The National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP) provides a professional development opportunity for practising teachers who work for a period of six weeks as administrators for NEMP. During their training week they learn to use video cameras and computers in order to implement their administration work with children.
This study uses the NEMP experience as a context within which to establish and explore the information and communication technology (ICT) backgrounds of a cohort of 85 teacher administrators. Data were collected through questionnaires of all administrators. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with ten teachers who identified in the questionnaire that they have low confidence and little experience using ICTs.
The study discusses the possible reasons for the wide range of attitudes and the discrepancies between teachers' inclinations to use or not use ICTs for educational purposes. The teachers interviewed gained considerably in confidence and confirm they experience substantial increases in their skill levels due to the NEMP experience. Some still see a number of barriers that stand between their learning through NEMP and actually employing ICTs more extensively in their classrooms. Others are able to discuss how they might use and manage ICT use in their classrooms after their NEMP training.