Gaps between value and use of educational technology

In the past decades, many studies on educational technology have focused on teachers' role in e-learning or the training of preservice teachers. There is a gap in the literature specific to the exploration of the professional developments of inservice teachers about how they learn and teach with technology. This paper aims to report the integration of ICT among twenty six in-service junior high school English teachers from Guangdong province, China. A questionnaire was employed. Results show that teachers hold neutral attitudes toward the support from the school. That is, there is not enough encouragement and support from the school authority on ICT integration. They also hold neutral attitudes toward the software provided and students' ICT proficiency. On the contrary, teachers are very positive regarding integrating ICT into English courses. They expressed that ICT could promote students' motivation and learning outcomes. Moreover, the teachers are willing to use the Internet to collect test items and take ICT courses themselves to learn more new technology in order to improve their teaching skills and contents. However, when it comes to teach students to use ICT for distance learning and online competition, teachers show less than positive attitudes. The results show that, although teachers are positive about the integration of ICT, there are gaps between the intention and the reality of ICT use. In other words, even though teachers value ICT, other factors prevent them from using it in their teaching contexts.