Many American high schools have adopted large-scale wireless laptop initiatives in order to address various teaching challenges and to enhance the learning of 21st -century skills. Despite the great promise of one-to-one laptop computing, however, laptops raise many complex issues for schools--especially issues concerning how teachers will adapt to a one-to-one learning environment and effectively integrate technology into instruction.
This year-long, multi-case study describes the context and outcomes of 9th -grade English Language Arts, Math, and Special Education laptop implementations at two diverse, urban high schools and the effect that technology innovation had on teachers' efficacy, pedagogical beliefs, and instruction. This dissertation collected and analyzed data from 40 hours of administrator and teacher interviews, 34 teacher surveys, and 57 classroom observations.
While necessary environmental conditions for successful technology integration--such as leadership commitment, incentives, available resources, time, and training--were insufficient, teachers' existing efficacy and pedagogical beliefs seemed to facilitate initial laptop use. Generally, the laptop initiative did not appear to affect teachers' relatively high levels of efficacy or pedagogical beliefs about the value of computers over the year. Nonetheless, teachers also believed that computers should play only a supplement role. Thus, while many teachers incorporated laptops into their classroom instruction, most began with teacher-centered laptop uses--mostly involving their own Internet research, word processing software, and Web browsing, before extending these same applications to their