Teachers’ first-year experience with chromebook laptops and their attitudes towards technology integration

Abstract

Because mobile technology has become so obvious in a child’s life, use of it for teaching and learning has become a necessity. This study investigates use of Chromebook laptops in 6–12 grade classrooms in relation to teachers’ experience. We employ a mixed method approach. First, we study how teachers’ years of teaching and numbers of technological tools they have are related to their comfort of teaching with Chromebook laptops, as well as their attitudes change towards technology after teaching with a Chromebook for a year. Second, to have more specific thoughts about teachers’ Chromebook experience, we conducted qualitative analyses to hear teachers’ voices. Of the 658 6–12 grade Mathematics and English teachers from 30 schools invited to be part of the study, 553 teachers completed the survey. We utilized Pearson Product correlation for the first question. A paired-sample t test was run to examine whether teachers’ attitudes towards technology use changed after teaching with Chromebooks for a year. For the qualitative part, we used a Phenomenological approach to analyze what teachers felt about their experience with Chromebooks. We found that teachers’ comfort of teaching is not significantly correlated with their years of experience. As expected, there was a statistically significant relationship between the number of technological tools they had and their comfort of teaching with technology. Teachers’ attitudes significantly decreased after teaching with Chromebooks for a year. Teachers complained about excessive blocking and lack of tech support, along with some suggestions including filtering and proper training, both for teachers and students that is for a smoother transition from traditional teaching to Chromebook-integrated teaching. Findings and implications are presented to help schools improve technology integration in the discussion and conclusion parts. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.