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Weaving the Web into biology teaching
Source: BioScience, Vol. 49, No. 9 (September 1999), pp. 733-
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Education
Weaving the Web into biology teaching
The World Wide Web has rapidly become part of the edu-
cational landscape. Students
typically love it: it is new, it is fun to
use, it is graphically and interac-
tively rich, and it affords access to
many types of information, academic
and otherwise. Most of today's stu-
dents arrive at college already hav-
ing some experience with the Web,
and some are adept at Web page
design and construction. Many stu-
dents turn to the Web rather than the
library to search for information.
On nearly every college campus, edu-
cators are incorporating one or more
Web-based uses into their courses.
Yet for several reasons, the Web has
not yet become an integral part of

the teaching process.
Among these reasons is that Web
technology is too new, and too rap-
idly evolving, for most biologists to
have had time to explore possible
teaching applications. The time re-
quired to develop useful Web appli-
cations and procedures has proven a
substantial barrier to many faculty
members already stretched thin with
time commitments. In addition, po-
tentially useful educational material
available on the Web, although abun-
dant, is disorganized, generally short-
lived, and often difficult to authenti-
cate. Finally, it has taken some time
for teachers who are "early adopt-
ers" of the Web to explore the land-
scape of possibilities and develop
interesting models of possible appli-
cations. Many educators are still
waiting to be convinced that the Web
offers ways of significantly improv-
ing the teaching process beyond what
they currently do.
Fortunately, most of these barri-
ers to using the Web in teaching are
diminishing or disappearing. Most
academic institutions now have a
substantial and growing investment
in Internet-linked computers, for
both faculty and student use. Many
off-campus students have computers

and Internet connections. The time
and energy required to develop Web
materials is considerably lessened by
new software packages that provide
tools for creating extensive Web sites.
Biologically interesting teaching
ideas and applications available on
the Web are multiplying rapidly, and
pioneering educators have demon-
strated a number of pedagogically
useful applications of the Web.
My goal in this article is twofold:
to discuss current ways of using and
producing documents on the Web,
and to survey a variety of uses of the
Web for teaching in the biological
sciences. All citations from this ar-
ticle are listed on a Web page where
citations are hypertext links (Terry
1999a).
The Web: What is it and how
does one use it?
The Web is a collection of computer
documents authored by individuals
and institutions and made available
on computer servers that are linked
to the Internet 24 hours a day. A
recent survey estimated that there
are currently over 320 million Web
pages, not counting the millions of
Web pages hidden behind passwords
or other barriers, and the number is
growing rapidly (Treese 1998). The

Web should not be confused with the
Internet itself; the latter refers to the
interconnected network of comput-
ers that are configured to exchange
data by a common set of network
protocols. The Web is just one for-
mat for such information, whose vi-
sual metaphor is a page with text,
images, and links. Other common
formats, such as e-mail, FTP (File
Transfer Protocol), and Telnet, al-
low Internet transmission of informa-
tion but do not produce Web pages.
The Web's page format is easy to
use, and even computer-phobic stu-
dents rapidly master basic techniques
such as entering a URL (Uniform
Resource Locator; the unique ad-
dress for each Web page) and follow-
ing hypertext links (highlighted text
that transports the user to new Web
pages when clicked). I introduce the
Web during the first lecture of every
new course with a short demonstra-
tion on how to type in a URL, how to
recognize and navigate a hypertext
link, how to bookmark a page, how
to navigate forward and backward
after a series of pages have been
visited, and how to save or print
Web pages. With rare exceptions,
this 5-minute "crash course" is all
the training students say they seem
to need to become comfortable with
basic Web usage, except for more

complicated tasks, such as searching
for information and creating Web
pages.
Advantages and disadvantages
of using the Web in education
The Web is the easiest and most
platform independent medium for
Internet communication; users of
Windows, Macintosh, or Unix oper-
ating systems see essentially the same
Web pages with similar multimedia
effects, no matter which type of ma-
chine the pages were produced or
served on. Web browsers and plug-
ins (specialized software that extends
browser capabilities) are free of cost
for noncommercial users, as is much
of the software that augments Web
capabilities. Information, once
posted, is immediately and globally
available to anyone linked to the
Internet, although in some cases a
password is needed for access.
For educators, posting material
on the Web eliminates many prob-
lems associated with producing, dis-
tributing, and archiving paper cop- by Thomas M. Terry
September 1999 733
University of California Press
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BioScience
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2016 05:41:45 UTC
ies. For example, I post extensive
Web documents, such as lecture notes
or practice exams, that I would never
undertake to print and distribute to
a class of 300 students because of the
expense and trouble involved. When
I produce handout materials, I rou-
tinely convert them to Web docu-
ments for the benefit of absent stu-
dents. If a student asks for a copy of
last week's handout, I reply, "It's on
the Web" instead of trying to find a
paper copy. I no longer archive pa-
per copies, except for copyrighted
material that I can distribute in pa-
per under "fair use" guidelines but
cannot post on the Web.
Another benefit of the Web is the
ability to use color, which adds vi-
sual impact and interest to most docu-
ments in the form of either colored
text or color graphics. Color pages

or transparencies are expensive to
produce, typically around a dollar
per page for good-quality reproduc-
tion. By contrast, adding color to
Web pages costs nothing and adds
little to the electronic size of the page
if the graphics are kept small. Rela-
tively simple colored graphics can be
produced in minutes and used to
illustrate important concepts, or links
can be set to relevant images from
the enormous collections now avail-
able on the Web. The costs of obtain-
ing printed copies of these ancillary
materials are shifted from instructor
to student. Although it may seem
unfair for students to bear this ex-
pense, it is important to recognize
that the information itself is being
provided to students for free, and in
greater quantity and quality than
would be possible without the Web.
Students have many inexpensive op-
tions to obtain such materials, in-
cluding using the materials online,
saving them to disk for use on their
own computers, or printing them
with a variety of print options rang-
ing from inexpensive, low-quality
black and white to high-resolution
color.
A potential drawback of the Web
is that it lacks the stability of print,
in which documents cited do not
change. This stability, of course,

comes at a price: Upgrading infor-
mation is expensive and time con-
suming, and many books and ar-
ticles lose relevance and accuracy
over time. By contrast, Web pages
can be revised with such ease that
citation of Web pages is often prob-
lematic. It is therefore good practice
to list a revision date on every Web
page. A related problem is that some
Web resources disappear, usually
without explanation. The owner may
have discarded them to gain space
for more recent materials, a file di-
rectory may have been reorganized
for greater efficiency, or a server
may have been replaced by a new
one with a different Internet address.
In those cases in which a Web page
has been moved to a different loca-
tion within the same server, it can
often be located by trial and error
after truncating the URL. As a ficti-
tious example, imagine that the URL
"http://www.bio.org/images/-
ecoli.html," which formerly accessed
a Web page about Escherichia coli,
no longer worked. Deleting the last
term would yield the URL "http://
www.bio.org/images/," and after
pressing the "enter" key, the browser
might reveal a directory of image
files in which an additional folder
called "bacteria" had been added.

Clicking this term would yield a list
of bacteria, including E. coli, and a
new URL, "http://www.bio.org/im-
ages/bacteria/ecoli.html." In other
cases, the material may be available
at a different URL entirely that can
be found with a search engine.
Another disadvantage of the Web's
use in education is the occasional
fallibility of all technological devices,
including computers, Web servers,
Internet access, and projection equip-
ment. When any one of these devices
fails, the entire Web or a particular
Web site is at least temporarily un-
available, forcing unexpected alter-
ations in delivery or study of course
content. It is wise for teachers to
arrive early for any class involving
Web use so that the connection can
be tested. If a problem is found, local
support personnel may be able to fix
the problem in short order, or there
may be time to return to one's office
for transparencies, slides, or other,
more traditional visual aids. Yet an-
other disadvantage is that some us-
ers find it difficult to read text from
a computer screen, preferring printed
materials for extensive reading. Fi-
nally, using the Web is expensive,
requiring computer and networking
infrastructure as well as provisions
for service and upgrades. Not all

students have ready access to this
infrastructure, and cost is a barrier
to some. However, access is becom-
ing less of a problem every year as
computers and Internet connections
become more affordable and as col-
leges and universities expand the
number of Internet workstations.
Tools for producing
Web documents
Web browsers are software products
that interpret appropriate data to
display Web pages. The major brows-
ers today are Netscape Navigator
and Microsoft's Internet Explorer,
both of which are free to educators
and students (CNET 1999). Web
pages are prepared in hypertext
markup language (HTML), a rela-
tively simple coding language in
which tags are used to create Web
page content. For example, inserting
the <P> tag creates a paragraph
break, and surrounding a word with
the <I> and </I> tags creates italics.
Most Web page creators will not
need to learn HTML, however, be-
cause there are many commercial
software packages that allow users
to create HTML documents without
having to learn the mechanics.
Some of these programs, such as
Adobe PageMill, Claris HomePage,
and Microsoft HomePage, offer

WYSIWYG ("what you see is what
you get") interfaces similar to those
of word processing software; the user
arranges elements as desired on the
page, and the software generates the
corresponding HTML code on a
separate page. A good Web source
for all such software (including
freeware, shareware, and demonstra-
tion versions of commercial software)
is TuCows (1999), one of the most
comprehensive Web sources of
Internet-related software. Recent
versions of Netscape and Microsoft
browser software include tools for
creating and editing Web pages, al-
though they are not as fully featured
as the programs described above.
Once Web pages have been cre-
ated, they need to be posted on a
server, a computer equipped with
special software to serve pages over
the Internet. It is possible to use
one's own desktop computer as a
server, but doing so requires leaving
734 BioScience Vol. 49 No. 9
2016 05:41:45 UTC

it turned on day and night and may
result in some slowing of other work
as external users access Web files. A
more common scenario is to obtain
an account on a college or university
server, which usually provides a siz-
able amount of storage space free of
charge for course materials. Most
institutions allow teachers to trans-
fer files directly to their own server
account, which makes it easy to up-
date and add files on a day-by-day
basis. Servers can usually be accessed
over a campus network, and local
computer support personnel should
be able to answer questions about
such connections. Files can also be
transferred to server accounts by FTP
software, available from TuCows
(1999). It is advisable to maintain
up-to-date copies of course files both
on one's own computer and on a
server. Most commercial Web pro-
grams, such as those mentioned
above, will automatically update
server files whenever local files are
updated, once Web authoring soft-
ware has been configured with the
appropriate server address.
Recently, a number of integrated
"Web construction kits" have be-
come commercially available, as have
commercial services that handle all
aspects of Website management. Such
collections of software tools facili-

tate the creation of sophisticated
Web-based educational environ-
ments by nontechnical users. Tem-
plates are available to create an en-
tire online course, including quizzing
features, bulletin boards, server ac-
counts, lecture notes, course e-mail,
and threaded discussions in which
students can maintain an electronic
dialogue on a topic. Instructors can
select any set of materials as desired
to supplement a course and can even
develop entirely online courses. Such
integrated software suites make the
task of creating new Web course
materials relatively easy, and a num-
ber of colleges and universities have
purchased site licenses or provide
other fee arrangements to allow wide-
spread faculty use. Gray (1998) has
recently reviewed and compared fea-
tures for a number of these tools,
such as Web Course in a Box (Mad
Duck Technologies 1999) and Web
Course Tools (WebCT 1999). Gray's
article contains complete URLs for
all software reviewed.
For those who want to manipu-
late HTML code more directly or
inexpensively, HTML editors such
as HotDog for Windows or
PageSpinner for Macintosh allow
users to highlight text, choose items
from a menu of selections, and let
the software generate appropriate

HTML code (TuCows 1999). Out-
put from word processing software
can be converted to HTML in a single
operation. This is a convenient way
to turn lecture notes, study guides,
or other lengthy documents into Web
documents, preserving formatting
such as tables, headers, and even
graphics. Word processing software
such as Microsoft Word and Word-
Perfect include HTML export op-
tions. An alternative is to first save a
document as Rich Text Format (RTF)
and then use the shareware product
RTF-to-HTML Converter to turn this
into HTML (RTF 1999). This con-
verter offers many options and often
produces results superior to saving a
word processing file as HTML di-
rectly. In either case, results of HTML
conversions are not always what one
wants, and it is sometimes necessary
to "tweak" the resulting document
to improve appearance. For example,
a common problem is too much or
too little "white space," resulting in
text that is too separated from other
text or too crammed together. The
paragraph tag produces one blank
line, but repeated paragraph tags are
ignored, as are extra blank spaces
entered with space or return keys
from a computer keyboard. Extra
blank lines can be added by repeat-
ing the line break tag; for example,
<BR> produces three blank lines. If

these commands are insufficient,
other HTML tags can be learned
easily from a number of free Web-
based HTML tutorials (Yahoo!
1999a).
It is also possible to borrow HTML
formatting from any page on the
Web by using the browser's "View"
menu to open "Document Source"
(Netscape Navigator) or "Source"
(Internet Explorer). This action will
open a document containing com-
plete HTML tags and text. It is often
possible to find tags that create a
certain effect one would like to du-
plicate, such as the use of color in
certain lines of a table or tags that
automatically update a page's revi-
sion date. These tags and their em-
bedded text can be copied, pasted
into one's own document, and modi-
fied to suit individual needs. As long
as such borrowing is limited to re-
producing the tags needed to achieve
a certain format and does not in-
volve reproduction of text or graph-
ics authored by another, it is accept-
able and common practice and not a
violation of copyright.
Some strategies for using the
Web in biology education
Instructors will find many ways to
use the Web in biology teaching.

Students can be provided with Web-
based resources created or selected
by the instructor for use outside of
class. If appropriate computer and
projection facilities are available,
Web materials can be presented in
class or laboratory settings. Some
instructors have developed distance
education courses entirely on the
Web. My own Web usage began with
the limited goal of providing a few
supplementary materials to help stu-
dents study and has grown steadily
every semester. I now use the Web to
provide a rich variety of assigned and
supplementary materials as well as
to present certain materials directly
in the classroom. I describe some of
these activities below. Instructors
who use the Web will undoubtedly
discover other applications.
Assign students to visit Web sites
chosen by the instructor. The sim-
plest way to add Internet materials
to biology teaching is to find useful
Web sites and assign students the
task of visiting them. There are thou-
sands of sites with interesting and
appropriate materials to supplement
courses, including image collections
of organisms, ranging from viruses
to plants and animals; sequenced
genomes; databases of biomolecular
structures, ranging from small mol-
ecules to proteins and nucleic acids;

course materials posted by other in-
structors; online scientific publica-
tions, ranging from Discovery and
Scientific American to professional
journals; and much more. One way
to find such sites is by topic searches,
using some of the Web sites listed in
Table 1 as starting points or using
keyword searches for specific topics.
September 1999 735
2016 05:41:45 UTC
Table 1. Selected Web pages for searches by subject.
Page name (reference to URL) Content Host
Biological Sciences Resources Extensive links Maintained by
William D. Graziadei, State
(Graziadei 1998) University of New York at Plattsburgh,
Plattsburgh, NY
CSU BioWeb (Wolf 1999) Extensive links in many subject areas
Maintained by Steven J. Wolf, California State
University-Stanislaus, Stanislaus, CA
Estrella Mountain Community Useful links for general biology
Compiled by M. J. Farabee and students at
College Biology Internet Resources Estrella Mountain
Community College,

(Farabee 1997) Avondale, AZ
Britannica (Encyclopedia Britannica, Links (found by
navigating to Commercial site
Inc. 1999) "Science," then "Biology") are
carefully selected and reviewed for
accuracy, relevance, and currency
SciCentral (SciCentral 1999) Links to over 50,000 sites
Commercial site, maintained by scientists
Science Web Sites (Science Ranks selected science Web sites as
Sponsored by MCI WorldCom and the
NetLinks 1999) "Super sites" or "Approved sites"; American
Association for the Advancement
links each site with a one-page review of Science
Yahoo! Biology (Yahoo! 1999c) Links selected for accuracy and
Commercial site
high quality; frequently updated
Another way is to look at materials
that other instructors are using. The
World Lecture Hall contains links to
pages created by faculty worldwide
who are using the Web in their teach-
ing and whose materials are not
blocked by password or domain pro-
tection (WLH 1999).
Some Web sites promote interac-
tive experiences. For example, the
"Virtual Fly Lab" directs students to
breed pairs of mutant fruit flies of
their choosing, observe statistically
large populations of virtual F1 and

F2 generation offspring, and attempt
to identify the genotypes of parental
strains (Desharnais 1997). The "Vir-
tual Immunology Lab" allows stu-
dents to simulate an ELISA assay
exactly as it is carried out in lab,
including animated pipetting, cen-
trifugation, and incubation steps
(HHMI 1999). The "JavaScript
SEM" allows students to simulate
operating a scanning electron micro-
scope, selecting from a variety of
samples, changing magnifications,
and even activating a simulated
vacuum pump (Kunkel 1997).
Students' experiences with the
Web can be enhanced by creating a
list of questions to be answered. For
example, when I assign students to
visit the Web site of The Institute for
Genome Research (TIGR 1999), a
database containing many genome
sequences, I provide a handout with
the URL of the Web page for Myco-
plasma genitalium, the bacterium
with the smallest known genome.
Students must explore the genome to
find such items as the smallest and
largest gene, the total number of
genes, the number of genes involved
in protein biosynthesis, and the DNA
and polypeptide sequence for a given
gene. Such tasks involve students in
a process of exploration and discov-

ery and give them some basic famil-
iarity with the contents of a genome
database. Students often come back
from such assignments with ques-
tions that show a new awareness of
issues related to genomes. Similar
kinds of handouts could be used for
visits to many instructor-selected
Web sites. In fact, some biology text-
books have associated Web sites with
practice questions that can be e-
mailed directly to the instructor as
proof of visit. Such feedback is help-
ful to measure student activity and
work on the Web.
Because producing a quality Web
site is expensive, it is not surprising
that some Web sites charge fees to
cover their costs, raising difficulties
with access while making higher
quality materials possible. Some
online journals, such as Science and
Nature, are available only by sub-
scription at rates that are too high
for the average student. Some com-
mercial Web sites, such as The Biol-
ogy Place, are oriented specifically
toward introductory biology stu-
dents, providing an extensive and
growing collection of interactive ex-
ercises with well-designed content
and graphics (TBP 1999). Student
subscriptions to The Biology Place
are often bundled with the purchase

of certain textbooks or are inexpen-
sively priced for semester use. Free
access is available for a week's use,
allowing biology educators to ex-
plore this collection of resources at
no charge. Despite the cost, certain
subscription sites may be valuable
enough to include as required or
supplementary resources for biology
courses.
Assign students to search the Web
for specific information. As the Web
grows in content, variety, and popu-
larity, students increasingly attempt
to use it as a research tool. The
temptation is obvious: Search en-
gines seem to hold the promise of
immediate access to limitless infor-
mation simply by typing a topic into
the search window. All too fre-
quently, however, such searches gen-
erate thousands of references to in-
formation that is useless for the
standards of an academic assignment.
I have seen more frustration from
students assigned to research a topic
on the Web than from any other
academic assignment, usually be-
cause the student had little or no
training in either good search tech-
niques or the evaluation of relevance
and quality. It is possible, with a few
carefully chosen training exercises,
to reduce this frustration and to cre-
ate useful and interesting activities

in which students search for biologi-
cal information on the Web.
One helpful practice is to develop
short training exercises in Web search
strategies. The first task I often as-
2016 05:41:45 UTC
sign my students is to go to Yahoo!
(1999b) and find, within the Yahoo!
site, a link to a tutorial on how to
conduct a Web search. Yahoo! pre-
sents information in a hierarchically
structured manner, and I suggest to
students that they follow the follow-
ing path: main index-Computers &
Internet-Internet-Searching the Net-
World Wide Web-How to Search
the Web. This path leads the stu-
dents to a Web page with many tuto-
rials to choose from and also gives
them firsthand experience in using a
hierarchical search as an alternative
to a keyword search. They must then
submit a one-page report including
the URL and their own summary of
what they learned by reading the
tutorial. Once they have submitted

their report, they are given a second
task, to use a search engine to find
five good Web resources for a spe-
cific topic, such as food poisoning by
Campylobacter or global incidence
of filariasis. Students compare their
search results and problems encoun-
tered during the next class. These
tasks help develop useful search skills
and lead to more productive use of
the Web for subsequent biology
searches.
Along with developing good
search skills, students also need train-
ing in how to evaluate the quality of
Web information. Many good Web
tutorials (often written by librarians)
provide ideas for how to assess qual-
ity. For example, Grassian (1998)
provides a number of important ques-
tions that focus attention on quality,
such as identifying the audience, as-
sessing the accuracy and complete-
ness of the information and links
provided, comparing the Web site to
other resources, and assessing the
date(s) of material covered. Once
students are engaged in Web searches,
I require them to read an article on
assessing quality and to write a short
"quality assessment" for each Web
reference they cite. It may also be
useful to limit allowable Web cita-
tions to those published by periodicals
or journals, scientific organizations,

college or university collections, or
other reputable sources. Other re-
sources that evaluate the quality of
Web information include Good
(1997), Stegall (1997), Tillman
(1997), and Grassian (1998).
Once students have acquired some
basic skills in searching and evaluat-
ing the quality of information on the
Web, they can pursue a variety of
interesting assignments using Web
resources. For example, one semes-
ter I assigned student teams the task
of researching different aspects of
tuberculosis (TB). Among other
projects, one team explored the pa-
thology of lung infections and an-
other explored the global epidemiol-
ogy of TB. Each team was required
to cite at least three print references
and at least three relevant Web refer-
ences. The pathology team found an
excellent collection of images show-
ing many stages of lung pathology-
including images of TB far superior
to those in any of our textbooks-at
a medical school Web site. The glo-
bal epidemiology team explored the
World Health Organization's Web
pages and was able to find current
statistics of TB prevalence in differ-
ent parts of the world. Feedback on
this exercise was very positive, and
many students commented on the

high interest level of finding and
using such authoritative resources.
Instructors should have no difficulty
choosing research topics in any area
of biology for which Web resources
can enhance and stimulate interest
and learning.
Creating one's own course materi-
als. Most instructors who use the
Web will want to create some of
their own Web materials, even if
only a page of links. I list a number
of Web course materials below; for
examples, see one or more of my
online courses (Terry 1999b).
A "home page." This term is fre-
quently misused to refer to an entire
Web site consisting of many pages; a
better term for the entry-level Web
page is "index page." Although this
page can be a long, scrolling docu-
ment, it is better kept short, with a
list of links, an image map, or frames
that allow students to navigate to
desired pages within the instructor's
Web site or to important pages out-
side the site. Actual content should
be restricted to other Web pages,
which might include any or all of the
following materials.
Basic course handouts. It is easy
to turn syllabi, study guides, lecture
and laboratory schedules, and other

standard handouts into HTML docu-
ments by the methods already de-
scribed and to include links to these
documents from an index page. This
approach obviates the need to find
extra copies of handouts later in the
semester for occasional students who
missed class or lost a copy. This
approach also makes it possible to
update a lecture syllabus that often
deviates from the version printed at
the beginning of the semester and to
add new material, such as links to
interesting Web sites that were not
known when the syllabus was printed.
An announcement page. Informa-
tion about exams, makeup exams,
review sessions, special lectures, and
similar matters is usually written on
the board at the beginning of class
and often erased, and it is therefore
frequently missed by latecomers or
absentees. Once students learn that
this information is always available
on the Web, most will use it. It is also
possible to update information out-
side of class time, such as, for ex-
ample, when an instructor announces
a special review or class session but
has not yet reserved the room.
Practice quizzes or exams. One of
many factors contributing to poor
student performance is insufficient

preparation for the appropriate level
of exam questions. It is easy to con-
vert an old exam into a Web docu-
ment, or, better still, to convert a
practice exam into an interactive for-
mat so that students can select an-
swers and be graded instantly by the
computer. Integrated Web software
suites typically include such features
(Gray 1998). Alternatively, univer-
sity computer centers often have stu-
dent or staff workers who can be
asked to create an interactive exam
format with instructions for Web
users (see DePalma 1999). Figure 1
provides an example of an interac-
tive Web quiz (Terry 1998). The "X"
tells the student immediately that
one answer was incorrect, but it does
not reveal the correct answer, thus
inviting further thought rather than
the mechanical copying of an answer
key. In my experience, student reac-
tion to such interactive practice tests
is overwhelmingly positive.
Instructor's lecture notes or out-
lines. There are many good reasons
for making these notes available to
students. One of the goals of biology
instructors is to convey relevant, up-
September 1999 737
2016 05:41:45 UTC

20) One of the major functions of rough endoplasmic reticulum
is
0 a. synthesis of phospholipids
Q b. synthesis of steroids
f c. synthesis of secretory proteins
O d. synthesis of cytoplasmic proteins
0 e. all of the above
21) In eucaryotes. ribosomes are synthesized in/on:
O a. the nucleolus
O b. the cytosol
X @ c. rough endoplasmic reticulum
O d. smooth endoplasmic reticulum
O e. mitochondria
This quiz had 27 question(s),
You answered 2 question(s).
You correctly answered 1 of 2 computer-correctable
question(s).,
scoring 50% correct.
Figure 1. Sample questions from a computer-scored interactive
practice exam used
in introductory biology (Terry 1998). The instructor creates a

text file that assigns
values to different variables. The source code is a perl script,
which creates a quiz
when the Web page is opened by the user (DePalma 1999).
to-date information with appropri-
ate examples and organization. In
their notes, students commonly fail
to transcribe accurate or even mod-
estly complete information. Even the
best students miss an occasional class
due to excusable circumstances-
why should we not ensure that they
have the best-quality information,
instead of relying on questionable
notes from other students? Many
students have commented to me that
having lecture notes available on the
Web allowed them to pay more at-
tention to lectures without worrying
about the need to transcribe every
detail, and this feature is always rated
highly in student evaluations.
Nevertheless, the concept of post-
ing lecture notes excites more con-
troversy than any other use of the
Web in teaching. Many instructors
wonder why students would con-
tinue to come to class if they could
obtain lecture notes on the Web, and
in truth some students do abuse the
availability of posted lecture notes.
In my experience, most biology ma-
jors and more mature students rarely

miss a class, whereas a substantial
number of nonmajors and freshmen
are likely to decrease their frequency
of attendance when Web notes are
posted. Much depends on the way an
instructor uses a lecture period. If
the instructor reads lecture notes in
class word for word, the incentive to
attend class will indeed be reduced.
If the class includes a variety of ac-
tivities and materials not available
on the Web, however, attendance is
less likely to suffer. Or, instructors
might post only outlines, leaving at
least some of the specific content to
be filled in during class as an incen-
tive for attendance.
Graphic supplements. Many
graphic images are available for class-
room presentation, including slides,
transparencies, CD-ROM images,
laserdisks, and videos. One disad-
vantage to these materials is that,
once the presentation is over, they
are not usually available for students
to review. The Web is becoming
richly endowed with collections of
biologically useful images in a vari-
ety of forms: electron micrographs,
color photographs, line drawings,
and animations or short digital vid-
eos. It is often possible to find Web-
based graphics that are as appropri-
ate for classroom use as the

traditional media, with the added
advantage that students can access
them as desired for further study.
Any Web image can be down-
loaded by holding the mouse button
down (right button in Windows) and
selecting "Save this image" from the
pop-up menu that appears. To use
such images on a local Web site,
permission should be obtained from
the copyright holder. Many image
owners will allow posting of their im-
ages on educational sites, usually in
return for setting a link or an ac-
knowledgment. Alternatively, images
can simply be linked from one's own
Web pages. This practice is especially
useful for lecture notes, which most
students will print for use in studying,
and to which images add signifi-
cantly to printing time and cost.
Instructors should also consider
constructing their own graphics, us-
ing one of the many commercial
graphics programs. With a little prac-
tice, colored images can be quickly
and easily developed to illustrate
many biological concepts. Photo-
graphs can be digitized by scanning,
by commercial processors, or by us-
ing a digital camera. Graphics posted
on the Web need to be compressed in
GIF format (used for drawings with
limited numbers of colors) or JPEG

format (used for photographs and
images with continuous variation).
If a graphics program does not save
directly to these formats, freely avail-
able conversion programs will create
them easily (TuCows 1999). If per-
mission is granted to use images from
a CD-ROM or another source on the
Web for local, but not global, use,
local computer personnel should be
able to set up a Web site with pass-
word restriction or local domain limi-
tation to avoid copyright violation.
Animations. Understanding of
many biological processes can be
enhanced by simple animations. The
simplest type of animations, ani-
mated GIFs, can be created using
free software such as GifBuilder
(Macintosh) or shareware such as GIF
Movie Gear (Windows), which con-
2016 05:41:45 UTC
vert a series of images into a single
animated file (TuCows 1999). This
software makes it possible to change
the interframe delay for each frame,

cause the animation to loop back to
the beginning or end after one or a
few cycles, and much more. Showing
such animations does not require
additional software; most Web
browsers support the GIF89a for-
mat that makes these animations vis-
ible. Anyone with even modest abili-
ties to work with simple graphics
can create such animations. I have
found it relatively easy to create ani-
mations to illustrate, for example,
how electrons pass along the mito-
chondrial membrane while protons
are translocated across the membrane
during cell respiration, as shown in
Figure 2 (Terry 1997).
More complicated animations,
with smoother transitions, sound
effects, and even interactivity can be
created using commercial programs
such as Macromedia Director, a
multimedia animation program for
creating animated movies and pre-
sentations (Macromedia 1999a).
These animations can be exported as
Shockwave animations, which are
visible on the Web once the free
Shockwave plug-in is installed in the
browser's plug-in folder (Macro-
media 1999b). A good example of a
sophisticated Shockwave animation
is "Polymerase Chain Reaction (All
Cycles)" produced by the DNA
Learning Center (1999).

Links to short videos. A short
movie is one of the surest ways to
capture student interest. Unfortu-
nately, the Web is not an ideal for-
mat for movies because even small
movies require significant download
time, especially with a modem con-
nection. Streaming video technology,
in which initial segments of a movie
are displayed while later segments
are still being transmitted, makes
access much faster, although the
quality of images often suffers at
modem transmission speeds. Plug-
ins such as the free QuickTime plug-
in (TuCows 1999) and the Vivo-
Active plug-in (Vivo Software, Inc.
1999) are required to display video
and streaming video, respectively,
on a Web browser. A number of
short movies are available in many
areas of biology, and these can add
interest to both lecture presentations
Figure 2. One frame
from a 24-frame ani-
mation of electron
transport in mitochon-
dria (Terry 1997). Im-
ages for such anima-
tions can be created in
any graphics program.
To create this anima-
tion, all background
elements were grouped

as a single image, and
movable elements were
dragged to slightly dif-
ferent positions to cre-
ate different frames.
Each frame was then
copied to GifBuilder, free software that merges many single
images into an anima-
tion (available from TuCows 1999). Such animations take little
time to prepare and
are effective in teaching dynamic biological processes.
proton. electron,
NAD
H20 H20
and student study. Some examples
are listed in Table 2.
Use of Chime to view molecular
data files. Chime is a free Web
browser plug-in that allows users to
view molecular data files as interac-
tive images (MDL Information Sys-
tems, Inc. 1999). Users can rotate
these images in space, expand or
shrink them, and view them in dif-
ferent ways (e.g., as space-filling
models or wire frame views). Among
the images that can be viewed in this
way are those in the National Insti-
tutes of Health's "PDB at a glance"
database, which allows convenient
access to protein database (PDB) files

for many proteins, nucleic acids, and
other large molecules (NIH 1999b).
Hundreds of PDB files for smaller
molecules are available from Klotho
(1999). Students are often excited
and intrigued by the ability to inter-
act with such data files. Instructors
can create virtual activities that al-
low students to interact with selected
Chime graphics to deepen under-
standing of molecular structure and
function. Eric Martz, at the Univer-
sity of Massachusetts, Amherst,
maintains a Chime Resource site with
several useful Chime tutorials in bi-
ology (Martz 1999).
Student work. Students can be
assigned a project involving not only
researching a topic in biology but
also converting such information into
a Web page and adding links to other
related sites and graphics. For ex-
ample, a number of students in my
microbiology class worked in groups
of three or four to write Web pages
dealing with TB, creating a class re-
source called "Project TB" (Terry
1996). Their first task was to write
and revise appropriate text, a task
comparable to a term paper assign-
ment. They then had to collaborate
in producing a Web page, searching
for links to related sites, finding or
creating appropriate graphics, and,
finally, reading and evaluating the

Web pages published by their peers.
The quality of writing was better
than that of typical term papers, and
students commented that they
wanted their work to be especially
good "because it was going to be on
the Web." Some reported with pride
that they had showed their Web site
to parents or friends. Web pages
were clearly identified as student
projects so that people searching the
Web would not be misled as to their
authority. Many students evaluated
this project as one of the more chal-
Table 2. Examples of Web-based videos useful in teaching
biology.
Title (file size) Source
The National Library of Medicine's Visible Human NIH 1999a
ProjectTM (752 Kb)
Bacterial Growth: E. coli (728 Kb) Sullivan 1999a
Chemotaxis of Human Neutrophils (556 Kb) Sullivan 1999b
September 1999 739
2016 05:41:45 UTC
lenging and interesting experiences
in their undergraduate studies.

Other applications. A variety of
other useful information that could
be posted on educational Web sites
includes answer keys, posted imme-
diately after exams; grades (pass-
word protected for privacy); hand-
outs and study guides; laboratory
information, including photos of
laboratory instructors and candid
photos of students at work (with
permission); a forms page that al-
lows students to type in a question
and automatically e-mail it to the
instructor; student questions, along
with the instructor's answer, so that
the whole class can benefit; a FAQ
("frequently asked questions") page
with answers to such recurrent ques-
tions as "how can I get involved in
undergraduate research?"; samples
of exemplary student papers or lab
reports to serve as models; a link to
the instructor's personal page, where
students can find more information
about their instructor; current news
items related to course topic; and
summaries of student feedback and
comments. Once templates are set
up for such pages, they are easy to
maintain and update.
In courses in which I have provided
some or all of the features described
above, feedback has been very posi-
tive (Terry 1999c). Many students

express the wish that all instructors
would provide these types of re-
sources, and the majority of students
believe that their performance im-
proves as a result. I am in the process
of collecting statistical data to exam-
ine whether such improvement can
be objectively measured.
What lies ahead?
Web technology and usage contin-
ues to evolve rapidly. If current trends
continue, the following outcomes
seem likely:
* Web technology will get better,
faster, and more fully featured. As
computer hardware and software
continue their rapid evolution, prices
will drop and capacity will increase.
Plug-ins will continue to evolve, such
that Web browsers will be flexible
multimedia platforms with many
more options than exist today. High-
speed data transmission will replace
today's sluggish modems.
* Most college students will own or
have ready access to a computer and
to the Internet. Computer literacy
will become one of the expected out-
comes of a college education, and
graduates lacking such skills will
suffer in the job market; therefore,
university instructors will be ex-
pected to provide relevant computer-
based instruction.

* The quality and quantity of educa-
tionally useful materials on the Web
will continue to improve. For ex-
ample, the American Society for
Microbiology (ASM) is in the pro-
cess of collecting and editing an ex-
tensive Web-based resource collec-
tion for use in microbiology
education, including images, anima-
tions, videos, and laboratory and
classroom activities written by mi-
crobiology educators (ASM 1999).
This collection will be maintained
on ASM's Web site, and users will be
able to add comments and feedback
to many of the activities. Other soci-
eties in the biological sciences are
likely to adopt similar stratagems.
* More and more faculty will use the
Web to supplement and enrich course
content. One major university (Uni-
versity of California-Los Angeles)
has already instituted a policy that
all courses must have a Web site and
provided resources to support this
requirement. Many higher education
institutions provide some support for
faculty using the Web, and this sup-
port should become more extensive.
An increasing number of college
courses will include Web materials
as substantial and useful course
components.
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ciate professor of Molecular and Cell Biol-
ogy at the University of Connecticut, Storrs,
CT 06269. He uses the Web to augment all
of his undergraduate biology and microbi-
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in Information Technology (1998) and se-

lection as 1998 Connecticut Professor of
the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for
the Advancement of Teaching. ? 1999
American Institute of Biological Sciences.
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Matter [pp.685-755][Introduction]LettersConserving Wilderness
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Challenges of Adopting the Use of Technology in Less
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Author(s): Jayson W. Richardson
Source: Comparative Education Review, Vol. 55, No. 1
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8 February 2011
Challenges of Adopting the Use of Technology in Less
Developed Countries: The Case of Cambodia

JAYSON W. RICHARDSON
Drawing on Everett Rogers’s theory of the diffusion of
innovations, this article identifies
the barriers, challenges, and successes in the adoption of
technology training by teacher
trainers in Cambodia. The analysis was based on data collected
from an open-ended
survey, face-to-face interviews, and document analysis.
Findings reveal that the biggest
challenges to adopting the use of new technologies were
hardware incompatibility;
complexity; language barriers; the lack of electricity,
computers, Internet access, and of
practice for trainees; and the inability to understand the
advantages of these technol-
ogies. Suggestions for technology trainers, policy makers, and
project managers are
offered in the conclusion.
From 1975–79, under the Khmer Rouge, the educational system
in Cambodia
was decimated. Sokhom writes that “the Khmer Rouge regime
not only ended
virtually all forms of formal education, it also actively sought
out and killed
the educated population, particularly teachers” (2004, 141).
Nonetheless, 9
months after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, schools from
kindergarten to
higher education reopened with a total enrollment reaching
almost 1 million
(Dy and Ninomiya 2003). With the dearth of educational
professionals, many
efforts have been made to bridge the skill and knowledge gaps

that continue
to plague the country. These efforts have included an array of
crash programs
and a number of in-service programs (Duggan 1996).
The current structure of the Cambodian education system
comprises 12
grades: six elementary, three lower secondary, and three upper
secondary.
The current minimum educational requirement to be a teacher in
Cambodia
is a twelfth-grade education, except in lower secondary schools
where the
requirement is 9 years of schooling. Dy and Ninomiya (2003)
found that
almost a third of the teachers are still untrained. Minimum
requirements at
the higher education level vary greatly. For example, only 6
percent of lec-
turers in the top-six higher education institutions hold a PhD
(Chen et al.
2007). Credentialing teacher trainers also remains inconsistent;
trainers
themselves may not have obtained more than a secondary
education. Thus,
retraining programs for both teachers and teacher trainers have
been com-
2016 05:28:21 UTC
Comparative Education Review 9

ADOPTING TECHNOLOGY IN CAMBODIA
monplace since the early 1990s. In 1996, Duggan found that in
Cambodia,
“teacher in-service training has dominated the international
agenda for ed-
ucation” (1997, 370). Duggan further noted, “failure to
strengthen activity
in this area has the potential to undermine the rapid educational
gains
achieved elsewhere to date” (1997, 2). A decade later, this
priority is still
evident, but the dominant focus has shifted away from basic
teaching ped-
agogy toward increasing teachers’ and teacher trainers’
knowledge and skills
of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
According to the World Economic Forum, of 133 nations,
Cambodia
ranked 117 on the Networked Readiness Index (2010, xvii).
This index mea-
sures a country’s propensity to benefit from the use of ICTs.
The World
Economic Forum (2010) database reported that as of 2008, 29.1
out of 100
Cambodians had mobile phones, whereas only .5 out of 100 had
access to
the Internet. In an article describing the telecommunications
industry in
Cambodia, the Asia Economic Institute (2009) reported that
from 2000 to
2008, Internet use in Cambodia grew 1,200 percent, and cell
phone usage
grew 49 percent. These data indicate that Cambodia is not a

nation of Lud-
dites. As cell phone and Internet growth rates demonstrate, this
is a nation
that may have quick innovation adoption rates, at least with
regard to in-
novation perceived favorably. In a nation such as Cambodia
where techno-
logical modernization is needed, development money can go
much further
if programs and policies focus on factors that increase
innovation adoption
at the end user level.
The current article focuses on the challenges and barriers that
teacher
trainers faced when adopting the use of ICT skills gained
through an ICT
in Education training project. Cambodia is an important case to
study because
it is a devastatingly poor nation that recently implemented a
national ICT
in Education policy through a partnership with the Cambodian
Ministry of
Youth, Education, and Sport (MoEYS) and UNESCO, with the
assistance of
the Japanese Funds-in-Trust (MoEYS 2004). Cambodia is an
important case
study because it is literally starting over and thus can learn
from the lessons
of the past and potentially leapfrog countries with regard to
development
because they can integrate and make use of the most
progressive, cost-ef-
fective technologies. The present study analyzes the experiences
of teacher
trainers who participated in the UNESCO-sponsored

Establishing the Effec-
tive Use of ICTs in Education for All in Cambodia project
(UNESCO 2006a).
This project was the first nationwide attempt to provide training
to all teacher
trainers on the effective use of ICTs in education.
Theoretical Framework
The current study is conceptually grounded in Rogers’s model
of the
diffusion of innovations theory. Rogers defines an innovation as
“an idea,
practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or
other unit of
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10 February 2011
RICHARDSON
TABLE 1
Innovation Characteristics
Characteristic Description
Relative advantage Degree to which an innovation is perceived
as a better idea
Compatibility Degree of consistency with one’s values,
experiences, and needs

Complexity Perceived degree of difficulty with using the
innovation
Observability Degree to which one can see results of using the
innovation
Trialability Degree to which the innovation can be experimented
with or practiced
adoption” (2003, 12). Rogers defined adoption as “a decision to
make full
use of an innovation as the best course of action available”
(2003, 473).
Rogers’s model seeks to explain the processes by which
innovations are
adopted by members of a society. As shown in table 1, Rogers’s
model de-
scribes five characteristics that impact a person’s choice to
adopt an inno-
vation.
Rogers (2003) claimed that if an innovation is perceived to be
advan-
tageous; is compatible with existing norms, beliefs, and past
experiences; has
a relatively low level of complexity; can be experimented with;
and use of
the innovation has observable results, including being able to
see others
using the innovation, then there will be an increased likelihood
of adoption.
In the present study, the successes and barriers experienced by
teacher train-
ers while trying to adopt use of the ICT skills where analyzed
through Rogers’s
five innovation characteristics.
Along with innovation characteristics, Rogers (2003) describes

five types
of adopters. The categories are determined by the degree to
which a person
adopted an innovation. Through the decision process, potential
adopters
may choose to
• Adopt the innovation early;
• Adopt the innovation later;
• Reinvent or modify how they use the innovation. An example
would
be if one was taught how to use Excel to create grade books but
was
now using Excel to manage the school budget;
• Discontinue use of the innovation after previously made use of
the
innovation; or
• Reject use of the innovation.
Review of the Literature
The existing literature is replete with studies detailing lists of
successes
and barriers to adopting ICT innovations. The literature,
however, rarely
analyzes these aspects within a theoretical framework and
seldom gives voice
to the end user. Readers are thus provided with lists of lessons
learned that
are disconnected from existing innovation adoption theories and
that do not
contribute to an understanding of the findings in a situational
context. This

2016 05:28:21 UTC
situational context is important because every nation has its
own unique set
of trials, tribulations, and strengths that may or may not impact
innovation
adoption. What follows is an analysis of the literature organized
thematically
around Rogers’s (2003) model of the diffusion of innovations.
Tiene (2004) and Hawkins (2002) both noted that to increase
adoption
of ICTs in less developed countries, a focus must be placed on
meeting the
needs and addressing the limitations of the end user by
demonstrating the
advantages to adopting a given ICT innovation. Tiene (2004)
found that
efforts to increase the adoption of ICTs in less developed
countries often fail
to improve educational efforts. Tiene noted that “one critical
mistake is to
be overly ambitious and overly optimistic about what
technology can accom-
plish” (2004, 90). It was found that schools in many developing
countries

fail to realize that ICTs are not constrained to simply having the
right hard-
ware. Tiene found that common challenges and barriers to
technology adop-
tion in less developed countries include a lack of ongoing
support and a
failure to include teachers in ICT planning. Many projects thus
fail to cap-
italize on developing advantageous ICT solutions relative to the
needs of the
end user.
Cheng and Townsend (2000) and Cheng (2001) cited four issues
of
compatibility with using ICTs in schools in the Asia-Pacific
region. First, there
is incongruence between educational aims and the uses of ICTs.
Second,
there is a gap among hardware, software, and training. As
Cheng and Tam
have noted, the challenge for nations is to develop a
comprehensive ICT
package that includes “hardware, software, and training as well
as an ICT
platform to support and maintain the effective and efficient use
of ICT in
teaching and learning” (2007, 260). Third, nations are
challenged to bridge
the gap between ICT and curriculum development. Since rapid
ICT ad-
vancements are the norm, curriculum developers in most Asia-
Pacific coun-
tries have difficulty keeping up. Finally, nations in the Asia-
Pacific region are
experiencing challenges bridging technological change and
cultural norms.

Failure to adjust to the paradigm shift has caused strong
resistance from
school practitioners. These four challenges each address unique
aspects of
an innovation’s compatibility with a community’s existing
systems, norms,
and beliefs.
Pelgrum (2001) analyzed a worldwide survey of educational
practitioners
in primary and secondary schools in 26 countries at varying
levels of devel-
opment to understand the obstacles that hinder advancing ICT-
related goals.
Pelgrum compiled a list of 38 obstacles faced by school
principals and tech-
nology experts. Of the top-10 obstacles to successfully
implementing ICT in
Education initiatives, two dealt with complexity. Pelgrum found
that teachers
often had a lack of knowledge and skills about ICTs and thus
had difficulty
integrating them in instruction. Further, Tiene (2004) noted that
a main
challenge of ICT adoption in less developed countries is the
inability for the
2016 05:28:21 UTC
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RICHARDSON
end user to troubleshoot hardware and software. This lack of
troubleshooting
ability increases the complexity of using the innovation.
In discussing ICT in Education initiatives, Law and Plomp
noted that
“staff development is the key element in the implementation
plan for any
education change” (2003, 23). Staff development hints at
Rogers’s (2003)
characteristic of trialability. Staff development gives potential
users a chance
to try the ICT innovation in a guided environment. Kozma et al.
stated that
the World Bank program, called World Links for Development,
provided
schools and ministries of education in less developed countries
with “sus-
tainable solutions for mobilizing the necessary technologies,
skills, and ed-
ucational resources to prepare students and teachers to enter the
Networked
World” (2000, 2). In analyzing this project, Hawkins (2002)
found that one
of the key failures of this and many past ICT in Education
initiatives in less
developed countries is the lack of professional development at
the national
as well as at the grassroots level. Hawkins found that lessons
learned from
the World Links for Development program included the
following: ongoing
technical support is imperative; wireless technology is more
effective than

wired technology; community involvement is needed for both
ongoing fi-
nancial support and to understand the needs of the stakeholders;
and both
formal and informal sustained teacher training is needed. Many
aspects of
these lessons point to the need for end users to practice using
the innovation
in an ongoing and supportive environment.
Pelgrum’s (2001) list of the top-10 obstacles to implementing
ICT in-
novations in less developed countries includes eight issues
centered on the
fact that end users could not practice using the ICT innovation
and achieve
observable results. Pelgrum listed the following as obstacles:
insufficient num-
ber of computers, difficulty scheduling computer time,
insufficient periph-
erals, not enough copies of software, insufficient teacher time,
not enough
simultaneous access to the Internet, not enough supervision
staff, and a lack
of technical assistance. Likewise, Rodrigo (2005) conducted a
cross-sectional
survey of all schools in metro Manila and found that challenges
tended to
focus on the inability of the end users to practice using the
innovation because
of an inadequate number of computers, limited software
availability, and
limited Internet connectivity.
In researching telecenters, places where the public can use
computers

and the Internet, Colle (2000) noted that end users had
difficulty observing
others using the ICT innovation due to broken hardware and the
fact that
many users in less developed countries lack access to ICTs.
Pelgrum’s (2001)
list of the top-10 obstacles to implementing ICT innovations in
less developed
countries indicates that not seeing others use the ICT innovation
may be an
obstacle to continued use. When institutions have a limited
number of ma-
chines, limited copies of software, limited Internet access, and
when teachers
have limited time, users often choose not to utilize those
resources, and,
2016 05:28:21 UTC
thus, potential adopters cannot observe adopters using the
innovation. With-
out this access, potential adopters also fail to see tangible
outputs.
ICT projects and policies in less developed countries have
matured over
the past decade. For example, rather than providing older

computers with
bulky cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors that require large
amounts of elec-
tricity, projects such as the EQUIP2/Zambia funded by USAID
(2008) are
using energy-efficient thin clients with liquid crystal display
(LCD) monitors.
These thin clients have no moving parts and thus are not prone
to mal-
function due to the effects of humidity and dirt. Rather than
physically wire
schools in rural areas to the Internet, some countries such as
Taiwan are
experimenting with WiMAX, where wireless Internet can
blanket a radius of
30 miles (Cheng 2006). Here we see that some development
projects are
shifting toward a focus on implementing more sustainable,
technologically
appropriate solutions. Nonetheless, the literature fails to detail
how these
more appropriate technologies are or are not being adopted by
the end user.
The review of the literature above has identified four major
points. First,
ICT innovations in less developed nations rarely explicitly
focus on the needs
of the end user. This often causes dissonance in planning,
implementation,
and sustainability. Second, ICT in Education projects in less
developed coun-
tries often lack sustained support. Thus, successes experienced
early on tend
to wane as time progresses. Third, the use of ICT in Education
requires a

conceptual and pedagogical shift for the end user. This shift is
difficult to
navigate. Projects in less developed countries thus tend to
ignore the need
to align educational outputs with ICT inputs. Fourth, sustaining
the use of
ICTs in education is a complex and difficult task.
By framing the current study around Rogers’s (2003) model of
the dif-
fusion of innovations theory, the four major points identified in
the literature
review above can be better explored. The five innovation
characteristics (e.g.,
relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability,
and trialability)
offer a systematic approach through which to analyze and
understand the
adoption of a particular ICT innovation in a specific national
context. The
choice of theoretical framework was thus informed by the major
themes
reported in the ICT in Education literature.
The literature provides ample descriptions of lessons learned
when im-
plementing ICT in Education initiatives in less developed
countries. The
existing research, however, fails to capture the experiences of
the end user
as he/she struggles to make sense of the ICT innovation.
Without the voice
of the end user, we fail to understand the unique needs of the
person as
well as the community. The current research fills this gap by
providing an

in-depth case study of ICT in an education project in Cambodia
analyzed
around an innovation adoption framework. Below, I show that
the innovation
framework effectively and efficiently details successes and
barriers to adopting
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14 February 2011
RICHARDSON
use of the ICT innovation as well as provides unique insights
into the in-
novation process in one less developed country.
Project Background
Through the Establishing the Effective Use of ICTs in
Education for All
in Cambodia project, all teacher trainers in Cambodia were
taught basic ICT
skills, including how to use the Internet; how to use hardware
such as com-
puters, printers, scanners, digital cameras, and digital recorders;
as well as
how to install and use software such as Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, and Internet-
based e-mail. The ICT training was conducted using a cascading
model where

28 master trainers were initially given 96 hours of training.
After successfully
undergoing training, the master trainers went into the field to
train all teacher
trainers using the same 96-hour training model. The training
provided by
the master trainers was primarily focused on the functionality of
software
and hardware. The training included lessons on how ICTs could
be used in
the field of education. Training also included how to create
electronic lesson
plans, electronic grade books, and PowerPoint presentations, as
well as how
to find and use Internet resources for classroom use. A complete
description
of the training can be found in Richardson (2009a).
It should be noted that Cambodia has 26 teacher-training
colleges
(TTCs). There are six Regional Teacher Training Centers
(RTTCs) that train
lower-secondary teachers and 18 Provincial Teacher Training
Colleges
(PTTCs) that train primary school teachers. Cambodia also has
one National
Institute of Education that trains upper-secondary-school
teachers and one
National Pre-School Teacher College that trains preschool
teachers.
Method
Data were collected from three sources. First, open-ended
survey ques-
tions were disseminated to every teacher trainer in the country

(N p 526).
Second, by selecting volunteers, face-to-face interviews were
conducted with
17 teacher trainers across the country. Finally, Cambodian
MoEYS as well as
UNESCO project documents were collected and analyzed.
Received were 379 surveys, achieving a response rate of 72
percent.1 No
incentives were provided to return surveys. The surveys were
disseminated
at the close of the project. Since the survey was viewed as a
feedback mech-
anism for the project, a high percentage of teacher trainers
responded. The
open-ended survey asked teacher trainers to describe two
critical incidences:
an incident when they used the ICT skills successfully and an
incident when
1 A representative from the MoEYS asked all master trainers to
have their teacher trainers complete
the survey. The MoEYS reported that the response rate was
higher, but there were no records tracking
the number of teacher trainers who quit, who were on leave, or
who simply were no longer serving as
a teacher trainer since the close of the project.
2016 05:28:21 UTC

TABLE 2
Respondents by Adoption Category
Adoption Category Total
Teacher Trainers
(%)
Early adopters 21 5.57
Late adopters 185 48.80
Reinventors 46 12.14
Discontinuers 58 15.30
Rejecters 50 13.09
Undetermined 19* 5.01
Total 379 100.00
* Not used in analyses.
they were not successful using the ICT skills. The survey also
included de-
mographic, behavioral, and attitudinal questions.
The face-to-face interviews were conducted after initial analysis
of the
paper surveys was completed. The interviews were used to gain
clarity as well
as to follow up on findings of the survey data. The interview
protocol was
conceptually based on Rogers’s (2003) model of the diffusion of
innovations.
Guided questions thus revolved around creating an
understanding of the

five innovation characteristics. For example, in understanding
relative ad-
vantages, interviewees were asked “What advantages did you
find in using
the ICT skills you gained?”
Rogers’s (2003) model of the diffusion of innovations posits
that inno-
vation adoption can involve different types of adopters. As
described above,
the decision categories for the current study were the following:
early adopt-
ers, late adopters, teacher trainers who reinvented the
innovation, teacher
trainers who experienced discontinuance, and teacher trainers
who rejected
the innovation. Determining the decision category was based on
a set of five
behavioral questions included in the survey.2 Table 2 details the
categorization
of all teacher trainers in the study.
Results
Data were analyzed using NVIVO, a qualitative coding software
package
(version 2, QSR International). A content analysis was
conducted using the
constant comparative method as described by Merriam (1998).
This method
allowed the researcher to look for evidence that either
disconfirmed or con-
firmed emerging evidence of the innovation characteristics.
The survey was translated into Khmer by a UNESCO staff
member who

served as the Khmer translator for this ICT in Education project
and on
various other intergovernment organizations, nongovernment
organizations,
2 Behavior questions included (1) I use all of the skills gained
from the ICT training; (2) I use
some of the skills I gained from the ICT training; (3) I never
used any of the skills I gained from the
ICT training; (4) I began to use the skills I gained from the ICT
training, but now I do not; and (5)
I use the skills I gained from the ICT training differently than I
did in the training.
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16 February 2011
RICHARDSON
TABLE 3
Teacher Trainers by Decision Category Noting the Innovation
Characteristic (%)
Innovation Characteristic
Early
(n p 21)
Late
(n p 185)

Reinvent
(n p 46)
Discontinue
(n p 58)
Reject
(n p 50)
Relative advantage 100.0 49.2 50.0 32.8 34.0
Compatibility 76.2 48.1 56.5 29.3 48.0
Complexity 76.2 72.4 91.3 70.7 68.0
Observability 42.9 44.9 50.0 31.0 32.0
Trialability 19.0 20.0 13.0 25.8 34.0
and national projects. To address reliability of the data, this
Khmer staff
member served as an interrater during the coding process. This
person
translated the surveys and confirmed or disconfirmed coding
themes ac-
cording to the theoretical framework. All translations were
confirmed by a
hired translator. The original translator translated the
qualitative Khmer re-
sponses into English.
As detailed in table 3, the analysis revealed that teacher trainers
across
all decision categories discussed similar points, albeit to
different degrees.
Complexity was consistently discussed often by teacher trainers
in each de-
cision category. Early adopters, however, discussed relative
advantages most
often. The following section aims to elucidate how the

innovation charac-
teristics were discussed.
Successes Experienced
Respondents were asked to describe a critical incident when
using the
ICT skills was successful. These data were analyzed through
Rogers’s (2003)
five innovation characteristics by adoption category. The
following presents
the end users’ voice about successes experienced using the ICT
skills.
Relative Advantage Coupled with Compatibility
Relative advantage and compatibility were innovation
characteristics often
discussed as having synergistic qualities. Adopters noted how
using the ICT
skills fit well into their work styles and how use of the ICT
skills to accomplish
tasks was an improvement over previous methods. An early
adopter noted
one “success from the ICT training is that teacher trainers get
updated in-
formation and teaching and learning is modern and better than
before”
(Master, 8).
The connection between relative advantage and compatibility
was noted
by an early adopter who said “after learning the ICT skills, I
can work easily
and become a person who can earn money from using this skill”
(Master,

3). Likewise, while discussing successful experiences, an early
adopter noted
that “the result [of using ICT] is good because teacher trainers
can use the
skills to improve their livelihood” (Master, 16). A late adopter
noted how
using the ICT skills “is good for me as I am able to develop
interesting lesson
plans for my students and I can save a lot of time” (Battambang
PTTC, 1).
2016 05:28:21 UTC
Some teacher trainers found professional advantages to using
the ICT
skills. One late adopter noted he was able to “send information
via e-mail to
peers and receive feedback via e-mail from an expert in Japan”
(Phnom Penh
RTTC, 4). A late adopter looked at the big picture of ICT
adoption when
he stated “I understand that ICT skills are an important need of
developing
countries” (Kandal PTTC, 9). An adopter who reinvented how
he used the
ICT skills noted “the most successful experience I had was
using the ICT

skills in preparing a final project for obtaining my Bachelors
degree. The
paper required me to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint” (Prey
Veng PTTC,
4).
Ironically, teacher trainers who rejected the adoption of the ICT
skills
mentioned the same types of successes concerning the
innovation charac-
teristics of relative advantage and compatibility. One rejecter
noted “I can
work faster, make presentations at ease, and collect more
documents” (Si-
hanoukville PTTC, 1).
Increasing one’s professional stature with students was noted by
a late
adopter who said that “activities are presented nicely to students
and they
are impressed with the presentation” (Kampong Speu PTTC,
11). This theme
of increased stature was reported in various ways. Some teacher
trainers
reported becoming ICT experts in their field by creating Web
sites, helping
peers, and talking with experts abroad. Some teacher trainers
became role
models for students by infusing their lessons with ICTs. Some
teacher trainers
increased their social stature and status by earning more money
and gaining
increased educational credentials.
Advantages reported included being able to produce time-saving
reports,

work faster, develop learning materials, conduct research,
communicate with
others via e-mail, increase the quality of their work, earn more
money, and
earn advanced educational degrees. The theme of compatibility
was reflected
when teacher trainers reported they were able to create lesson
plans and
prepare technologically rich learning content. Further, the
theme of com-
patibility was evident when teacher trainers discussed how
using the tech-
nology skills allowed them to take a more student-centered,
constructivist
approach to their teaching. This contrasts to the traditional,
teacher-directed,
rote memory focus found in many Cambodian schools.
Complexity
The innovation characteristic of complexity was discussed by a
late
adopter who noted that using ICT skills “create favorable
conditions to my
work. I work faster and can save my documents properly and
can easily find
my files when I need them” (Battambang PTTC, 10). A reinvent
adopter
said that teacher trainers “find it is easy to prepare teaching
lessons and to
use PowerPoint for presenting to the class” (Kandal PTTC, 11).
Some teacher
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18 February 2011
RICHARDSON
trainers, such as a late adopter, stated there is “no difficulty in
using the ICT
skills in my daily work” (Phnom Penh RTTC, 16).
A teacher trainer who discontinued use of the ICT skills noted
that
although he no longer used the ICT skills, he was nonetheless
“able to use
the application software” (Kampong Chhnang PTTC, 6).
Gaining the ability
to navigate software was also addressed by a late adopting
teacher trainer,
who noted, “One of the most successful experiences is my
ability to use Word
and Excel. I know how to save documents on a diskette. I know
how to use
PowerPoint for my presentations to my students in my subject
area. I know
how to create pictures, create hyperlinks, produce charts and
graphs, as well
as use formulas to rank students’ scores” (Kampong Cham
PTTC, 6).
A few teacher trainers mentioned it was easy to actually use the
ICT skills
and to successfully navigate applicable software programs.
Some teacher train-
ers mentioned how they were able to use Word, Excel,

PowerPoint, Photo-
shop, the Internet, and e-mail. Reported successes included
saving and re-
trieving documents, managing data, and typing.
Observability
When asked to describe successes of using the ICT skills,
teacher trainers
often mentioned observing outputs. A late adopter noted he
experienced
“ease in preparing lesson plans, producing teaching resources,
producing
question and answer kits, and creating grade books” (Kampong
Speu PTTC,
11). All the successes mentioned by one late adopter involved
seeing results
from using the ICT skills. This teacher trainer said he
experienced success
in the following areas: “preparation of lesson plans,
downloading content
from the internet for teaching my students, preparation of an
educational
video for presentation to parents’ of teacher trainees, exchange
of infor-
mation among staff and the management team, preparation of a
timetable,
computation of students’ scores, and the preparation of
overtime/payroll for
teachers” (Siem Reap PTTC, 3). Along with observing results,
increasing
pedagogical choice and skills were also noted by a teacher
trainer who rein-
vented how the ICT skills were used: “I am able to prepare
materials on
agricultural extension for teaching and learning; prepare a

manual for
monthly schemes of work related to the subject area of
agriculture; prepare
lesson plans for compilation of a book on agricultural
extension; and prepare
lesson plans and a booklet on plant growing and fish rearing
with the support
of many pictures of people in action” (Svay Rieng PTTC, 17).
Seeing results from using the ICT skills was often discussed in
tandem
with the skills being easy to use, being compatible with work
styles, and being
advantageous over previous methods. One late adopter said it is
“easy pre-
paring lesson plans, producing teaching resources, producing
quizzes, and
managing data” (Kampong Speu PTTC, 11). A late adopter
noted success
with “the preparation of lesson plans, the preparation of lessons
through
2016 05:28:21 UTC
PowerPoint, and the use of learning games” (Kandal PTTC, 4).
A teacher
trainer who rejected using the ICT skill said he was “able to do

research,
type texts, and produce tables of students’ scores and
attendance sheets”
(Steung Treng PTTC, 2). Nonetheless, this teacher trainer
reported he never
used the ICT skills outside of the mandatory training sessions.
Teacher trainers across adoption categories mentioned
observing results
from using the ICT skills. These results included producing
lesson plans,
tables, student reports, and teaching materials. Teacher trainers
were able
to create documents and pictures. Some teacher trainers
reported that their
students were more engaged through their use of ICTs. Some
teacher trainers
discussed that using the ICT skills helped them earn more
money or obtain
a college degree.
Trialability
Being able to practice using the ICT skills was mentioned most
often by
those trainers who discontinued use of the ICT skills and those
who rejected
adopting the ICT skills. Teacher trainers who rejected or
discontinued use
of the ICT skills reported that there was a lack of opportunity to
practice.
As one rejecter noted, “the ICT training is lacking in quality
because the
training was too short. Teacher trainers do not have computers
to use. There
is no chance to practice the ICT skills after receiving the

training” (Battam-
bang RTTC, 13). Across all adoption categories, the innovation
characteristic
of trialabilty was often referred to as a missing element.
It was mentioned that practice using the ICT skills required
extra effort.
A teacher trainer who reinvented how she used the ICT skills
noted that
“after the course, I have improved my knowledge and skills. I
keep improving
my skills through tireless efforts in what I do not understand”
(Kratie PTTC,
5). Additionally, a late adopter noted “I tirelessly improve my
skills through
my regular practice, meaning that I make use of my leisure
time” (Battam-
bang PTTC, 8).
Limited time and scarce resources to practice and experiment
with the
ICT skills was discussed by teacher trainers in all decision
categories. Teacher
trainers often noted that continued practice required effort and
often placed
a financial burden on the end user. A common warning was that
without
adequate practice, teacher trainers will inevitably forget how to
use the skills.
Barriers to Adoption
Respondents were asked to describe a critical incident when
using the
ICT skills that was not successful. Below, I analyze end users’
responses about

barriers to adoption through Rogers’s (2003) five innovation
characteristics
by adoption category.
2016 05:28:21 UTC
20 February 2011
RICHARDSON
Barriers Associated with Relative Advantage
Teacher trainers noted difficulty in finding advantages of using
the ICT
skills. Three early adopting teacher trainers mentioned that
using the ICT
skills presented few advantages, relative to previous methods.
Concerns raised
included losing data, confusion over technical issues, and the
necessity to
devote extra time and effort when using the ICT skills.
Comments from late
adopters, reinventors, and rejecters revolved around issues of
repair, lack of
time, and no incentive to use the skills to perform their job. A
teacher trainer
who rejected adoption of the ICT skills said, “I am not able to
identify content
relevant and suitable to my teaching” (Kampong Cham RTTC,
4).

The lack of English and technical language skills often made
use of the
ICT skills less advantageous. A late adopter commented on his
frustration
saying “my poor English causes me frustration. On some
occasions I click by
mistake on the key ‘yes’ or ‘no’ thus causing the complete loss
of my working
file especially when I work on Excel” (Prey Veng RTTC, 6).
Through inter-
views, it became evident that language also hindered teacher
trainers from
using software help menus that were not in Khmer. This issue
was also ex-
tended to online resources that were not published in Khmer.
Language
limitations negatively impacted the end users’ ability to find
advantages to
using the ICT skills.
The ICT training involved components on the use of the Internet
and
e-mail. A late adopter however stated “I don’t use the internet
and I did not
create an e-mail address. I am in a difficult position to use the
internet. I
need to spend my own money if I use the internet because
Battambang TTC
does not have connectivity” (Battambang PTTC, 5). Although
this teacher
trainer admitted finding advantages to using this type of
technology, the lack
of Internet access meant that using the skills became a financial
burden.
This reality made adoption not advantageous to some teacher
trainers.

Barriers to Compatibility
The omnipresent need to repair computers was compounded
given the
reality that the computers were secondhand, donated units. A
late adopter
noted “most of the computers donated to the TTC are old and
are frequently
broken. I have no skills to repair them and no capacity [to]
troubleshoot”
(Steung Treng PTTC, 7). Thus, repairing broken computers was
not com-
patible with some teacher trainers’ existing skill set.
The language of technology, referring to both English and
technical
language, was often not compatible with end users’ past
experiences, ability
levels, or existing resources. A late adopter noted “the critical
problem is the
language. I don’t know the technology because technical terms
do not exist
in a number of dictionaries” (Kratie PTTC, 3). Another late
adopter said it
was difficult to “understand and follow instructions from
dialogue boxes”
(Prey Veng PTTC, 5).
2016 05:28:21 UTC

Barriers Associated with Complexity
At least one-fourth of the teacher trainers in each decision
category
reported difficulty in using the ICT skills. A comment by an
early adopter
hints at his frustration as well as his technological confusion: “I
have written
my lesson plan and saved it to my computer which is Windows
98. My lesson
is in drive D. My computer does not have drive B. So I change
Windows 98
to Windows XP and format drive C. When I set up Windows XP
my documents
I have made in drive B are deleted. I lost all my lesson plans
that I tried my
best to write using the computer for two months” (Master, 13).
As was com-
mon with many teacher trainers across adoption categories, an
early adopter
noted it was difficult to use the software. “For me, I cannot use
Excel very
fast. When I have a problem, I cannot find a solution” (Master,
25).
The lack of ability, time, and resources to troubleshoot and
repair com-
puters was discussed by teacher trainers across all decision
categories as add-
ing complexity to the task. Early adopters tended to discuss this
challenge
most often. An early adopter noted how the “computer does not

always work
properly and there is a lack of money to get them repaired and
there is no
expert to repair them” (Master, 2). A late adopter noted the
same frustration
saying that he could not “repair the computers when they were
not working
properly. . . . I would have to resort to technicians, thus
requiring me to
spend a lot of money” (Battambang RTTC, 7). Although
nonfunctioning
hardware was often cited as a creating a challenge,
troubleshooting software
was also reported to be difficult.
Some teacher trainers mentioned that using the ICT skills was
not easy
due to language issues. For instance, one late adopter admitted
it was “hard
to understand technical terms. . . . I am not proficient in using
foreign
languages” (Kampong Speu PTTC, 10). A late adopter noted
this challenge
when he said “because of the fact that a good number of teacher
trainees
are weak in English, they cannot do well with using the
technologies” (Kandal
RTTC, 16).
Complexity was mentioned by teacher trainers who could not
trouble-
shoot hardware and software problems. Technical complexities
centered on
the inability to use Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Photoshop, the
Internet, and
e-mail. Difficulties commonly stemmed from language

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