Can Teacher Awareness, Attitude and Identity Increase Technology Vulnerability?

Can teacher awareness of growing technology demands and skillsets of new teachers increase their vulnerability with school districts? Can teacher attitudes toward learning new technology and use of technology in the classroom increase their vulnerability? Can a teacher’s identity, their perception of their ability to use and understand technology increase their vulnerability? In this 2022 study, 37 teachers and 14 administrators rate their expertise with technology, while identifying vulnerable and marginalized populations, believed to be at risk for use of technology, through survey and semi-structured interview questions. Results indicate 60.7 % (31 of 51) feel comfortable using technology in education settings, 17.6% (9 of 51) believe they are an expert and 35 % (18 of 51) help others. In terms of vulnerability, only 7.8% of participants (4 of 51) believe teachers are vulnerable and 97.7% of participants (43 of 44) believe teachers are encouraged to use technology as part of their classroom practice.


INTRODUCTION
Engaging in self and professional reflection related to the use of technology and teacher beliefs about how this affects their teaching identity is of direct benefit to the community.This study was conducted with the sole purpose of contributing to the development of understanding for teachers, and school boards regarding technology and bring your own device policies.In this 2022 study, 37 teachers and 14 administrators rated their expertise with technology, and noted their age, current position in educational settings, attitudes and beliefs.The study was interested primarily in answering the following questions:

Research of teacher knowledge and use of technology:
• Does a teacher's sense of professional identity relate to their level of comfort with technology?
• Does a teacher's sense of professional identity affect how a teacher understands and interacts with new mandates related to the use of technology?

• In what ways do teachers feel professionally vulnerable when using technology in the classroom?
To achieve this, participants reflected on their teaching practice, use of technology and time spent with personal devices away from school.While the majority of participants were practicing teachers, a handful of administrators also responded to questions related to their own teaching practices, comfort with technology in front of the school community and time with personal devices away from school.Participants were asked to reflect on the following guiding questions: (1) Do teachers use technology in their personal life away from the classroom?(2) If yes, how comfortable do teachers feel using technology in the classroom?(3) In what ways do teachers use technology in the classroom?(4) Do teachers believe that teachers are encouraged to use technology as part of classroom practice?If yes, what are teachers encouraged to do? (5) Have teachers felt uncomfortable using technology in the classroom?(6) Do teachers believe that the use of technology in the classroom is easier for a certain type of teacher?If yes, what is the typology of the technology savvy teacher?What typology of teacher does the participant identify as? (7) Do teachers own a personal laptop?or smart phone?How is personally owned technology different or the same as the laptop provided by the school district?How much time do teachers spend on personal laptops compared to the one provided by the school district?Which laptop personal or school owned do teachers prefer?THEORETICAL POSITIONING For many teachers and administrators, regardless of gender or age, the social context of teaching with technology and teacher identity are driven by individual or cultural motivations.The threat of feeling vulnerable in the classroom can be difficult to address both for administrators and for teachers and school boards.Different positions within school boards relevant to technology from a security perspective carry additional responsibilities and training relevant to the role and often contrast with the goals a teacher or administrator may have in the school or classroom setting.Miller (2021) notes the concept of zero trust as beneficial for the majority of users in most technology settings and places the burden of responsibility on the technology expert, often far removed from the classroom, for the security of the network and information stored on it.

METHODOLOGY
During the months of February and March 2022, participants currently employed in educational settings in the three provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario were asked to complete a background survey that collected demographic information related to identity, age, and attitudes about technology as well as expertise and time spent on devices at work and in their personal lives.Participants were also asked in the background survey to identify vulnerable and marginalized populations from a categorical list (i.e.teachers) and to indicate which categories they believed to be at risk for use of technology (Figure 1).Participants were asked to volunteer to participate in one 45minute semi-structured interview by checking a box to indicate they were volunteering for a follow up interview on the background survey.Interviews ranged from 45 minutes to 60 minutes in length and took place over the phone for teacher participants, with some on Zoom Video Conferencing software or Google Classroom.During the semistructured interview participants were asked to provide greater details to their initial responses on the survey and were provided with a transcript to verify the recorded responses prior to publication.Data collection occurred through the use of an excel spreadsheet that recorded demographic information and produced small amounts of quantitative data in the response to numbers of participants who provided the same response or selected the same categories.
Participants invited to participate in follow up semi-structured interviews were selected based on their background and experience with technology use at school.Due to the timing of the study post COVID a large majority of participants revealed they had undergone extensive training during COVID to put their particular grade or course online and training to use technology to teach and assess student work remotely and to enable the availability of course material for students to access remotely.Data was analyzed based on the answers to the background survey and to the semi-structured interview question responses recorded in the transcript.The researcher provided each participating school district with copies of anonymized data and initial correlation tables shared in the results and appendices section of this paper for their own direct benefit and review.Personally, identifiable information was excluded or concealed to ensure confidentiality.While the study encompasses two ethics protocol aimed at different levels of technology expertise, teacher participants remained within one protocol, and administrators floated between both sometimes answering all available questions regarding both studies, and depending on expertise in technology and current position selecting the most appropriate research questions to respond to.All participants submitted responses to the background survey and these results point to interesting discussions at the end of this paper.

RESULTS
A more comprehensive data Of the male participants that responded 5 participants self-assessed their technology expertise at "I am still learning", this was echoed by the female participants with a total of 5 participants self-assessed their technology expertise at the same level.However, in the category of "I have more to learn" only 2 male participants selfassessed their technology expertise at this stage while 18 female participants felt they still had more to learn.In education settings, 25 female participants felt comfortable using technology but only 3 female participants felt like experts and of interest 13 of the female participants help others to use technology.This is contrasted by 6 male participants who feel comfortable using technology in education settings, 5 male participants that identify as an expert and 4 male participants that help others to use technology.Of the teacher participants that responded 7 participants self-assessed their technology expertise at "I am still learning", while only 3 administrative participants self-assessed their technology expertise at the same level.However, in the category of "I have more to learn" 19 teacher participants self-assessed their technology expertise at this stage while 3 administrator participants felt they still had more to learn.In education settings, 25 teacher participants felt comfortable using technology but only 5 teacher participants felt like experts and of interest 14 of the teacher participants help others to use technology.This is contrasted by 6 administrative participants who feel comfortable using technology in education settings, 4 administrative participants that identify as an expert and 4 administrative participants that help others to use technology.

TABLE 1 -
table has been made available for review (10.31124/advance.20154749)and verification of results.Initial demographic data revealed 16 males, 33 females and 2 undisclosed participants completed the study of which 34 participants were aged in the category of 40 plus and 14 participants in the age category of 35-39 and 3 participants in the 25-29 age category.GENDER AND AGE CATEGORY Of the 16 male participants, 5 were teachers and 11 were administrators.Of the 33 female participants, 30 were teachers and 3 were administrators.Both participants that remained undisclosed were teachers during the study.In comparison, the 14 participants who stated their current position as administrator were represented by 1 participant in the 25-29 age category, 5 in the 35-39 age category and 8 in the 40 plus age category.

TABLE 5 -
RATE YOUR EXPERTISE AND CURRENT POSITIONOf the "40 plus" age category of participants that responded 8 participants self-assessed their technology expertise at "I am still learning", while only 2 of the "35-39" age category of participants self-assessed their technology expertise at the same level.However, in the category of "I have more to learn" and 17 of the "40 plus" age category of participants self-assessed their technology expertise at this stage while 5 of the "35-39" age category of participants felt they still had more to learn.In education settings, 23 of the "40 plus" age category of participants felt comfortable using technology but only 6 of the "35-39" age category of participants felt comfortable using technology and also felt like experts compared to only 3 of the "40 plus" age group of participants that felt like experts.Also of interest was the 13 "40 plus" age group of participants that help others to use technology. https://analytics.gonzaga.edu/corrmatengine/