Researching the influence of interactive presentation tools on teachers’ pedagogy
Dr Steve Kennewell
Swansea School of Education
Hendrefoelan
Swansea SA2 7NB
s.e.kennewell@swan.ac.uk
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference,
University of Glamorgan, 14-17 September 2005
Introduction
Teachers’ pedagogy – in the sense of ‘any conscious activity by one person designed
to enhance learning in another’ (Watkins & Mortimore, 1999) – is influenced by (as a
minimum) their personality, their experience, their knowledge, their subject culture,
the age and ability of their children, the ethos of their school, national policies,
curriculum specifications, and the resources available to them. It is this last feature
that is of particular concern in this paper. The introduction of ICT resources to
schools during the last twenty years has had relatively little effect on the ways that
teachers teach (Cox & Webb, 2004). One possible reason for this is the feeling that
ICT has most benefit for learners when they are working relatively independently of
the teacher, and this approach to learning has been actively discouraged by recent
initiatives designed to raise standards of attainment in England. It is of interest,
therefore, to consider the effects of particular technologies which seem to be more
teacher-oriented, such as interactive whiteboards. The term Interactive Presentation
Tool (IPT) will be used to refer to this type of resource which allows the user to
prepare material in advance, quickly place it on a display visible to the whole class
when required, and manipulate items on the display in a way which corresponds to
what can be achieved with an individual PC. IPTs are becoming very widespread in
school classrooms in England and Wales.
Possible approaches for the analysis of ICT’s influence on pedagogy
The search for a framework within which to carry out an analysis of relationships
between technology and pedagogy reveals a lack of generally agreed language and
classification of variables in relation to pedagogy (Cox & Webb, 2004). We can,
however, identify certain key ideas which seem helpful in analysing the relationship
between ICT and pedagogy.
The literature on effective teaching (Stevenson & Palmer, 1994; Muijs & Reynolds,
2001) suggests a number of characteristics of successful pedagogy:
• Structured lessons
• Clear presentations
• Appropriate pacing
• Modelling skills
• Conceptual mapping
• Interactive questioning
• Individual/group practice
• Assessment and diagnosis
• Matching learning tasks to student attributes
These characteristics, and other similar recommendations concerning effective
practice, will be helpful to teachers planning to use ICT in teaching, but do not
constitute a coherent analytical framework which can be used to characterise and
evaluate changes in pedagogy.
In order to frame the analysis of pedagogy and its development when ICT is involved,
Kennewell (1997) and Cox & Webb (2004) draw on the literature concerning teacher
thinking, particularly the importance of pedagogical content knowledge of a subject:
that is knowledge of how to represent the subject, how students learn the subject, how
curricular materials are organised, and how particular topics are best sequenced in the
curriculum (Wilson et al., 1987). This is combined with the process of pedagogical
reasoning which involves
• comprehension of the subject matter
• transformation of the ideas for representation to students
• instruction
• evaluation
• reflection, leading to new comprehensions (Shulman, 1987)
Beauchamp (2004) has analysed how teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and
reasoning incorporates IPTs progressively through experience and reflection.
Kennewell (2001) draws on Greeno’s (1994, 1998) framework of affordances and
constraints in learning situations so as to analyse settings where learners are working
individually or collaboratively with ICT. The role of the teacher is one of setting
tasks which present some challenge to the learners and then orchestrating the features
of the classroom, including ICT, so as to provide enough support for successful task
completion whilst maintaining sufficient cognitive demand to bring about learning.
This cyclical model incorporates both potential for action (corresponding to
affordances of the setting) and structure for action (corresponding to the constraints
imposed by the setting).
Sutherland et al. (2004) find Perkins’ (1993) characterisation of ‘person plus’ helpful
in analysing learning in activity settings. They see the classroom as one of a variety of
settings in which children learn, and in this setting the teacher is one of the tools and
resources available to the learner in supporting activity. Cox & Webb (2004) extend
the analysis of affordances in the classroom to include the affordances of teacher
interaction, of other pupils and of other resources as well as of ICT. These ideas
complement each other effectively, and may be combined into a single framework for
planning and analysing teaching and learning.
The development of an activity-based model for pedagogical analysis
A model which characterises teaching as the orchestration by the teacher of
affordances and constraints for learner activity (Kennewell, 2001) was developed in
order to help plan and evaluate teaching and learning which involved pupil activity,
organised and supported by the teacher. It has also been used to analyse children’s
activities with ICT outside school, and to compare characteristics of informal use with
school practices (Kennewell, 2002). During whole class teaching, however, pupils are
not carrying out the same sort of activity that they would during task-focused work in
school or informal activity at home. With the whole-class strategy, pupils are
predominantly expected to listen and watch the teacher, interspersed with answering
the teacher’s questions individually whilst the rest of the class continues to listen.
This scenario does not change significantly when the teacher is using ICT in wholeclass teaching. Although sometimes a pupil may be asked to use the IPT to answer a
question, the rest of the class will still merely be watching.
It is not immediately apparent that a model based on affordances and constraints is
useful in this setting. However, despite the apparently passive nature of pupils’
experience during much whole-class teaching, pupils are still carrying out activities.
These activities may be purely cognitive or perhaps metacognitive – apprehending,
comprehending, memorising, assimilating, reflecting - for periods of time during
whole-class teaching, but nevertheless they are activities and their actions can still be
afforded or constrained by features of the setting, including ICT. Furthermore, the
most effective teachers stimulate the cognitive engagement of pupils by posing
questions and requesting contributions in order to minimise the duration of periods
where they are behaving passively. They also set mental tasks which engage and
challenge learners in an ‘active’ way (Muijs & Reynolds). Whole-class teaching can
thus be analysed using the orchestration of affordances and constraints in relation to
learner attributes in the same way as for more independent activity. This will help us
to evaluate the effect of using IPTs – by teacher and pupils - on the pupils’ activity
and learning.
The proposed basic model for learning within activity settings is designed to cover all
situations, whether there is a teacher present or not. This model assumes that learning
is a change in attributes, and provides a framework for analysing how learning takes
place during a task which is somewhat beyond the learner’s ability to carry out
unaided (see Figure 1). In order to carry out the task, the learner’s initial attributes
enable them to perceive the potential for action afforded by the features of the setting,
and to pursue action sequences constrained by the features of the setting. In achieving
the goal, their cognition has followed new paths, and this experience will either
influence their attributes incrementally or (occasionally) effect conceptual change.
Their new attributes can then be applied to related tasks in future, or to the same task
with reduced affordances and/or constraints.
Features of
setting
Attributes of
learners
change
provide affordances and
constraints
Task
produce
goal
Figure 1 Outline of the activity-based model for learning within an activity setting
In this general model, the tasks may require physical, cognitive or
reflective/metacognitive activity. They will usually require a combination of physical
and cognitive activity at least, and will involve the carrying out of multiple individual
actions in pursuit of a goal. The goal may be one of apprehending information or
assimilating ideas, or it may be to produce a product (constructed to a specified brief
or created with a degree of freedom concerning the outcome). A product may be a
physical (or electronic) artefact, or it may involve performance (responding to
questions, reporting on behalf of a group discussion, or playing a role, for example).
The attributes required will be some combination of knowledge (factual and
conceptual), skills, and dispositions in the target subject matter together with generic
skills (such as literacy and ICT) and in other subject matter. For worthwhile learning
to take place, there will be a gap between what the learner can already do
independently and what is required for the task. In completing the task, with
assistance when required, it is expected that the learner’s attributes will change and
they will be able to achieve the goal with less help in future (Kennewell, 2001).
Assistance in the task is provided by the features, which may include:
• The teacher
• Other learners
• Tools
• Other resources
• Cultural factors
The features provided by the teacher can be classified as knowledge, beliefs, values
and behaviours. Other learners can provide these features, too (Cox & Webb, 2004).
The tools may be those based on language, such as discussion, or physical tools such
as pencil and paper, scissors and glue. ICT is a particularly versatile tool, and is not
easy to classify in nature or function. The curriculum for initial and in service teacher
training in the UK is specifies a number of features of ICT tools and resources which
teachers should learn how to exploit:
• Speed
• Automaticity
• Capacity
• Range
• Provisionality
• Interactivity
(DfEE, 1998)
There is an implicit comparison with other tools in identifying these; they are what
makes ICT special as an educational aid. ICT can similarly be compared with other
educational resources, such as books, posters on the wall, information sheets,
worksheets, video and audio recordings which help stimulate, structure and support
activity in the classroom. ICT does not necessarily replace these more traditional
tools and resources; in some situations the traditional medium may be more
appropriate, or it may be used effectively in combination with ICT. Finally, we need
to consider cultural factors such as school ethos, subject culture, classroom rules, and
the home background of pupils.
The way in which all these factors interact is, at least partially, under the control of
the teacher. The teacher’s special role includes:
• creating an appropriate culture of learning;
• provide helpful tools and other resources;
• assessing learners’ attributes;
• designing tasks which create a learning gap;
• deciding what support is appropriate and providing ‘scaffolding’ for learning;
• orchestrating the affordances and constraints of the setting in order to make success
with the task feasible;
• stimulate and maintain learners’ focus on the activity;
• encourage learners’ reflection on their activity and on their learning
• sequence activities in order to effect progression in learning (Kennewell et al,
forthcoming).
Figure 2 shows how these factors relate in a cyclical fashion during activity designed
for learning. The orchestration of features of the setting, contingent on the features of
the learners, so as to provide potential and structure for activity, is a dynamic process
involving continuous interaction between teacher and learners as individuals, in
groups and as a whole class. Such orchestration is also carried out by the learners
themselves, particularly during group work. We have named the set of relationships
which characterise the nature of the interactivity taking place the Interaction Zone, to
reflect the fact that it varies in size across classroom and across phases of the lesson
depending on the way that the teacher manages the activity. We have also recognised
the key role of reflection in the process of learning from activity. Reflection can be
carried out jointly (that is in groups or as a whole class), managed by the teacher and
within the interaction zone. It can also be carried out individually, that is as intraaction rather than interaction. Nevertheless, this is likely to be influenced by the
nature of the interactivity in the lesson.
The overall framework has been labelled ATLAS (Analyzing Teaching and Learning
in Activity Settings).
features of
learners
Interaction zone
features of
the setting
orchestration by
teacher and learners
affordances
for action
reflection
individual joint
constraints
on action
activity
goal
Figure 2 ATLAS Framework for analysing classroom activity
What can be learned by applying the model to IPTs?
Two small studies have recently been undertaken in South West Wales to investigate
the impact on teaching and learning of the high levels of ICT resourcing in new
schools. The primary school was a new building for an existing institution with an
established staff. The model for classroom resourcing was a teacher’s desktop PC,
linked to a projector and interactive whiteboard, and four networked pupil PCs. The
secondary school was an existing building, vacated during a merger of schools with
falling rolls, and being gradually refurbished to house a new Welsh-medium school.
The staff was new and small, as they were only teaching the first year’s intake of
pupils. The research was carried out at a time when the Welsh Assembly
Government’s policy of providing an interactive whiteboard for every primary school
and three for secondary schools had put resources in place but these had not yet been
fully adopted by teachers (Kennewell & Morgan, 2003). There was thus particular
interest in evaluating the effects of interactive whiteboards as IPTs. The research
schools were well ahead of the standard provision, and matched the Government’s
vision for all schools in due course.
In studying the effects of IPTs, there was a need to analyse learner-IPT interaction,
teacher-IPT interaction and learner-teacher interaction through IPT.
In each school, the research involved a single lesson observation with each teacher
(six in the primary school, seven in the secondary school) followed by interviews with
the teachers concerned about how they felt ICT affected teaching, learning and
attainment. Field notes were made during and immediately after the lessons, and
audio recordings were made of the interviews. For the purpose of analysing the
effects on pedagogy, the field notes were explored for evidence concerning effects of
the technology on activity. This process probed learner-IWB interaction, teacherIWB interaction and learner-teacher interaction through the IWB. The single lesson
observation with each teacher was insufficient to identify patterns in their practice or
in the effects on pupils, and further evidence was sought from the interview notes.
The actions noted as affected by ICT included general ones such as:
• recall for recap and review
• easy deletion and editing
• range of activities can be help on task bar and/or bookmarks
• annotation and highlighting
or more particular ones such as:
• colours to distinguish different items of text
• controllable display of animated images, video etc.
• arrows etc from drawing menu.
Each of the action noted, was characterised as afforded and/or constrained by features
from the DfEE list above.
Analysis of data
During the initial analysis, criteria were developed by which each of the features
could be recognised:
• Speed: making processes happen more quickly than other methods.
• Automation: making previously tedious or effortful processes happen
automatically (other than changing the form of representation).
• Capacity: the storage and retrieval of large amounts of material.
• Range: access to materials in different forms and from a wider range of
sources than otherwise possible.
• Provisionality: the facility to change content
• Interactivity: the ability to respond to user input repeatedly
When applied to the data, the first five proved relatively unproblematic, but
interactivity seemed to cover to a variety of types of effects, and did not prove helpful
for detailed analysis. It was consequently changed to a more specific concept, that of
Feedback, that is the provision of an informative response by the tool which is
contingent an action by the user.
The lists of actions and underlying features could not account for all the effects noted
in the classrooms, however. The actions which were afforded or constrained by the
resources were developed further through a number of iterations of the data
exploration process, leading to the following list of distinct actions:
• Composing: ideas can be recorded accurately as they arise
• Editing: The data stored and displayed can be changed easily with no trace of
the original
• Selection: Choice of resource or procedure can be made from a list
• Comparison: Features of different items displayed can be compared
• Retrieval: Stored resources can easily be retrieved for use
• Apprehension: the display (text, images, sound, diagrams) is easy for pupils to
see or interpret;
• Focusing: Attention can be drawn to particular aspects of a process or
representation
• Transforming: The way that the data is displayed can be changed
• Role play: Activities can be carried out in a way which is similar to activity in
the ‘real world’
• Collation: the facility to bring together a variety of items from different
sources into a single resource
• Sharing: the facility to communicate and interchange resources and ideas
easily with others
• Annotation: Notes can be added to a process or representation at the time of
use
• Repeating: an automated or stored process can be repeated at will
• Modelling: A process can be simulated by representing relationships between
variables
The following additional terms were devised through a similar process in order to
account for features of ICT which afforded these actions.
• Timeliness: the information available is up-to-date;
• Emphasis: highlighting particular aspects of a display or idea
• Multimodality: the facility to combine visual, aural, and textual display
• Accuracy: items are constructed with greater precision that is realistic
manually
• List: the facility to set out a choice of resources or actions
• Template: the provision of a standard outline structure for individuals to add
their own ideas
• Acquisition: the entry of data into the ICT device and storage for subsequent
processing and display.
• Dynamism: processes an representations can be shown in motion
• Simultaneity: different processes or forms of display can be shown together
• Library: data can stored in an organised way for easy retrieval
• Linkage: Sets of information can be linked for easy access or processing
For each one that emerged, a check was made concerning whether it could be defined
in terms the existing features. This process revealed that some seemed fundamental to
the nature of ICT whereas others were constructed from these basic features during
the design of the hardware and software resources. The features identified were thus
divided into those which were intrinsic to programmable digital electronic systems
and those which were constructed in the use made of the intrinsic features by the
software designer or teacher (see Table 1). The teacher, or even learners, may also
construct these features in planning the lesson or dynamically during classroom
interaction. The relationships between these features and the actions they afford or
constrain are also shown in Table 1.
Intrinsic features
Features of ICT
which are
constructed
Related
intrinsic
features
Actions
afforded
and
constrained
Features
contributing
potential and
structure for
action
Speed (Sp)
Display (Di)
Acquisition (Aq)
Communication (Cm)
Storage (St)
Contingency (Cn)
Repetition (Re)
Capacity (Ca)
Range (Ra)
Automation (Au)
Emphasis (Em)
Template (Te)
List (Ls)
Provisionality (Pr)
Timeliness (Ti)
Sp, Cm, St
Sp, St
Re, Cn, St
Pa, Di
St, Aq
Di, Cn, Aq
St, Cn, Sp
Sp, Cn, St,
Cm, Di, Aq
Sp, Di, Re,
St
Sp, St, Di
Sp, Di, St
Sp, St, Di
St, Cn
St, Au
Cn, Cm
Composing
Editing
Selection
Comparison
Retrieval
Apprehension
Focusing
Transforming
Role play
Aq, Te, Ti, Ac
Pr, Lb
Ca, Ls, Ln, Lb
Si, Mu, Li, Ca
Ra, Au, Ls, Lb, Ln
Ac, Mu, Si
Em, Te, Ls
Au, Pr, Dy, Mu
Ca, Ra, Te, Ac, Lb,
Pr, Ti
Ca, Ra, Lb, Ln, Si
Ra, Te, Pr, Lb
Aq, Pr, Ti, Em,
Au, Lb
Au, Te, Pr, Ti, Ac, Ln
Pr, Au
Dynamism (Dy)
Accuracy (Ac)
Simultaneity (Si)
Multimodality
(Mu)
Library (Li)
Linkage (Ln)
Feedback (Fe)
Collation
Sharing
Annotatation
Repeating
Modelling
Undoing
Table 1 Classification of the features of ICT
Interactivity, however, does not satisfy the criteria for inclusion in these lists as it
involves the orchestration of features in order to sustain a sequence of reciprocal
actions. This characterisation of interactivity, based on sustainment and reciprocity,
is discussed further in Kennewell et al (in preparation)
It is not expected that these lists will be final; they are based on small scale research
studies and will be validated in a much larger study (Interactive Teaching and ICT, a
prject within the Welsh extension to the ESRC’s Teaching and Learning Research
Programme) being carried out from 2005-2007.
Use of the features in Primary classrooms
The teaching in the primary school tended to follow a ‘four phase’ lesson (Hughes,
2001). The first phase of the lesson generally used the IWB and involved repetition
by the whole class together of familiar actions where full participation and joint
success is expected. The second phase also usually used the IWB and involved the
introduction or gradual development of individual children’s skills and concepts
which require some scaffolding, carried out in front of the class in such a way that all
children felt involved – watching a display/animation/annotation; experiencing a
variety of representations; interacting physically with displayed information;
responding to questions orally with/without display, including ‘what if’ questions.
The third phase required pupils to work in groups, individually or collaboratively, on
activities which practiced skills or explored concepts in more depth or across a variety
of instances. The teacher circulated to give support, or worked over the whole period
of time with one group whilst other groups were supervised and assisted by learning
support assistants or other adult helpers. This phase did not usually involve the use of
IWBs; the normal pattern was for most groups to work on paper-based or practical
activity and one group to be allocated to working in pairs on the desktop PCs at the
side of the class.
The final phase involved revisiting key teaching points and reviewing any difficulties
which pupils had found, and again usually used the IWB. This had potential for
reflective activity on the part of pupils, but was generally teacher-dominated with a
lower level of pupil participation than earlier whole-class phases.
A typical mathematics lesson which was observed concerned the development of
simple addition operations with young children. It started with the teacher using a
prepared Powerpoint presentation to display clearly a prompt such as ‘3+2=’ to the
whole class, asking a pupil to give the answer orally, giving feedback on the answer
orally, and then displaying the result on the board. Ten questions were completed
rapidly with the whole class in this way; all the teacher had to do was click the board
to progress the display. The automation, accuracy and feedback features of ICT were
used to afford repeating, apprehension and sustainment of the activity. The second
phase involved use of a special piece of software for displaying mathematical symbols
and diagrams on the IWB. The task for the class was to identify all possible pairs of
digits which totalled 7; the teacher called pupils up in turn to display their suggested
pairs on the IWB by dragging digits and symbols from a set displayed on the board.
He corrected them orally when necessary and encouraged the use of the ‘undo’
button, and provided strategic prompts to help the class find the ones not yet
identified. This utilised the features of list, accuracy and provisionality to afford and
constrain apprehension, selection, comparison, and undoing. The third phase
involved pupils completing similar tasks on printed worksheets, which provided the
template feature to afford and constrain composing, but did not have the features of
selection, clarity and provisionality. Five children using individual PCs to work with
the same software that had been used for the whole class on the IWB, however, one of
these being a child with cerebral palsy who would not have been able to carry out the
task effectively in written form. The lesson ended with a plenary phase involving a
similar activity to the initial phase, except that the teacher wrote the sums on the
board by hand, choosing each one to revisit a point that had caused some children a
problem during the lesson. This did not utilise any particular features of ICT.
Subject
Teacher use
of IWB
Pupil use
of IWB
Features of ICT
providing
potential for
action
Maths
Every lesson
Frequently
Accuracy, list,
provisionality,
library, feedback
English
Every lesson
Frequently
Science
Every lesson
Occasionally
Accuracy,
provisionality,
capacity,
multimodality
List,
multimodality,
dynamism
Features of
ICT
providing
structure or
limits on
action
List
Template,
emphasis,
list,
acquisition
Template
Effects perceived as related to attainment
Differentiation, engaging less able, longer
attention, visual and dynamic, focus on
subject matter not teacher, motivation, pace
and flow
Same text display followed by whole class,
retrieve material for review, pace and flow,
keyboard slows writing
Multiple representations, visual and dynamic
Table 2: Summary analysis of ICT’s use in each subject with pupils aged 7-9 in a highly-resourced primary school
Table 2 summarises the full analysis of the data. There was a high degree of
similarity in the ways that different teachers used the IWB in relation to activity in the
classroom. There were some differences in practice between subjects, however. The
involvement of pupils in activity at the board was the norm in mathematics and
English lessons, but not so in Science, for which teachers did not generally have the
same depth of pedagogical content knowledge and relied primarily on prepared
Powerpoint presentations with which they could be confidently convey the planned
content.
The subsequent interviews revealed that teachers felt the IWB to be effective in
gaining pupils’ attention, keeping their attention for longer, stimulating thinking and
maintaining a focus on the subject matter rather than on the teacher or other pupils.
The large visual display was generally suggested as the main factor which brought
about this difference. “They seem to be more interested in the lesson again because
they’ve got pictures, visual, they’ve got things there to look at, they’ll stop and they’ll
ask and answer questions because it’s there in front of them, as opposed to us just
talking to them and not having anything for them to look at.” Powerpoint was a
particularly important tool for the teacher: “it brings things over”.
Teachers recognised the importance of a variety of representations, particularly for
difficult ideas, and the need for a number of activities in which the same skills and
concepts were involved. ICT activities were felt to add to the teacher’s repertoire,
even if they were not the most important ones. The degree of engagement and
participation was felt to be increased; this was particularly important for the less able
children. One way in which this was achieved was by calling pupils up to the board
to interact with the material; it was important that the younger children were able to
drag words and images as objects rather than writing or drawing. One teacher saw the
‘hands-on’ interaction was for this pupil was very valuable, but also thought that all
the other pupils were cognitively engaged in the same task – indeed, they were
considering whether or not the selected pupil might complete the task successfully,
how they would do it themselves, and what mistakes the selected pupil might make.
The teachers felt that it was valuable to be able to show pupils’ work on the
whiteboard, and were eagerly anticipating a system upgrade which would allow them
to do this from the network rather than transferring via floppy disk.
The most significant feature of teachers’ organisation with ICT was the speed and
ease with which material prepared in advance was brought up onto the IWB to engage
pupils. The material had been appropriated and developed by the teachers, and they
were thoroughly familiar with the content which would appear. This was combined
with the usual process of using established organisational routines in order to maintain
a fast pace to lessons. The flow of the lesson was not purely linear; teachers moved
backwards and forwards through the content and process of the lesson by scrolling
documents, selecting powerpoint slides, and ‘flipping’ through pages of the ‘flipchart’
software provided with the IWBs. They also responded to points arising from the
class, although some opportunities were missed. This may have been caused by a
reluctance to depart from the highly detailed planning employed when their subject
knowledge was limited. This planning, however, together with their experience of
pupils’ difficulties and detailed knowledge of pupils’ attributes, enabled them to select
the right level of task for pupils when called to perform in front of whole class as well
as for individual work.
The teachers interacted with the class by facing them all the time, and, aided by
routines, preparation and human support, were able to effect continuous engagement
on the part of pupils. This appeared to help in promoting strategic thinking. The high
degree of engagement during whole class teaching, together with the shared visual
display, supported a level of scaffolding which is often hard to find in primary
classrooms (Bliss et al, 1996). The ability to replay events and review processes
helped them to promote reflection. They were also able to demonstrate ICT
techniques easily to the whole class.
There was a focus on the subject matter being discussed, rather than on the teacher,
due to the teacher’s position which was more to the side of the board than with
manual whiteboards, and also due to the pace and smoothness in organisation. There
was a high level of teacher direction concerning the pupils’ tasks, but pupil choice
during the task was supported. One particular teacher felt that when a selected pupil
was working on the board at the front, the whole class were thinking about the task,
considering how they would do it and what mistakes the selected pupil might make.
Although this was not new with the use of the IWB rather than the ordinary
whiteboard, the IWB made pupil activity at the front of the class easier because he
could exploit their skill in selecting and moving objects on the screen rather than
always requiring them to draw or write on the board.
The teachers also remarked on the extent to which they shared materials; this was
more so than previously because they were all facing the same challenge of unfamiliar
technology and felt that this increased their workload. They recognised that ICT
helped with sharing. They also all remarked on the fact that they did not use the same
materials year after year; with ICT, they realised that they could improve their
presentations and activities as they learned more about the features and techniques of
ICT, and they were motivated to improve their materials because ICT allowed them
easily to make changes.
Use of the features in Secondary classrooms
The patterns of lessons varied to a greater extent across different subjects taught in
secondary school than in the primary school, reflecting the differences in subject
content and culture, and pedagogical practices associated with each curriculum area.
The ways in which the teachers used the features of ICT varied, too. The subjectspecific nature of the practice is illustrated by the following examples, drawn from
observations and subsequent interviews:
 The science teacher used dynamism, automation and accuracy to display a
continually running image of what was happening during an experiment,
which afforded apprehension of key features of the physical changes which
were hard for pupils to identify in the real experiment that they were
observing.
 The MFL teacher used emphasis to highlight patterns and afford focusing on
changes in verb endings when the subject of a sentence changed. She also





used templates to create texts with gaps for pupils to fill, constraining their
composing and affording focusing on the word endings.
The history teacher used the range, capacity and library features of ICT to
afford collation of images and quotations from a variety of sources in different
physical locations, and the list and provisionality features to afford selection
and undoing when pupils attempted to classify causes of events under different
headings.
The maths teacher used the provisionality of ICT to afford editing and undoing
when pupils to try out their ideas concerning which pairs of hidden fractional
and decimal values totalled 10, and to make changes themselves when they
could see that they were incorrect. The list feature was used to constrain their
selection in order to avoid frustration.
The English teacher used the acquisition and library features to afford the
composing of pupils’ own ideas about characters in a play and subsequent
retrieval for further points to be added. She also used multimodality and
simultaneity to represent ideas in sound, images as well as written text and
afford apprehension and comparison.
The D&T teacher used acquisition, automation, template and provisionality to
afford composing, modelling, editing and role play when pupils represented 3D objects as 2-D drawings for authentic design problems. They also used
accuracy and automation to afford their transforming of designs into products
of a better quality than if drawn manually.
The Welsh teacher recognised the pupils’ ICT capability and had high
expectations for the ICT capability which they developed in specialist lessons.
This enabled her and the pupils to use the acquisition, provisionality, and
library features of ICT to afford composing, collation, sharing and role play in
developing develop their own Powerpoint presentations and using them to
support talks about their hobbies to the rest of the class.
Table 3 shows a summary of the full analysis. The variations between teachers
partially reflected different levels of ICT capability (the science teacher, particularly,
was highly expert in using Powerpoint), but also reflected differences in
characteristics of the subject. The appropriate ways of representing subject concepts
and processes with ICT in order to develop pupils’ understanding led to different
features being selected to afford and constrain activity.
Steve Kennewell
BERA conference paper 2004
Subject
Teacher use
of IWB
Pupil use
of IWB
Features of ICT
providing potential for
action
Science
Every lesson
When
appropriate
History/
Geography
English
Most
lessons
Most
lessons
Frequently
Welsh
Frequently
When
appropriate
Dynamism, automation,
list, multimodality,
provisionality, accuracy,
library, timeliness
Provisionality,
automation, feedback, list,
library
Feedback, list, linkage,
library, range
Provisionality,
automation, simultaneity,
acquisition, multimodality
Capacity, library,
multimodality
D&T
Frequently
MFL
Every lesson
– no OWB
Rarely
Most
lessons
Occasionally for
sketches
Frequently
Acquisition,
provisionality,
simultaneity
Feedback, list, capacity
Never
Frequently
Automation, dynamism
Provisionality,
acquisition, automation,
library, simultaneity
Maths
PE
Music
Frequently
Features of
ICT
providing
structure for
action
Template, list
Effects related to attainment
List, emphasis,
Context for mental arithmetic, collaboration, problem solving,
engagement, differentiation, hide/reveal to focus attention on
steps in technique
Attention, involvement, whole class contribution by pupils
(especially less able)
Motivation for less able, quicker/clearer creation of text,
representation of words through sound and images as well as
written text
Motivation, perseverance, responsibility for grammar and
spelling, reduction in quality of thinking engagement, time on
task, keyboard is slow for entering text, lower ability improve
skills away from the computer.
Improves the quality of evaluation and encourages reflection
on the design/make process, technical drawing ideas transfer
to manual skills
Attention; retention of words seen dynamically; maintain
interest longer, takes time to produce results
Developing technical skills in gym, athletics
All can participate using keyboards Complexity of software
List, emphasis
Template,
emphasis
List,
acquisition
List
Emphasis,
template
Emphasis
Template,
Motivation, engagement (particularly lower ability)
Table 3: Summary analysis of ICT’s use in each subject with pupils aged 11-12 in a highly-resourced secondary school
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Steve Kennewell
BERA conference paper 2004
There were some important areas of similarity between teachers, however, and these also matched
closely the practice of the primary teachers. By preparing resources in advance and loading the
resources required for a lesson in advance, teachers generated a smoothness in their organisational
activity, maintained a momentum to the flow of the lesson and kept learners engaged more
continuously than with traditional resources. Teachers used the IWB software for focusing
learners’ attention on salient features of the task and content – labelling, highlighting, colour
coding, classifying. It was common for pupils to be keen to come to the board to write up ideas or
drag an item into an appropriate position. At these times, the pace of activity slowed considerably,
but the continued high level of engagement of pupils was evident and the reaction of the class
indicated that all or most pupils were thinking along with the selected pupil about what the best
action would be.
This reaction was also evident to the pupil selected to work at the board, however, so that when they
were unsure of what to do on the basis of their knowledge or skills, they tentatively tried one
possibility after another, gauging the reaction of their peers and undoing each time they perceived
that they were wrong. The features of provisionality and feedback can be beneficial to learning in
that they reduces the risk of failure for learners, but there is also a danger that students use them to
achieve their goals through trial and error, thus avoiding the cognitive effort that would be expected
to result in learning.
The main difference between from primary practice was that secondary teachers rarely used a
Powerpoint presentation alone in order to convey content, and this more flexible and varied use of
resources perhaps reflects a greater depth of pedagogical content knowledge. Secondary teachers
were keen to incorporate materials produced externally, however, and the lack of sufficient
resources was highlighted several times by teachers. This is another facet of the feature range
which provides a constraint on activity. In that its source is external to the classroom setting, it is
clearly a different sort of constraint from that which the teacher decides to impose on learners in
order to direct their activity. This difference is important in analysing pedagogical practices.
Summary and conclusions
Although the results are not generalisable beyond the particular classrooms studied, the ATLAS
framework has been valuable in analysing the ways that teachers orchestrate the features of the
classroom activity setting. The features of ICT identified by DfES (1998) have been validated for
the analysis of how ICT can provide potential and structure for action, but further attributes have
been identified which are needed in order to account for all the effects observed. These include
features intrinsic to ICT and features constructed by practitioners in software design and in
classroom teaching. The extended list of features should provide assistance in software design, in
planning professional development for teachers, and in developing teacher education programmes.
Further work will be needed to validate the extended list of features across a wider range of
technologies and practices, although it is to be expected that further technological and pedagogical
development will continually create new possibilities which will need to be added to the list.
In highly-resourced school settings, where teachers have continual access to high quality
equipment at school and at home, and are able to make frequent use of it in their teaching, the
potential of these features is being incorporated into their pedagogical reasoning. Studies of typical
teachers in such settings have provided evidence that most characteristics of effective teaching (see
Kennewell, et al, in preparation) are aided by IWBs: clear presentations, appropriate pacing,
modelling of skills, interactive questioning, smooth flow of activity, efficient resource
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Steve Kennewell
BERA conference paper 2004
management, assessment/ diagnosis/feedback and matching learning tasks to student attributes.
Although not observed in these schools, conceptual mapping is also aided by ICT (Conlon, 2002)
There was a high degree of commonality seen in the features that were exploited in different
subjects and phases, but there were important variations reflecting differences in concepts and
culture between subjects and ages taught, and different pedagogical styles between teachers.
Teachers recognised the value of working together to develop their pedagogical knowledge, and
knew how to use ICT to communicate and exchange material, but the differences in perception were
limiting the extent to which they shared ideas. This means that sharing was underused by teachers
themselves. This may explain why it is also having limited impact in the classroom generally.
There is much potential to exploit the use of both collation and sharing in pupil activity in the
classroom and beyond which may require a pedagogical shift together with developments in
resources and ICT capability.
However, teachers in both schools were achieving a considerable development in pedagogical
content knowledge through their own individual and collaborative efforts, without systematic
training. In this informal, self-help professional development context, it seems that the features of
ICT were being incorporated into teachers’ existing pedagogical knowledge rather than ICT causing
a shift in pedagogy. This is not surprising, given the other features of the setting in which the
teachers were working; although the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies did not have the
same status in Wales as in England, most of the principles and guidance had been promoted heavily
in Wales and had reinforced a highly structured, teacher-centred pedagogy rather than encouraging
alternative approaches involving greater pupil autonomy.
Furthermore, IWBs seem to reinforce traditional pedagogies. They do not in themselves afford
learner autonomy in the way that laptop, or even desktop, PCs do. The long-awaited ‘transforming
pedagogy’ for ICT (Somekh & Davies, 1991) clearly requires more than regular use of ICT by
teachers; it requires a change in pedagogical knowledge and beliefs. The teacher’s orchestration of
affordances and constraints is driven by their pedagogical reasoning, and much of the reasoning
used by the teachers in this study reflected a ‘transmission’ view of learning rather than a
‘construction’ view. If pupils are to develop more independence in their learning, they need more
control over the pace and flow of activity and over the process of collating and sharing resources
which ICT affords. The potential value of playful activity for learning in an ICT environment has
been shown (Morgan & Kennewell, 2005), but this changes the nature of the ‘task’ as external goals
are absent. For this potential to be realised, teachers will need to design the classroom setting so
that the features of IWBs are available more directly to learners during individual and group
activity, rather than access to them being tightly structured by the teacher during whole-class
teaching. All the learners observed in the classrooms studied were confident users of ICT, and had
little difficulty adding IWB skills to their repertoire. They were able to orchestrate the features of
the setting – tools within the software, more expert peers, learning support assistants, teachers,
posters of the wall – in order to afford actions in pursuit of their goals.
Although this requires a shift in pedagogical perspective for many teachers, many of the
prerequisites for such a change are in place. The current level of integration of IWBs into teachers’
pedagogical content knowledge is an achievement which should not be underestimated; it represents
a development in craft knowledge and skills which afford more fundamental changes in practice.
This does not require great technical confidence or competence; it was noticeable that the two
secondary teachers whose learning management allowed greatest pupil involvement in the use of
ICT were those with the greatest and least ICT capability. The science teacher used ICT flexibly to
provide an initial conceptual representation of the matters to be studied, a continual animated
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Steve Kennewell
BERA conference paper 2004
display of the key features of the experiment being carried out, and a tool for groups of pupils to
produce graphs of their results as soon as they had completed their readings. He was a ‘synergistic
user’, at the top of Beauchamp’s (2004) scale of pedagogical ICT capability. The Welsh teacher, on
the other hand, was at the lowest level on the scale, but was sufficiently confident with the
pedagogical potential of the medium and the ICT capability of her pupils that she felt able to
delegate the use of the IWB completely to pupils to represent their ideas to the class.
The research reported here focused on how ICT was being used and did not examine non-ICT
settings. With no direct comparison with other resources available, it could be argued that there is
nothing special about ICT. Indeed, one of the secondary school teachers interviewed, who was new
to the school and had not used an IWB before, felt that his practice would not be affected as it
already utilised the style of pupil involvement at the board which was seen by others to be
characteristic of teaching with the IWB. However, a superficial consideration of ‘traditional’
classroom media – the ordinary black/whiteboard, the textbook, the worksheet, the blank piece of
paper, even the analogue video recording - suggests that they are more limited in their affordances
and much less flexible in their constraints than new digital media. As well as the intrinsic features
of ICT, a large number of other features have been constructed which make ICT fundamentally
different as an educational medium. More features may also be constructed in these transformed
practices which afford different forms of action and interaction on the part of pupils; the
communicative facility of networked computers seems seriously underexploited in schools in
comparison to other organisations, for instance. The features of interactive presentation tools can
be developed creatively to exploit new forms of interactivity in teaching and to support a more
participatory pedagogy.
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