Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a way of understanding the resistance shown by teachers to the adoption of some educational technologies. Design/methodology/approach – The Wookie Widget Server is taken as a case study. This has been a long-term development project at the Institute for Educational Cybernetics, located at the University of Bolton, and has been used with teachers in a number of implementations. The efforts to enhance teachers’ adoption of the system are outlined, and an explanatory framework is proposed called “MegaTech and MiniTech” which clarifies the reasons for teachers’ resistance to adoption. Findings – The explanatory framework combines theoretical approaches from Harre’s positioning theory, Heidegger’s concept of “to hand” and Popper’s utopian and piecemeal social engineering. Application of this framework indicates that in deploying the Wookie Widget Server with teachers the researchers were adopting a position of power in relation to teachers. The nature of this p...
Published Version
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