What is your definition of cognitive eLearning readiness?

James Kiarie:Cognitive eLearning Readiness refers to the cognitive mental state of a teacher or a learner based on a cost-benefit analysis of the perceived benefits and effort required in the adoption process and acceptance of use of eLearning. Based on Davis's Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), constructs of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, these factors influence and act as second order (teacher-level) barriers and can override the first order (school-level) barriers.

What role does it play in the adoption of computer use in schools?

James Kiarie:It is the teacher and not the technology that is a critical factor in gauging the readiness of a school system to adopt an innovation like eLearning. Hodas observed that the last technologies to have had a lasting impact on the organization and practice of schooling were the textbook and the blackboard.

In developing counties, this is largely true, and the introduction of computer implementation and use in schools as a first step to eLearning faces many challenges. The mere availability of computers, related support hardware, software, and peripherals will not guarantee the usage of eLearning resources; the teacher must first feel comfortable and accept the technology.

The slow acceptance all over the world of the basic tool of a computer can partly be explained from an ecosystems perspective of a perceived -œinvasion- of the classroom by a foreign species. The new species threatens the classroom ecosystem and specifically the teacher, leading to its rejection. The changing role of a teacher in a technology-rich environment denies the teacher that authoritarian, fountain-of-knowledge, traditional role and introduces a new role as a co-learner with the students. In cognitive terms, the usefulness and ease of use of eLearning are then questioned.

A research study done among secondary school teachers in schools with no computers, those with one to ten computers, and those with computer labs in a district in Kenya generated a research model. The model suggests that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use had the most significant direct influence on respondents' intention to use a computer, indicating that as intrinsic motivators, these two cognitive factors enhance respondents' pleasure and acceptance of the system and hence their eLearning readiness.

The school's facilitating conditions had no direct effect on IT usage. Rather, the effect was fully mediated by ease of use and perceived usefulness, implying that the cognitive eLearning readiness and not the technology had a significant role of in the initial adoption of computers.

What experiences with adoption processes have you had so far?

James Kiarie:The adoption of computer use and specifically its integration in day-to-day classroom use remains a major hurdle in developing countries. Computers have been introduced into the school system as special machines, with special rooms and special -œcomputer- teachers and many times for use in a special examinable subject-computer study.

There is frequently pressure from parents and the society to have computers in schools, but after getting them, the teachers are puzzled about how to integrate them in daily classroom instruction, while the parents on the hand, are so happy that their school now has computers like others big schools. Until we remove the special tag on computers, it remains a foreigner in the classroom. It is no wonder that the full potential of a computer has not been exploited, leading to it being viewed as an advanced typewriter.

What advice would you give to other project managers?

James Kiarie: Project managers faced with the task of introducing eLearning in schools could leverage on teachers cognitive cost-benefit analysis by focusing their implementation projects on the two cognitive response factors. Specifically, the introduction should focus on what teachers consider to be the usefulness of the deployment of a computer in teaching.

Schools are often results oriented, and this factor can be capitalized on by collaboration with the curriculum developers to include eLearning-based resources in the syllabus, as this will enhance the perception of usefulness in the mind of a teacher. The initial in-service training component should focus on elements of perceived ease of use of a computer.

This ease of use is a function of teachers' subjective norms (what the significant others say), and there are gender and age differences in perceptions of the subjective norm that has to be taken into account. It is therefore necessary - but not sufficient - to have the eLearning infrastructure in schools. The human component is equally - or more - important and has to be addressed, as it can lead to the rejection of the innovation.