place between 2011 and 2013. A comprehensive programme of professional
learning and development in 2013 supplemented existing teacher e-Learning
competencies. In this way, the college laid the framework for the implementation of
1:1 BYOD, beginning with the 400 new Year Nine entrants of 2014.
Teaching in a BYOD environment for thefirst time can be demanding, and in
our case, the implementation of BYOD was an opportunity to put some of the
questions contained in the Teaching as Inquiry (TAI)^2 model to the test. Each day
required a demanding evaluation of what worked, what did not work and a pro-
posed resolution to take alternative action, if required.
Beyond my personal struggles in the classroom, as the Deputy Principal with
overall responsibility for ICT, e-Learning and BYOD, I experienced a growing
volume of unsolicited feedback from teachers, including their narratives and
accounts about what was and was not working.
The senior leadership team of Rosehill College had long recognised that a
comprehensive review process was a vital element to the long-term success of the
implementation of a BYOD policy. Initially, however, time and attention had been
devoted to developing physical infrastructure and teacher capability; planning for
how to review and refine e-Learning/BYOD had not been really considered. Nor
was there a planned process for integrating and understanding the data that was
being informally generated.
By the second year of BYOD, in 2015, the school’s computing infrastructure
was able to provide a stable platform for the teaching and learning experience;
teachers confidence of successfully working in a blended e-Learning environment
was growing, and some parental requests for feedback on the progress of the BYOD
implementation, and its effects on student learning, were being heard.
Leon Benade had included Rosehill College as part of his own on-going research
into‘twenty-first century learning’in 2014, thus his request in 2015 to continue his
research, with a focus on the school’s BYOD implementation as a manifestation of
twenty-first-century learning, was fortuitous indeed. Before considering the request,
both parties had to determine that they had compatible goals (Gardner 2011 ; Schuck
2012 ), and to clarify the assumptions, parameters and intent of the research.
Once the research plan and the school’s requirements were aligned, the work
began. Early collaboration with Leon provided the school the confidence in his
capacity and willingness to adapt his research tofit the needs of the school. Schools
operate within tight operational budgets, and teachers have minimal free time,^3 thus
imposing a researcher on teachers can be a risky undertaking. Leon’s research style,
however, accommodatedflexibility and sensible changes to the research plan as we
progressed together in Term Two of 2015.
(^2) A model for practitioner reflection, advocated by The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of
Education 2007 ).
(^3) This echoes the institutional andfinancial pressures mentioned by Gardner ( 2011 ), Schuck
( 2012 ), Tsui and Law ( 2007 ), and Walsh and Backe ( 2013 ).
20 Research in the Workplace: The Possibilities for Practitioner... 303