Abstract:
The importance of digital technologies (DTs) to enhance teaching and learning is recognised by educators worldwide. However, the efforts of teachers to apply TPACK in their lessons effectively are influenced by many school-related factors which could either facilitate or hinder their attempts to plan and deliver lessons with DTs. While many TPACK studies focus on the seven TPACK constructs, there is a dearth of research exploring how contextual factors may influence teachers’ technological pedagogical practices. This phenomenological study explored the role of school context in facilitating the use of DTs by four teachers in their primary ESL classes in a Maldivian urban school. Data was collected for a duration of four months from various sources, including lesson observations, lesson plans, semi-structured interviews, mini-surveys, school documents, and field notes. Findings show that technology integration in the urban school was, to a great extent, enabled by the school’s contextual factors such as technology leadership, ICT infrastructure, technical support, and professional learning and development (PLD) for teachers. Thus, this study may be of great importance to school technology leadership, administrators, and in-service teachers as it offers insights into how school context may enhance or hinder the use of DTs for teaching and learning.