5.3.3 Access and Equipment

While many of the beliefs about the obstacles to computer use may relate to human factors, some of these beliefs relate as well, to strictly technological issues such as lack of equipment, unreliable equipment or access to services or to the computer lab, slow connections and lack of technical assistance. Teachers’ reluctance to use the Internet in teaching may be related to lack of access to the Internet at home: "I am not connected at home so I find it time-consuming after school to prepare lessons." In other cases, access may only be available outside of school at the local library. Newfoundland teachers are provided with ten hours per month of free online access through STEM~Net¹. However, teachers may find such access to be insufficient if they have to use this account for student projects. One teacher explained why she would not use OLEs with her students: "I presently would have to use my own stemnet acct".

¹ STEM~Net is a computer network for professional K-12 educators in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Even within the school, access may be limited: "We can only access the Internet from the resource centre where there are only 4 computers-it is simply a waste of time if you have 25 students wanting to get online. So we direct students to more traditional sources using the internet where possible". One option to limited access might be to send students off to work on their own on the computers either in the computer lab or the resource centre while the teacher continues working with the rest of the class. Such an arrangement may appear practical to some teachers but not to all:

Working independently on the Internet is, for many students, not an option. For younger children, there often is not the freedom to wander in and out of the media center without their teacher. And high school students have one period a day in which to work on their project. If there are computers in the classroom, there's a fighting chance that a few kids at a time can work at the computer, but it is unrealistic to think you can get twenty-five kids through a project without a computer lab and a set time to work on it.

Where access is available, connection speeds may not suit the needs of teachers: "Internet access is somewhat slow difficult in our region as our phone lines seem to be of an antiquated system and the long distance call is a disadvantage also." For some teachers, lack of access to equipment may represent an obstacle to use. The fact that there is "...not always one computer per student" may discourage integration by teachers: "I don’t use it more because in many cases I would prefer for the students to work on individual computers". As one teacher explained, frustrations arise, as well, from having "to work on outdated computers" or from situations where there are "not enough computers in working order". Teachers may respond negatively to arrangements whereby students must work in groups of two or three on one computer: "I just wish I had one computer for each kid, we only have 10 in the lab and they double or triple up on a machine--not too much fun". In some cases, computers may need to be shared among large groups: "I have "dabbled" with the use of the internet in my classroom but found it difficult when there was only one computer for 25 kids in the class and no computer lab in the elementary school".

Lack of access to computer labs represents another perceived obstacle to use of OLEs in teaching. Teachers in this study described how, "all labs are busy" and how "booking the facilities is difficult due to a high demand by other classes". Some described the computer lab as being "too widely used". Lack of access is attributed in some cases to competition with courses such as science and math: "I have to book the computer lab-which is practically in full use with computer science courses." One teacher described the importance of lab access and the challenges faced by language classes in gaining access: "The other issue of lab access is critical, especially in secondary schools. I hear all the time how low on the priority pole language classes are in terms of scheduling lab time. Business, math tech ed. are placed first. As was mentioned by another Credo contributor, we have to accept that students will have to use other means to gain www access, e.g., home computers, libraries."

The issue of reliability of equipment and access is critical in terms of being able to work effectively in online environments. Teachers described how: "all sorts of things go wrong", "the network is a problem because it crashes" and a teacher "could have a lesson planned and the Internet is down for the whole period". Problems with reliability may appear overwhelming at times: "Half the time, all the computers are not up and running. If a kid is lucky enough to find something, then most likely the printer doesn’t work. One hassle after another". For teachers who have planned an entire lesson around use of the Internet, reliability of access is important: "It is sometimes frustrating when you plan and the network is down or you can’t get access". The experience may also appear "frustrating for students who lose site (sic) in the middle of researching due to computer freezing." The frustrations with limited access and unreliability of equipment may relate in part to the belief that teachers have little or no control over the technical problems that might occur when trying to use the Internet:

The limiting factor for me is computer lab time, and reliability of equipment - it is a very common situation to go into the lab and have half the computers not work, or work extremely slowly...I can be flexible about a lot of factors while teaching, but it is more difficult when one feels that the factor is out of one's control to a certain extent. It's tough on the students (as well as the teacher!) when they are expecting an activity-filled, profitable period and they are twiddling their thumbs while I try (mostly without success) to get cranky computers to behave.

In addition to problems related to accessibility and reliability of equipment, there is the problem of speed of access and accessibility of sites. One teacher described how "connections are slow and lots of times the lines are overloaded". In the following excerpt, a teacher describes her experiences with the problem of slow access:

Well, after seeing how others are incorporating the internet into their second language classes, I decided to try a very small project - just to add a little variety to the lesson. I intended to have the grade nine Core students access a site about Celine Dion since the info in their text is outdated (according to the text she is still single, etc.). I just moved to a new school with newer computers than my former school so I figured I was all set! Luckily, I decided to access the site from school before trying it with the class; after a 10 minute wait, the server still had not accessed the site! Imagine if this happened during class with 25 "bored" 14 year olds!

Access may be unpredictable thus forcing teachers to come up with alternate solutions:

Unfortunately you are at the mercy of the server and the time of day. My morning classes bring info up faster than afternoon classes because of user demand at those times. I always have them take their books to the lab so if worse comes to worst, they have an alternate activity to do. Sorry, I can't offer any alternatives. If it's a good class, we usually just sit there and chat until something happens or the bell rings.

Some of the solutions to problems with access may involve use of specialized software and extensive planning:

I have used webwhacking programs (WebWhacker and WebBuddy) to simulate web navigation of one site; this allows limited ability to delve through several layers of a site. This was useful in exploring WWWPals, a site for establishing e-pal and pen-pal contacts world-wide. Students could select their country and individual "on-line", then move to pen and paper, then word-processing to create a letter. I uploaded them myself from one computer. It is often up to the teacher to find sites and on-line resources, download them to paper, develop class activities, save student products on network files or disks and then upload them to the site. Is it ideal? No.

For teachers in France and some parts of Europe, access to OLEs may be made difficult because of the associated costs. As a result of these costs, some teachers may believe that the value of use of OLEs does not measure up to their costs: "....je suis persuadé que deux ou trois profs se lanceront dans cette nouvelle aventure, mais la grande majorité d'entre elles a estimé qu'au prix de l'abonnement et des communications téléphoniques, le jeu n'en valait pas la chandelle".

As the beliefs in this section have generally indicated, lack of access and suitable equipment as well as high costs present numerous challenges to teachers and may, in some cases, discourage use of OLEs. In the next section, beliefs about the need to control and monitor students’ online activities point to other challenges faced by teachers while teaching in online environments.