the same educational value for the pupils on the next

learning session, especially considering the fact that most of the apps have not a

wide variety of tasks and thus it does not take long to finish all of them. From the

discussion with the teachers it also appeared that pupils tend to lose enthusiasm

when dealing with those apps too frequently. This particular problem raises certain

financial requirements when it comes to purchasing other applications that would in

its turn have to be approved by the school board and this might take quite some

53%39%

8%

0%

Fully Agree

Agree

Disagree

Fully Disagree

27

time and really good reasoning from the teachers’ side when it comes to justifying

the need for new apps. Alternatively, the teacher could purchase some educational

apps, but this would be absolutely unacceptable. Furthermore, as it was stated by

the teachers, when some of the applications were acquired, the teachers’ opinions

were not particularly accounted for, so the choice was made for them on a higher

level without going into details of the context of the classes and perhaps

disregarding the exploration of what each applications actually offers.

A way to enhance the educational process without the financial investments into

additional educational software was proposed at this stage. The prerequisite for the

accomplishment of this task is the presence of the Internet connectivity to each

laptop in the class in order to access the online-based applications. This

prerequisite was satisfied due to the fact that there is a Wi-Fi connection in the

school.

The idea was first brought up at the teachers’ committee meeting and the teachers

stated that it would be a good idea to run this in a pilot phase first during 1-2

month. If the engagement of the students would be noted to be increase, then it

would perhaps be used by other teachers as well.

The proposed online app-builder is called LearningApps.org1(see figure 29) and

it’s basically a web application that provides an environment for the creation of

educational applications. There are a variety of different app-builders, but not so

many of them have an interface that would be translated to Russian language. The

proposed app-builder comes in several languages, including Russian language, so it

makes it more convenient for the teachers to actually navigate in the settings and

make the app to fit the needs of a specific subject more accurately and efficiently in

terms of time-consumption required for creation of the app.

Figure 29: Users can choose various type of exercises to create

1 http://learningapps.org/, (Last accessed: 01.01.2015)

28

So, basically the proposed app-builder allows teachers to choose the already

existing apps that were created by others as well as it provides a possibility to

create their own apps. In case if the apps are chosen from the list of the already

created ones, then the teachers would have to first choose what specific apps they

would like to use by pupils during their lesson instead of blindly choosing whatever

app might not be such a good idea, because some of them might lack any sort of

educational value and would simply be just a waste of lesson time. This might seem

challenging considering a somewhat large number of available apps, but the

filtering options make it easier to decrease the scope of the search. There are

hundreds of apps available for usage and some of the apps that were created by

other users can be seen in the figures 30 and 31.

Figure 30: The exercise for association of pronunciations of objects with their

corresponding images

Figure 31: The exercise for categorization of the words/phrases by their tense.

29

This ICT proposal allows:

Implementation and usage of the custom made educational web apps.

Usage of the already created educational web apps

Possibility to make the contents of the lessons more variant without the

need to invest any financial resources

A good chance for pupils to work with the internet resource

The idea about using an online app-builder was received by me when I talked to a

teacher from another school about possible tips which could help to introduce

certain variation into the learning activities. As it was mentioned previously, from

the discussions with teachers it appeared that pupils often lose motivation when it

comes to using similar games that were purchased on CDs by the school. So, by

having this free app-creator it is possible to introduce the needed amount of

variation and motivate the children during the lessons. This variation is to be done

by switching between games. During some lessons the pupils would use the

purchased games, while on other lessons they would use the apps provided by the

aforementioned app-builder.

So, this idea not only allows children to have more varying lesson contents but it

also provides the possibility for teachers to implement their own games which

increases the qualification of the teachers and opens up new perspectives on using

the internet resources.

3.2. The 2nd proposed ICT solution

As it was mentioned previously the projectors are installed in each classroom,

however, as it was noted from the survey of the teachers, those projectors are

primarily used mainly by the teachers. This basically means that the children are

the receivers/observers of the technology rather than the participators in using it.

Thus, the idea about using the projectors by the children during the lessons was

suggested to me by the teachers at two other primary schools. They stated that the

teachers tend to perform small pupil-led presentations of the topics that those

pupils found to be interesting. It was stated that this way the pupils develop their

presentation and technical skills, because the material would first have to be found

and the presentation would need to be created by using appropriate tools, after

which the pupils would have to present the information to class by using a

projector. As the teachers at those two schools stated, the usage of projectors for

project work allows children from earlier ages to overcome their shyness and be

able to interact with the audience, which is especially important to make the

learning process easier in later grades.This kind of presentations could be done

both individually as well as in groups of two, which is especially convenient since

the pupils sit in pairs.

So, the second proposal was about establishment of a more active involvement of

the pupils in the usage of available ICT tools. Namely, a more active participation

in the projector usage would allow to develop pupils’ social, presentation and

research skills, where they would be asked to choose a topic of interest(depending

on the subject), perform a small "research", construct a presentation and then

present it in front of the class using that projector. The teachers would have to

30

organize this kind of project work and make it structured, considering the fact that

in order to perform a research and make a presentation, the pupils would need to

have access to laptops and for that purpose the schedule of project activities would

need to be aligned with the schedule of usage of laptops. Furthermore, it’s

important to limit the scope of each project, because it should not negatively

influence other educational activities by taking too much time from the general

educational plan. It’s also important for teachers to actually choose the subject that

might include this project work.

This proposal was presented to the teachers at the committee meeting, where the

general idea was explained to the teachers. The idea was generalized, because the

particular details of the project work would vary from one teacher to the other

based on their teaching technique and their planned educational activities.

This ICT proposal allows:

More active participation of pupils in the ICT utilization

Development of social and research skills of the pupils

3.3. The 3rd proposal – Google Drive

One of the first things that was noticed when the field study first began was that

there was no e-Learning platform that could be used for communication and

distribution of the school material, increasing the accessibility of the education

outside of school. Now, the teachers occasionally send the material or links to it via

email to the pupils’ parents. This kind of material distribution was stated by the

teachers to be somewhat complex in a way that if a pupil was unable to come to

school, the teacher would have to assemble the material and send it to that

particular pupil (his parents). The problem with the workload when it comes to

sending the material to the students was stated to be stressful for teachers who after

their lessons instead of preparing the material for the next school day they had to

assemble everything that is needed for the absent pupil to know for the upcoming

days. So, instead of gathering material to be send, it would be useful to always

have all of the necessary material accessible at all time. This way, instead of asking

the teacher to send the material, it could be accessed from the class folder on the

cloud storage such as Google Drive. Basically, in this case the Google Drive would

be used instead of e-Learning platform. This, however, would require the teachers

to frequently update the storage in order to keep the material up-to-date with the

actual school progression.

The substitution of an e-Learning by means of cloud storage, which would serve

as a place where teachers would upload their material for each subject that they

teach, could significantly decrease the workload of the teachers by removing the

need to urgently assemble all of the material in order to reply to each student

requests.

Besides, the amount of free storage offered by Google Drive would be quite

sufficient for teachers to store all of the necessary material. Each of the teachers

who would want to try the usage of cloud storage would need to use Google

account. The accessibility of the class directory in the cloud storage would need to

be set to public and the links to that directory would be sent to the pupils’ parents

31

via email. Furthermore, considering that many teachers teach many subjects, all of

the material would have to be well-organized, in order to make the accessibility of

the material understandable. This can be done by creating a hierarchy of

directories, where each folder would correspond to each specific subject, which in

its turn would contain subfolders for different activities (see figure 32).

Figure 32: An example of the cloud storage organization of a “multifunctional” teacher,

where each subject has a separate folder.

So, those teachers, who were willing to use the proposed cloud storage for material

distribution, had to either personally register a Google account and create the

necessary storage, or they could ask me for help with setting up all of those things.

Several teachers actually initiated their cloud storage themselves, while several

other teachers asked me to do that and then to demonstrate it to them how exactly

the storage can be used.

Furthermore, those who are given the link to the directory would only be able to

view its contents without being able to modify them, because we would not want

someone other than the teacher to remove anything from the directory and for that

purpose we had to specify that other users have only the read-only privilege.

This ICT proposal allows:

Increased accessibility of the lesson material by means of financially-

independent cloud storage

More manageable outreach of the education, when compared to email-

based material distribution

4. The results of the final survey

The final survey was performed in order to determine the acceptance rate of the

proposed ICT solutions.

4.1. Acceptance of the online app-builder

The proportion of teachers who used the proposed online-based applications during

their teaching sessions was determined by conducting a small survey among the

teachers at the end of the field study, where the results of the survey represented

only the teachers who lead classes (multifunctional teachers) and the English

32

teachers, while other teachers who deal with design and other lessons have either

very specific software or don’t require their pupils to use laptops during their

lessons at all. So, in case of the app-builder usage, the survey included 25 teachers.

From the results of the survey it appeared that the majority (72%) of teachers

have actually tried using the online app-builder (see figure 33).

Figure 33: A proportion of teachers who have tried using the proposed app-builder.

What’s interesting was that in the beginning, when the proposal was first presented,

only very few of the teachers confirmed that they would give the proposed app-

builder a try; however with time the number of teachers who were willing to try the

app-builder increased in a “snowball” manner, where the teachers would spread the

word about this app through informal communication with other teachers.

Furthermore, it also appeared that out of those who have tried using the proposed

app-builder the majority have tried at least to some extent using the apps during the

lessons. Namely, around 66% of the teachers who used the app-builder have stated

that they used apps at most couple of times a week during the lessons since the

proposal was made, while some of the teachers used the apps on a more regular

basis (more than 3 times each week). It also appeared that even though the teachers

have tried using the app-builder, there were some of them who did not actually use

the apps offered by it (see figure 34).

Figure 34: A proportion of teachers who have tried using the apps during the lessons

72%

28%

Yes

No

11%

66%

6%

17%Regularly (3> times aweek)

A few (1-2) times eachweek

Very rarely

Never

33

Furthermore, out of those teachers who have used the apps during the lessons, it

also appeared that even though the majority used the apps that were already created

by others, some of the teachers even tried to create their own apps and use it during

their lessons (see figure 35).

Figure 35: A proportion of teachers who have tried to create their own apps and use them

during the lessons

The majority of the teachers who used the proposed app-builder stated that they

would continue using it in the future (see figure 36).

Figure 36: A proportion of teachers who have tried using the app-builder and who plan on

using it in the future as well

In general, the introduction of this game were positively accepted by the teachers

because as it was noted from the survey with open-ended questions, it served as an

encouragement for children to develop not only logical but also social skills. The

results of the survey can be seen in the figure 37 where the essence of the responses

were extracted and displayed by their frequency of appearance in the teachers’

responses.

27%

73%

Yes

No

56%32%

12%

Certainly

Have not decided yet

No

34

Figure 37: Opinions about the usage of the proposed app-builder categorized by frequency

of being mentioned by the teachers who used the app builder

Furthermore, based on the opinions of the teachers who tried the app-builder it

appeared that the majority of them stated that the proposed app-builder offers a lot

of available apps to choose from, however at the same time many of the teachers

also emphasized the fact that it takes time to really go through the apps and find

something that has the needed educational value.

In general, the proposed app-builder is in no way the only or the best app-builder

there is on the Internet; however it is one of the examples of a somewhat flexible

and free educationally-oriented app builder.

Furthermore, from the discussion with the teachers it was noted that the teachers

who used the online-applications did not particularly explain it to the children

during the lessons how each task in those online-applications should be carried out,

because, as they stated, this way the children would learn themselves to find the

logic behind the game. Even though, the children could ask the teachers in case if

something was still unclear, it was noted that they rather communicate with each

other trying to understand what the game is about and what to do in it. This

particular approach also tends to be used when any of the practical exercises using

the computers are performed.

4.2. Acceptance of the proposed Projector usage by pupils

The idea of a greater involvement of pupils in the projector usage with the aim of

increasing the participation in the knowledge production was proposed to the

teachers on the committee meeting. At first it was somewhat questionable whether

the pupils in the 1st and perhaps even 2nd grades should be included in this proposal,

however some of the teachers stated that it should not be any problem because

there is no reason to think that they would not be capable of carrying out such task,

however the teachers would of course need to adjust the requirements for such kind

of task based on the grade-level. On the other hand, in this proposal, the pupils

would need to have access to the laptops and for that purpose, just like in the

33%

89%

40%

44%

22%

39%

78%

User-friendly

Lots of available apps

Can help to give certain variation to thelectures

Some apps initiate collaborative thingamong pupils

Possibility to adjust the already existingapps to fit your needs

Many apps can help to develop logicalthinking

Takes time to find really useful apps

35

previous proposal we first had to limit the scope of the proposal to the teachers

whose pupils have access to the laptops during the lessons or in other words 38

teachers. However, unlike the previous proposal, this proposal would cover all

lessons that include the usage of laptops, regardless of whether they use some very

specific design software and what not. Furthermore, it was also essential for

teachers to have access to the projectors. From the survey that was performed as

part of the pre-study at appeared that 34 teachers had access to the projectors

whenever they needed.

So, the exploration of the acceptance of the proposed projector-based project

work was done by first defining how many teachers actually tried asking pupils to

perform such activities. It appeared from the final survey that 47% out of those

teachers who have access to a projector and whose lessons include the usage of

laptops by pupils have actually tried conducting such activities during their

lessons(see figure 38).

Figure 38: Proportion of teachers who initiated activities that included the usage of

projectors by pupils

It could also be noted that, even though some of the teachers radically stated that

they did not apply the proposed idea, some of the teachers have not yet decided

whether they will apply it or not.

Furthermore, out of those who applied the proposed idea, every 7 out of 10

teachers stated that they had used that kind of activities at least 1 or 2 times a

month for the past 2 month (a little less than 2 month to be more precise) since the

time the proposal was made; however it also appeared that 18% or in other words 3

teachers said that they tried to implement the idea once and have not done it again

(see figure 39).

47%

41%

12%

Yes

No

Not yet, but might try itlater

36

Figure 39: The number of times the teachers initiated activities that included the usage of

projectors by pupils

Furthermore, around 44% of the teachers who used the proposed activities during

their lessons stated that they would continue using them occasionally in order to

make the learning sessions more versatile (see figure 40).

Figure 40: The proportion of teachers plan to continue using the proposed activities.

Furthermore, around 44% of the teachers who used the proposed activities during

their lessons stated that they would continue using them occasionally in order to

make the learning sessions more versatile.

It was also important to define the benefits and the downsides of the proposed

projector-based activity. So, the teachers, who used the proposed project activities,

were offered to specify some of the benefits of using asking pupils to perform the

research and then present it in front of the class by using a projector. It appeared

that many teachers have stated that that kind of activity triggered an active

13%

69%

18%

Regularly (2> a month)

Occasionally (1-2 times amonth)

Tried once and did not tryit again

44%

37%

19%

Yes

Have not decided yet

No

37

engagement of the pupils in the actual collaborative project work when searching

for material and creating the actual presentation as well as doing the presentation in

front of the class (see figure 41).

Figure 41: The most frequently mentioned benefits of conducting the proposed activities.

Some of the teachers also stated that besides more active usage of the available ICT

tools, certain pupils became more confident when it comes to performing the

presentations, but as they stated it highly dependent on the fact that the

presentations were performed in pairs which makes it less stressful for each of the

presenting individuals.

It appeared that there were many issues when it comes to using the proposed

project activities, some of which included the fact that in order to fit the proposed

project activities into the educational plan other educational activities had to be

shifted in that plan which makes it necessary for teachers to actually re-plan them

which might be somewhat complex (see figure 42).

Figure 42: The most frequently mentioned issues when conducting the proposed activities.

Furthermore, many teachers have also stated that besides the increased workload

related to the readjustment of the educational plan, the project activities required

19%

81%

44%

56%

Some pupils became less shy in front ofthe class

Pupils engaged in active collaborationduring project work

More active usage of laptops andInternet resources

Pupils learn to express themselves in amore structured way

38%

75%

56%

19%

Some pupils were not so enthusiasticabout the idea

Some of the other activities had to beshifted

Increased workload for teachers to assisteveryone

Some pupils were suspected to be helpedto extensively by their parents

38

teachers to assist every group in the class with their guidance which might be

somewhat challenging considering that on average there would be 14 groups of two

pupils. It was also noted, that some of the teachers also suspected that the parents

of certain pupils helped their children with the project work which basically

significantly decreased the educational value of the entire activity. As the teachers

stated, this suspicion was based on the fact that the quality of the work of some of

the pupils was somewhat disproportional to the actual capabilities of the children of

that age.

In general, this proposal had some difficulties with the acceptance among

teachers and pupils, however the idea of using this type of activity was received

from the consultations with the teachers at two other schools, who stated that in

their schools the teachers usually effectively use the aforementioned proposals and

they are producing a positive effect on the educational outcomes for the pupils. So,

perhaps this proposal needs more time to be accepted both by teachers and

students, but in general it’s a good example of the situation where even though

certain ICT solution works well in one case it might not be necessarily just as

effective in other case.

4.3. The acceptance of the cloud-based storage as a

substitution to an e-Learning platform

The last ICT proposal was about the introduction of the cloud-based storage that

would increase the accessibility of the school material outside of school. In this

case Google Drive2 was used by “multifunctional” teachers to store the material for

various subjects and the link to the directory was distributed to the parents who in

their turn would be able to access the material and see what kind of activities are to

be performed by their kids, without the need to contact the teacher in order to

receive the information. The proposal was primarily oriented towards teachers who

tend to use and distribute lots of digital material. From the discussion with teachers

it appeared that the teachers who actively distribute digital material include the

“multifunctional” teachers who teach several subjects for a specific class and the

English teachers, who usually send different reading material and exercises to the

parents’ email as well. So, in total the target group of this proposal included 25

teachers, while other teachers could perhaps also find it useful to use this kind of

cloud storage in case if there is a need to establish a widely accessible way to

distribute subject material.

So, as it appeared from the survey that out of 25 teachers (class leading + English

teachers), the majority (68%) has tried using the proposed idea of cloud storage-

based material distribution. What’s interesting is that at the beginning there were

only just a few teachers who found this idea to be of interest; however as the time

passed by the proportion of teachers who accepted the proposal increased

significantly (see figure 43) .

2 https://www.google.com/drive/, (Last accessed: 03.01.2015)

39

Figure 43: The proportion of teachers who used cloud-storage for material distribution

Furthermore, it’s highly important to keep the stored data up to data, thus it’s one

of the teachers’ essential tasks to actually remember to always update the material

in the cloud storage in order to keep it accurate and coherent with the material that

was presented during the lessons. So, from the survey it was noted that the majority

of teachers who used the cloud storage stated that they tend to upload new material

after its presentation during the lesson or after some educationally valuable

information is found on the Internet, while the rest of those teachers update the

material at least 3 or 4 times a month (see figure 44).

Figure 44: The frequency with which the teachers update/add the material to the cloud

storage

It was good to see that the teachers address the usage of the cloud storage seriously

and that they dedicate time to actually keep it up-to-date with the new material.

68%

20%

12%

Yes

No, but planning to

No

88%

12%

0% 0%

Regularly (whenever newmaterial ispresented/found)

Occasionally (at least 3-4times a month)

Rarely

Never

40

Out of those who used the proposed cloud storage, many teachers were frequently

stating that some of the benefits of using the storage was that it was easy to use and

that it decreased the amount of time it takes to distribute the material, while

previously the material would need to be assembled and send to the parents of the

pupils via email (see figure 45). Furthermore, some teachers also confirmed that

the cloud storage does increase the accessibility of the material without worrying

that some of the parents’ emails were missed when the submission was done.

Figure 45: The frequency of occurrence of the opinions about cloud storage for material

distribution

From the results above it appeared that the teachers who tried using the storage did

not state any issues with using the proposed solution, meaning that it might indeed

serve as a temporary replacement of the e-Learning platform, which was promised

to be integrated in the near future.

Furthermore, the majority of teachers who used the proposed cloud storage for

material distribution stated that they would continue using it (see figure 46).

Figure 46: The proportion of teachers who plan to continue using the proposed cloud-

storage for material distribution

41%

82%

65%

Increased accessibility of the material

Easy to use

Saves time to make the materialaccessible (no need to email)

82%

18%

0%

Certainly

Have not decided yet

No

41

In general, this solution have the potential to serve as a good means for increasing

the efficiency of the teaching and learning processes by enabling an easily

maintainable and accessible material storage.

5. Discussion

In this section, the general overview of the field study was provided, where some

of the aspects of the study were described, including those related to the things that

I learned during my study and the things that I would suggest others who might be

willing to perform a similar study in the similar context.

5.1. What was supposed to happen and what actually

happened?

In general, the field study was supposed to be structured in the way where the

pre-study of the context would be first performed and then ICT proposals were

supposed to be created based on the results of the pre-study with the aim of

improvement of the educational processes in that school. The plan was pretty

straightforward and understandable.

The main objective was to actually perform all those activities and fit within the

time frame given for completion of the field study. The extra stress was given by

the fact that I encountered some issues with my placement for the field study,

which resulted in me having to look for another placement. I will not give into the

details of that somewhat unrelated process, because all that did not have to do with

my field study progression but rather it was just an issue with finding the

placement, which anyhow was successfully solved through communication and

finding a consensus to the problem. However, the search for a new placement

before returning to the old one really did help me to make contacts with other

schools and the teachers at those schools. This particular fact was important

because some of the teachers that I had met later agreed to consult me during my

field study, allowing me to serve as a so called mediator between the studied school

and other two schools. This was to a certain extent an exchange of experience

between schools, even though it was a one-sided one, because the ideas were

flowing only in one way. The consultations were not like step-by-step guidelines

but rather they were simple suggestions for improvement of the educational

processes based on the experience of performing similar techniques in the schools

where the two teachers worked. So, those suggestions served as starting points for

me to consider when creating the ICT proposals. What was really important was to

actually communicate closely with the teaching staff because they were the ones

who would implement the proposals and for that purpose their opinions were

highly valuable for making the actual proposals educationally accurate and non-

damaging. So, at the initial stages of the field study it might have seemed that the

process of creation of ICT proposals would be simple, but in reality there were a lot

of factors which had to be considered and which resulted in more time required for

the actual proposals to start being used. So, in order to make the proposal on the

ICT utilization more accurate and increase the chances of it being accepted by the

target group it’s important to keep the design and implementation process gradual

42

with a great amount of attention to the feedback from that target group, which was

primarily teachers’ in this case.

The pre-study was done by means of the questionnaires that were distributed to

the teachers during the teachers’ committee meeting and to the parents during the

teachers-parents meeting. In case of parents’ survey, the questionnaires were

printed and handed out to the parents so they could fill them out during the

meeting. The questionnaires had to be kept short because it’s unlikely that someone

would want to sit and answer a whole lot of different questions in the evening after

the workday (teachers-parents meetings are usually held in the evening).

The first proposal was made based on the idea of using Internet resources for

creation of educational exercises. Before the presentation of the proposal I had to

get acquainted with the functionality of the chosen app-builder and then I

demonstrated to the teachers during the meeting the things that can be done with

that app-builder. After the presentation, the majority of teachers simply just asked

me to give them information about the proposed app-builder so that they could take

a look at it during their free time. It was interesting that many teachers found the

idea to be interesting and they personally wanted to see what they can use it for

during their lessons. So, there was no extensive amount of questioning the

proposed solution. In general, the idea about using Internet resources for creation

of educational exercises was received from one of the consulting teachers who

have tried different online application-builders in her teaching practice, which she

thought proved to successfully integrate a certain amount of versatility into the

educational plan. This idea was further explored by me by looking through various

online discussion forums of different teachers and several app-builders were found,

however many of them were actually non-free, meaning that in order to use them

the users would need to purchase a subscription. This particular fact would serve as

a hindrance in the acceptance of the proposal among teachers in the studied school

and for that purpose I had to find a financially-independent solution, which resulted

in the app-builder that was described in this study. In general, this proposal was

widely accepted by many teachers after it was presented and it’s a positive sign in

the sustainability of the integration of the proposed concept, where the teachers

would not only continue using this app-builder, that allows choosing from the list

of available apps and create custom-made apps, but those teachers would be able to

find some similar web-applications that would allow to create different kinds of

educational exercises. So, this proposal was also aimed at raising awareness about

the possibility to avoid financial limitations when it comes to diversification of the

educational processes by means of using various Internet-resources for creation of

new activities.

The second proposal was based on the concept of pupils being participants in the

knowledge production by using Internet resources and available ICT equipment for

performing a small scale research and then presenting it in front of the class by

using a projector. Initially the idea was that the pupils would do individual

presentations, meaning that each pupil would choose a topic they find interesting

and then they would present it. However, the teachers during the teachers’

committee meeting stated that if the pupils were to work individually they would

feel more stress and perhaps more shy to perform presentations in front of the

entire class. The teachers also emphasized the fact that if the pupils would work in

pairs (just as they sit in class) then they would be able to engage in a more

43

collaborative thinking when doing the research. Besides, considering the limited

number of laptops, the idea of working in pairs is not only beneficial for the pupils

but also it is more feasible from the technical standpoint. Furthermore, instead of

having 28-30 different topics for each pupil, there would only be 14 topics, which

would make it easier for teachers to assist each group of students and the time

required for the presentations would be significantly shorter and the general

feasibility of the research would be more plausible. After almost 2 month, the final

survey discovered that many teachers have tried to initiate this kind of project

activities and many have stated that they would continue performing such activities

since, as they said during the meeting, the usage of projectors does increase the

involvement of pupils in the ICT utilization. Namely, the pupils more actively use

Internet resources, laptops, presentation software and the actual projectors as well

as the pupils, besides learning how to express ideas in the structured way; they also

improve their presentation and research skills. This was actually a goal of this

proposal and it was good to know that many of the teachers agree with those

aspects. However, at the same time, many of the teachers also stated that the

integration of that kind of activities increase their workload due to the fact that they

had to adjust the activity plan and assist many groups of pupils (13-15) with their

project work. Regardless of that nearly a half of those who tried those activities are

planning on doing it in the future as well, while there are also many teachers who

still have not decided whether they will continue using it. In general, I think even

though the progression of this proposal was somewhat uneven and regardless of the

fact that the number of teachers who were willing to try those activities as part of

their teaching practice was somewhat smaller than I initially planned it to be, it was

still enlightening to see that many of the teachers found this to be a good idea and

they basically confirmed the benefits of that proposal which I had in mind when the

proposal was first made.

The last proposal was actually the first one that came to mind when I first started

doing the pre-study of the school context. Due to the fact that the school still did

not have an e-Learning platform and the teachers had to occasionally submit

certain material via email, I thought that it must be pretty time-consuming and

inefficient in general to assemble all of the material and compose emails for

submission every time. Those thoughts were confirmed by the teachers during the

informal discussions with them, where it was simply asked whether the teachers

liked the way in which the material was being distributed for wider access outside

of school and many of those teachers stated that it is indeed somewhat difficult to

manage doing that on a frequent basis. Thus, the cloud storage provided by Google

Drive was proposed for teachers to use, where they would simply create a directory

for their class and store all of the relevant subject material there, while the link to

the directory would be send to the parents via email. So, instead of submitting

some material to all parents, the teachers would simply copy the files to the cloud-

storage without the need for any other manipulations and the pupils’ parents would

simply go to the storage and access any material they want. Besides, it helps to

maintain a proper structure of the material that the pupils need to access from

home, because when files were submitted via email, some of them might be lost.

So, after the presentation of the proposal, some of the teachers asked some

questions about how to get started with this kind of service and how to create the

publicly accessible directory, and that was pretty much it for the questions.

44

However, several of those teachers who wanted to use give the proposed cloud-

storage a try, asked me to personally get things started and basically I had to

explain individually how things work and how to allow those who have a link to

the specific directory to view the contents without having the ability to perform any

unauthorized modifications of the contents. Besides, it was also good to know that

the teachers had made a back-up of all of the material that they stored in the cloud

storage, so that if something would happen to the uploaded files then the material

would not be lost.

Regardless of the somewhat late start, the field study was progressing in a pretty

straightforward way without any particular hindrances, however it was somewhat

challenging to get started with the field study, because it required time to get

acquainted with the teachers to basically increase my credibility and it also

required some time to construct and perform surveys of the teachers and especially

parents, because interpretation of the results included going through more than 400

individual questionnaire forms and entering the data into the computer for future

visualization. This was pretty tedious and I even though that it was a bad idea to do

that kind of survey among parents considering the time constraints, but it was still

interesting to see the results so the survey had to be completed. So, regardless of

the early age that the children stared using the technology at home, many parents

still worry about exposure of children to potentially harmful information on the

Internet, but they still support the usage of technology by their kids in school.

Besides, during the teachers’ parents meeting the parents were informed that I will

perform that kind of field study and it was basically not such a big deal since

nobody resisted my presence there.

In general, the results of the surveys determined that the proposals were tried by

a significant number of teachers and many of those teachers are planning on using

it in the future, so I think the field study pretty productive and its process was going

according to plan even though sometimes the amount of things to be done was

somewhat overwhelming but still manageable and within control. What’s really

important is to actually plan things carefully, namely it’s crucial to schedule your

activities in a realistic way without taking on too many tasks at once but still

maintaining the sufficient workload in order to complete all of the activities on

time. In my case, I managed to complete everything I planned to do.

5.2. The achievement of the set goals and personal

achievement

The main goal of this field study was to get a comprehensive insight into how the

ICT is used in the chosen primary school and based on the observed results propose

financially-independent ICT solutions, that would enhance the “functionality” of

the teachers. According to the results of the final survey and after discussions with

teachers, it can be indeed confirmed that the integration was mostly successful. The

success was noted in terms of the acceptance rate of the proposed solutions among

teachers. This was especially surprising because from the first impression that I

received when the solutions were first presented not many teachers were somewhat

not so enthusiastic about the ideas. In case of the app-builder and the cloud storage,

even though the majority of teachers agreed to try them, there were still many

teachers who expressed their lack of interest in the proposed solutions and thus I

45

assumed that it would not go so well with the general acceptance of the proposals.

However, the final survey showed the opposite. Namely, it could be seen that a

quite significant number of teachers stated that they found the proposed solutions

interesting and beneficial and many of them would continue using them in the

future. That particular fact was perhaps the main achievement of the entire field

study, because it did not only show that it takes time to embrace the proposed

technology by the target group, but it also demonstrated the importance of

communicating the technology to those who will use it. That communication does

not necessarily involve the one who made the proposal, but it is perhaps even more

influential for the increase in acceptance of the technology that those who actually

tried using the technology would spread the word about its beneficial effect. So,

basically when someone, who is part of the context, finds the technology to be

useful, then the chances of increasing the proportion of those who will use it might

increase significantly.

The acceptance of the cloud storage as a temporary replacement to an e-Learning

platform and the app-builder for diversification of the lesson contents were the two

core ICT proposals of this study, because the initial purpose of the study was to

introduce financially independent enhancement of the teaching and learning

processes by means of introduction of ICT solutions and increasing the level of

utilization of the already implemented ICT solutions. However, the another

proposal that was about the project work among pupils was somewhat unevenly

accepted, but, as some of the teachers have stated, it might require more time to

adapt this kind of activity to the educational processes of this particular school,

because the teachers have been running the already established set of activities so

that they are already part of the daily routine and the proposed project activities

would require somewhat significant changes to that educational plan which might

be stressfully for some of the teachers who are particularly sensitive to that kind of

change. Thus, in order to avoid stressful integration of those activities they have to

be integrated gradually.

The personal achievement is directly linked to the achievement of the goals of

the field study. Thus, the fact that I performed several presentations for and surveys

of the teachers and another fact that many teachers accepted my proposals was

perhaps the main achievement that I received by the end of this field study. It was

also highly enlightening to learn about the ways in which various ICT tools are

used in modern primary schools and the things that pupils actually do nowadays

during the lessons, because when I was studying in a primary school I did not even

know how to use a computer, while now the pupils really impress with their

practical computer skills and actual willingness to explore the ways in which

various technological tools can be utilized.

Furthermore, it was interesting to make contacts not only with teachers at the

school that I performed my field study in, but also with teachers in those schools

with which I contacted during my search for the placement. So, in a way I served

as a mediator in a one-sided “exchange” of experience between teachers at

different schools. However, it was not exactly exchange since the only thing that

was actually replicated in the chosen primary school was the project work among

pupils, which did not actually show such wide acceptance among teaching staff or

pupils. The idea about the usage of Internet resources for creation of the

educational exercises, on the other hand, was suggested by yet another teacher at

46

another school, which led me to make a little research about the possible tools that

can be used for creation of those types of exercises. After the research of the

various discussion forums I found several app-builders and chose the one that

seemed to be more flexible and user-friendly. So, it can be said that another

achievement was actually to make a research based on the concept that was used in

another educational institution.

In general, there were a lot of contextual aspects and suggestions from the

teachers, which had to be considered primarily when creating the proposals in order

to avoid wasting time on something that could be rejected right after being

presented to the expected user base. The maintenance of the observed survey

results and the consideration of those aspects without getting lost in all the

information were challenging, but very useful for development of the versatile

thinking as well as the development of the ability to filter out the information that

was irrelevant to the specific context. So, it’s essential that the ICT proposals are

made with regard to both technical capabilities of the school and human factor of

the teachers, both of which might be very tricky to balance. But in general, this

field study allowed me to look at the ICT usage from the perspective of the

teachers allowing to more comprehensively overview the ways in which they get

affected by that technology.

5.3. The lessons learned and what to consider for others

So, just as it was mentioned in the previous section, when doing any kind of project

or a research, it’s important to consider the contextual aspects and be able to

carefully evaluate the suggestions of those who will be affected by the proposed

ICT solutions. In this case, it was important to properly discuss the ICT solutions

with the teachers because they were the ones who would use the proposed concepts

and thereby it was crucial to make the proposals more suitable for their daily

teaching practice, otherwise the proposals would be rejected right at the initial

stages of their life cycle. Thus, it’s important to perform a thorough pre-study of

the context before moving on to making any sort of proposals on the best ways to

utilize ICT solutions.

One of the other important things that had to be done was to actually

communicate with the teachers who were the target group of this research, because

they had to get to know me first. This was achieved by means of informal

communication with teachers during my visits to the school, as well as during the

formal discussions with the teachers during meetings also helped to make contact

with those teachers. So, before you go rushing into making ICT proposals, it’s

important to take things slow and do some pre-study first and actually talk to those

who are going to be using that technology, because a proposal might sound nice

and dandy in theory but in practice you might find out that the proposed solution is

inappropriate to those who are going to be affected by it. So, you’ve got to find out

what issues there are in the specific context. It might actually be somewhat tricky,

because it might turn out that some of the people who you talk to might not be

aware about existence of any of those issues simply due to the fact that they don’t

know about the ways in which their current situation could be improved, simply

because they already adapted to the current situation and thus they might overlook

many of the existing flaws. This particular fact might furthermore complicate the

47

process of the actual acceptance of the proposed technology. Thus, the benefits of

the proposals have to be structurally explained to the target group without any

imposition.

When doing a research in the school, for me it was important to not interfere with

the educational processes and thus I had to discuss with the teachers the activities

that I was allowed to perform. Namely, I had to structure the parents’ surveys (their

length and time for distribution) with accordance to the teachers suggestions

because the parents-teachers meetings, during which the questionnaires were

distributed to the parents, tend to include the discussions of some of the important

aspects of the pupils’ educational performance in school and for that purpose the

surveys had to be kept short in order to prevent them from taking too much time

from the actual meeting.

It’s also important to not overwhelm teachers with your presence, because they

have their work to do and it’s important to not interfere with the teaching

processes, because it could negatively affect the performance of the teachers and

thereby the educational outcomes for the pupils. So, the frequency of my

appearance in school had to stay reasonable, otherwise I would just end up being

considered as an irritating factor.

It also important to be prepared to the possible disapproval of the proposed idea

and you have to be willing to listen to the suggestions and come to a consensus,

where all of the interested parties would find a suitable solution. However, it's also

important to remember that, at least in my case, I would not be the one who would

get affected by the possible effects of the proposal and thereby I had to listen

carefully to the suggestions of the teachers because they are the ones who are

responsible for the quality of the education and they had to decide the ways in

which their educational plan could be adjusted and the amount of workload they

were willing to accept. Furthermore, the initial rejection of the proposal by some

teachers does not mean that the proposal will not be accepted eventually, because it

might just need time for the idea to “sink in” and in case if someone does

implement the proposed solution there is a chance that others might change their

mind and give it a try as well. So, the internal communication within the target

group can serve as a very powerful motivational factor. Besides, when the

technology proves to be efficient for some of those who “dared” to take a chance

and give the proposed solution a try, then there is a chance that the acceptance of

that proposal is going to grow in a “snowball” principle, gradually convincing a

larger number of possible participants. So, when the usefulness of a certain solution

is being communicated from one peer to the other, then the level of trust is

significantly larger, than when someone from outside (me in this case) proposed

something and stated that everyone should use it just because I stated that it would

be useful. Thus, after someone, who is an integral part of the context, tries the

technology out and finds it worthy, then it’s actually possible to achieve

sustainable integration of that technology.

As it was also mentioned previously, in certain cases the idea about using an ICT

might seem potentially productive (in case of usage of projectors as part of the

project work) but in reality it might simply not live up to expectations and provide

the opposite results, in terms of its doubtful acceptance by the target group. In this

case there is no need to blame anyone, because it's just one of those cases where

you learn in practice that sometimes things don't work out as planned.

48

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