constraints

When the student teachers were asked what helped them use a VLE in their placement schools, they suggested that expectations (such as schools' existing practices and pupils past experiences) and their personal use of VLEs in their first degree and while at Warwick were contributory factors. The attitude of management both at senior and departmental levels towards the implementation of the platform and the availability of training or support on the school system were important. Although many VLEs offer a variety of facilities many schools do not take full advantage of what is on offer and some of the facilities may be disabled as staff feel that learners might not use them in the intended way such as deviating from the set task, misusing email. Some schools overcome these potential difficulties by having a dedicated learning platform manager who moderates materials, including pictures, which have been submitted for uploading.

Our student teachers had access to computers in almost every lesson and the take up of the VLE was highest among specialist ICT teachers, but others found it difficult to set up projects. In two cases they could not even be provided with a log in. Typical constraints were:

access: student teachers needed to book ICT rooms and could not go seamlessly from everyday teaching to demonstrating the learning platform. The VLE needed to be like the IWB – just taken for granted. Some were worried about the 'digital divide', learners without home access to ICT and felt this might disadvantage some students

time: in the face of some many other demands there was no time to learn how to use the system and understand the technical demands, the short term cost might not lead to long term saving of time particularly if the VLE was different in a new school.

‘pedagogy’: teachers needed to feel sure about value of the VLE or would not use it.

assessment: some worried that pupils may not feel happy with online feedback and had concerns over the ease of plagiarism particularly borrowing from other pupils.

e–safety: most were very worried about the monitoring of forums.

interface: some thought the VLE looked clunky and fell short of Facebook and other software of choice for young people, VLEs are often unneccessarily difficult to use!

giving feedback: in developing quizzes for students to complete, the teacher then has the ability to mark the work on line. However, being unable to give feedback on the submitted answers has been identified as a desirable feature that is not there.

Within schools other very real constraints are:

learning to use the learning platform and its facilities: this has a time implication - how much support are the schools willing to afford to enable the teachers to become confident and competent in their use? In some schools there is a person with special responsibility for the learning platform who is able to monitor its use (by staff and students) and provide support, they have key role in supporting the student teacher.

time taken to design and implement ideas: facilities such as quizzes and forums need time to be designed; some existing files can be uploaded quite quickly others only with difficulty.

'good housekeeping' of files: once material is uploaded it needs to be accessible and relevant and updated, otherwise the learning platform becomes a depository for out of date files

In summary we found student teachers encountered constraints concerning school/department ethos, hardware and software problems.

School/department	Hardware	Software
Staff set in their ways	Hardware system too slow	Access blocked – full or some facilities
Too many other demands – not a priority	Lack of technical support	Software clumsy
Overload on one person	Number of machines that work/available	School changing platform, staff still to have training
No enthusiast in department/school		Registration of pupils
Time – deadlines take priority		Pupil’s have lost passwords
E-safety concerns		Internet access speed
New curriculum being introduced, staff priorities changing